Beleriand#Dor Daedeloth

File:Downfall of Númenor.svg.{{harvnb|Shippey|2005|pp=324–328}} The outlines of the continents are purely schematic.]]

{{further|Quenta Silmarillion}}

Events in Beleriand are described chiefly in the second half of the Quenta Silmarillion,{{harvnb|Tolkien|1977|loc=chs. 13–24}} which tells the story of the early ages of Middle-earth in a style similar to the epic hero tales of Norse mythology.{{cite news |last=Gardner |first=John |title=Book Review: The Silmarillion, The World of Tolkien |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1977/10/23/archives/the-world-of-tolkien-tolkien.html |date=23 October 1977}} Beleriand also appears in the works The Book of Lost Tales,{{cite news |last=Tritel |first=Barbara |title=Book Review: The Book of Lost Tales, Language and Prehistory of the Elves |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1984/05/27/books/language-and-prehistory-of-the-elves.html |date=24 May 1984}} The Children of Húrin,{{cite news |last=Crace |first=John |author-link=John Crace (writer) |work=The Guardian |title=Book Review: The Children of Húrin by JRR Tolkien |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2007/apr/28/jrrtolkien.fiction |date=4 April 2007}} and in the epic poems of The Lays of Beleriand.{{harvnb|Tolkien|1985|loc=Preface}}

The land is occupied by Teleri Elves of King Thingol from the east, who founded the city of {{Visible anchor|Menegroth}} in the forest realm of Doriath. Other Elves, the Vanyar and Noldor, cross the Belegaer sea to Valinor. Some of the Noldor return to Beleriand to retrieve the Silmarils from the evil Vala Morgoth, but they are resented by the Teleri. Later, Men arrive from the east.{{sfn|Shippey|2005|p=268}} Morgoth gathers an army of Orcs, Balrogs and other monsters in his fortress of {{visible anchor|Angband}} beneath the {{Visible anchor|Thangorodrim}} mountains in the north of Beleriand, and attacks the Elves repeatedly. Despite the threat, Thingol refuses to fight alongside the Noldor. One by one, the realm of Doriath as well as the Noldor kingdoms Nargothrond and Gondolin fall to assaults, assisted by betrayals and disputes among Elves, Men, and Dwarves.{{sfn|Shippey|2005|pp=287–296}} Finally, Earendil crosses the Belegaer Sea to ask the Valar to stop Morgoth. They send an army to overcome Morgoth in the War of Wrath. This ends the First Age of Middle-earth: Angband is destroyed, and Morgoth is banished to the void. Beleriand's inhabitants flee, and much of Beleriand sinks into the sea.{{harvnb|Tolkien|1977|loc=ch. 24 Of the Voyage of Earendil and the War of Wrath}} Only a small section of the eastern edge of Beleriand survives, including part of the Ered Luin (Blue Mountain) range and the land of Lindon, which became part of the far northwestern shore of Middle-earth.

{{further|Geography of Middle-earth}}

File:Sketch Map of Beleriand.svg on the right of the map are on extreme left of the map of Middle-earth, marking the part of Beleriand not destroyed at the end of the First Age.]]

Beleriand is a region in the far northwest of Middle-earth, bordering the great sea, Belegaer. It is bounded to the north by the Ered Engrin, the Iron Mountains, and to the east by the Ered Luin, the Blue Mountains.

File:Idylls of the King 18 (detail).jpg place-name Brocéliande, an enchanted forest, for an early version of Beleriand. Detail of 1868 illustration by Gustave Doré ]]

{{further|England in Middle-earth}}

Beleriand had many different names in Tolkien's early writings, including Broceliand, the name of an enchanted forest in medieval romance,{{cite journal |last=Fimi |first=Dimitra |author-link=Dimitra Fimi |title=Tolkien's 'Celtic type of legends': Merging Traditions |journal=Tolkien Studies |volume=4 |year=2007 |pages=53–72 |doi=10.1353/tks.2007.0015|s2cid=170176739 }} Golodhinand, Noldórinan ("valley of the Noldor"), Geleriand, Bladorinand, Belaurien, Arsiriand, Lassiriand, and Ossiriand (later used for the easternmost part of Beleriand).{{Harvnb|Tolkien|1986|loc="Commentary on Canto I"}}

