Anduin
Encyclopedia
In J. R. R. Tolkien
's fictional Middle-earth
, Anduin is the Sindarin
name for the Great River of Wilderland, the longest river
in the Third Age
(the original Sindarin name means Long River). The ancestors of the Rohirrim called it Langflood. It flowed from its source in the Grey and Misty Mountains
to the Mouths of Anduin (Ethir Anduin) in the Great Sea (Belegaer)
. In her Atlas of Middle-earth
, Karen Wynn Fonstad
estimates a total length of 1,388 miles (2,233 km).
when they lived in the triangle of land formed by it. Their old capital Framsburg was built at the confluence of these streams where the Anduin proper began. The Langwell had its source in the Misty Mountains, close to Mount Gundabad and the Greylin began in the westernmost heights of the Grey Mountains.
, lying between the mountains and Mirkwood
. After passing Lórien, the river and mountains parted company, and the river flowed through the Brown Lands (which may have been home to the Entwives) via the North and South Undeeps until it flowed through the Emyn Muil and Argonath and entered a lake (Nen Hithoel) through Sarn Gebir (a series of ferocious rapids). Thence it flowed over the Falls of Rauros, and past the Mouths of the Entwash and the marshes known as the Wetwang (Nindalf). It then passed between the White Mountains
and the Mountains of Shadow through the ancient capital of Gondor
, Osgiliath, before swinging past the harbour of Harlond close to the Rammas Echor south of Minas Tirith
(Barbara Strachey, in Journeys of Frodo
, places the harbour just outside the wall), and the Emyn Arnen and down past the port of Pelargir, entering the Great Sea in the Bay of Belfalas
in a broad delta
known as the Mouths of Anduin.
, the Silverlode (Celebrant), the River Limlight, the Entwash (Onodló), the Morgulduin, the Erui, the Sirith and the Poros. The first five had their sources in the Misty Mountains, the Morgulduin and (presumably) the Poros in the Ephel Dúath on the border of Mordor
, and the rest in the White Mountains.
. In the time of the War of the Last Alliance, a bridge had been there.
There were many bridges in the city of Osgiliath, broken by the forces of Mordor.
the great heights of the Misty Mountains, and lived in the Vale of Anduin. Some
of those people later left and became the Green-elves
of Ossiriand, but Elves
remained present even until the time of the War of the Ring
, strengthened by refugees
from Beleriand
(at the end of the First Age
) and Eregion
(during the Second
).
Settlements in the Vale of Anduin during the Third Age included the northman
city of Framsburg, Beorn's Halls, and the Stoor settlements near the Gladden Fields (where Sméagol/Gollum
was born). It was in the Gladden Fields
in the northern reaches of Anduin that Isildur
was slain and the One Ring
lost; and it was there, more than two millennia later, that Déagol
found the Ring and Sméagol took it from him. The Vale of Anduin was also to home at various times to many woodmen and other folk. At the time of the War of the Ring, the descendents of Beorn
, with these some of these men, known as the Beornings, maintained a realm between the Misty Mountains
and Mirkwood
, including control of the passage of the old ford. Rhosgobel, home of Radagast
the Brown, and the Elven Realm of Lothlórien also lay in the Vale of Anduin.
Once it had entered Gondor the river flowed past Osgiliath and Minas Tirith and then Pelargir, close to the sea. After the fall of Osgiliath the river effectively marks the eastern limit of Gondor's influence.
and Tol Brandir in Nen Hithoel. Carrock, in the north was where the Eagles
deposited Thorin
and Company. There was also an eyot, where the Fellowship rested during their travel between Lórien and Parth Galen.
that a 2-kilometre stretch of the Upper Waiau River
in Fiordland National Park be named "Anduin Reach
" to honour the work of director Peter Jackson
's The Lord of the Rings film trilogy
, which was filmed in the country. A debate was sparked as to whether landmarks should be named in honour of motion picture productions, and several newspapers ran stories when the submission was denied by the Board.
J. R. R. Tolkien
John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, CBE was an English writer, poet, philologist, and university professor, best known as the author of the classic high fantasy works The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and The Silmarillion.Tolkien was Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon at Pembroke College,...
's fictional Middle-earth
Middle-earth
Middle-earth is the fictional setting of the majority of author J. R. R. Tolkien's fantasy writings. The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings take place entirely in Middle-earth, as does much of The Silmarillion and Unfinished Tales....
, Anduin is the Sindarin
Sindarin
Sindarin is a fictional language devised by J. R. R. Tolkien, and used in his secondary world, often called Middle-earth.Sindarin is one of the many languages spoken by the immortal Elves, called the Eledhrim or Edhellim in Sindarin....
name for the Great River of Wilderland, the longest river
River
A river is a natural watercourse, usually freshwater, flowing towards an ocean, a lake, a sea, or another river. In a few cases, a river simply flows into the ground or dries up completely before reaching another body of water. Small rivers may also be called by several other names, including...
in the Third Age
Third Age
The Third Age is a time period from J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth fantasy writings. The history of Middle-earth is to be taken fictionally as a history of the real Earth....