One of Beleriand's early names was Ingolondë, a play on "England", part of Tolkien's long-held but ultimately unsuccessful aim to create what Shippey calls "a mighty patron for his country, a foundation-myth more far-reaching than Hengest and Horsa, one to which he could graft his own stories."{{sfn|Shippey|2005|pp=349–351}} Tolkien's aim had been to root his mythology for England in the scraps of names and myths that had survived, and to situate it in a land in the northwest of the continent, by the sea.{{sfn|Shippey|2005|pp=349–351}}

File:D. di Francesco - De verdrijving uit het paradijs (fragment) - NK1848 - Cultural Heritage Agency of the Netherlands Art Collection.jpg.{{sfn|Shippey|2005|p=268}} Painting by D. di Michelino, c. 1460 ]]

Shippey writes that the Quenta Silmarillion has a tightly-woven plot, each part leading ultimately to tragedy. There are three Hidden Elvish Kingdoms in Beleriand, founded by relatives, and they are each betrayed and destroyed. The Kingdoms are each penetrated by a mortal Man, again all related to each other; and the sense of doom, which Shippey glosses as "future disaster", hangs heavy over all of the characters in the tale.{{sfn|Shippey|2005|pp=287–296}}

Shippey writes that the human race seen in Beleriand in the First Age did not "originate 'on stage' in Beleriand, but drifts into it, already sundered in speech, from the East [the main part of Middle-earth]. There something terrible has happened to them of which they will not speak: 'A darkness lies behind us... and we have turned our backs upon it'".{{sfn|Shippey|2005|p=268}} He comments that the reader is free to assume that the Satanic Morgoth has carried out the Biblical serpent's temptation of Adam and Eve, and that "the incoming Edain and Easterlings are all descendants of Adam flying from Eden and subject to the curse of Babel."{{sfn|Shippey|2005|p=268}}

{{anchor|Lost poetry}}

{{see also|Tolkien's poetry|The Lays of Beleriand}}

The Tolkien scholar Gergely Nagy, writing in 2004, notes that The Silmarillion does not contain explicitly embedded samples of Beleriand's poetry in its prose, as Tolkien had done with his many poems in The Lord of the Rings. Instead, the prose of The Silmarillion hints repeatedly at the structure and syntax of its "lost" poetry. Nagy notes David Bratman's description of the book as containing prose styles that he classifies as "the Annalistic, [the] Antique, and the Appendical". The implication of the range of styles is that The Silmarillion is meant to represent, in Christopher Tolkien's words, "a compilation, a compendious narrative, made long afterwards from sources of great diversity (poems, and annals, and oral tales)".{{harvnb|Tolkien|1977|loc=Foreword}} Nagy infers from verse-like fragments of text in The Silmarillion that the poetry of Beleriand used alliteration, rhyme, and rhythm including possibly iambics.{{cite journal |last=Nagy |first=Gergely |author-link=Gergely Nagy (scholar) |title=The Adapted Text: The Lost Poetry of Beleriand |journal=Tolkien Studies |volume=1 |issue=1 |year=2004 |doi=10.1353/tks.2004.0012 |pages=21–41 |s2cid=170087216 |doi-access=free }}

This applies to the Ainulindalë, Tolkien's account of the godlike Ainur:

It applies, too, to the narrative of Elves and Men in the Beleriand landscape, in the Quenta Silmarillion:

In a few places, it is possible to relate the adapted verse in the prose to actual verse in Tolkien's legendarium. This can be done, for instance, in parts of the story of Túrin. Here, he realizes he has just killed his friend Beleg:

{{reflist|group=T|28em}}

{{reflist|28em}}

• {{cite book |last=Garth |first=John |author-link=John Garth (author) |title=The Worlds of J. R. R. Tolkien: The Places that Inspired Middle-earth |title-link=The Worlds of J. R. R. Tolkien |publisher=Frances Lincoln |location=London |year=2020 |isbn=978-0-7112-4127-5 |oclc=1181910875}}
• {{ME-ref|ROAD}}
• {{ME-ref|FOTR}}
• {{ME-ref|Silmarillion}}

• {{ME-ref|Lays}}
• {{ME-ref|Shaping}}
• {{ME-ref|WotJ}}

• [https://web.archive.org/web/20060512052308/http://www.ebookbroadcast.com/ebooks/parma_endorion.pdf Parma Endorion: Essays on Middle-earth] (3rd edition) by Michael Martinez

{{Middle-earth}}

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Category:Fictional elements introduced in 1977

Category:Middle-earth regions

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