(the original Sindarin name means Long River). The ancestors of the Rohirrim called it Langflood. It flowed from its source in the Grey and Misty Mountains
Misty Mountains
In J. R. R. Tolkien's fantasy world of Middle-earth, the Misty Mountains is a mountain range, running for 795 miles from north to south, between Eriador and the valley of the Great River, Anduin, and...
to the Mouths of Anduin (Ethir Anduin) in the Great Sea (Belegaer)
Belegaer
In the fiction of J. R. R. Tolkien, Belegaer, the Great Sea or the Sundering Seas, is the sea of Arda that is west of Middle-earth....
. In her Atlas of Middle-earth
The Atlas of Middle-earth
The Atlas of Middle-earth by Karen Wynn Fonstad is an atlas of J. R. R. Tolkien's fictional realm of Middle-earth. It was published in 1981, after Tolkien's major works The Hobbit, and The Lord of the Rings, and The Silmarillion....
, Karen Wynn Fonstad
Karen Wynn Fonstad
Karen Wynn Fonstad, née Wynn was the author of several atlases of fictional worlds.Born Karen Lea Wynn in Oklahoma City to parents James and Estis Wynn, she graduated from Norman High School in Norman, Oklahoma, and then earned a B.S. degree in Physical Therapy and an M.A...
estimates a total length of 1,388 miles (2,233 km).
Source
Anduin began as two different streams near where the Misty Mountains met the Grey. These were called the Langwell and the Greylin by the ÉothéodÉothéod
In the fiction of J. R. R. Tolkien, the Éothéod were a group of Northmen who became the ancestors of the Rohirrim. The word, meaning "horse people", is a compound of the Old English words éoh and théod ; it is cognate with Old Norse jóþjóð...
when they lived in the triangle of land formed by it. Their old capital Framsburg was built at the confluence of these streams where the Anduin proper began. The Langwell had its source in the Misty Mountains, close to Mount Gundabad and the Greylin began in the westernmost heights of the Grey Mountains.
Course
The Anduin flowed parallel to the Misty Mountains in a broad vale which formed the western part of RhovanionRhovanion
In the fiction of J. R. R. Tolkien, Rhovanion or Wilderland was a large region of northern Middle-earth. It extended to the east as far as the inland Sea of Rhûn; north to the Grey Mountains and Iron Hills, home of the Dwarves; west to the range of the Hithaeglir, or Misty Mountains; and south to...
, lying between the mountains and Mirkwood
Mirkwood
Mirkwood is a name used for two distinct fictional forests in J. R. R. Tolkien's legendarium. In the First Age, the highlands of Dorthonion north of Beleriand were known as Mirkwood after falling under Morgoth's control. During the Third Age, the large forest in Rhovanion, east of the Anduin in ...
. After passing Lórien, the river and mountains parted company, and the river flowed through the Brown Lands (which may have been home to the Entwives) via the North and South Undeeps until it flowed through the Emyn Muil and Argonath and entered a lake (Nen Hithoel) through Sarn Gebir (a series of ferocious rapids). Thence it flowed over the Falls of Rauros, and past the Mouths of the Entwash and the marshes known as the Wetwang (Nindalf). It then passed between the White Mountains
White Mountains (Middle-earth)
The White Mountains, a loose translation of the Sindarin Ered Nimrais "Whitehorn Mountains", is a fictional mountain range in J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth. The mountains are named after the glaciers of their highest peaks...
and the Mountains of Shadow through the ancient capital of Gondor
Gondor
Gondor is a fictional kingdom in J. R. R. Tolkien's writings, described as the greatest realm of Men in the west of Middle-earth by the end of the Third Age. The third volume of The Lord of the Rings, The Return of the King, is concerned with the events in Gondor during the War of the Ring and with...
, Osgiliath, before swinging past the harbour of Harlond close to the Rammas Echor south of Minas Tirith
Minas Tirith
Minas Tirith , originally named Minas Anor, is a fictional city and castle in J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth writings. It became the heavily fortified capital of Gondor in the second half of the Third Age...
(Barbara Strachey, in Journeys of Frodo
Journeys of Frodo
Journeys of Frodo: An Atlas of J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings by Barbara Strachey is an atlas based on the fictional realm of Middle-earth, which traces the journeys undertaken by the characters in Tolkien's epic....
, places the harbour just outside the wall), and the Emyn Arnen and down past the port of Pelargir, entering the Great Sea in the Bay of Belfalas
Bay of Belfalas
In J. R. R. Tolkien's fictional universe of Middle-earth, the Bay of Belfalas was a large southern bay in the Great Sea.The Bay of Belfalas was the remainder of the eastern edge of the Great Gulf that had divided Beleriand from the Lands to the South in the First Age...
in a broad delta
River delta
A delta is a landform that is formed at the mouth of a river where that river flows into an ocean, sea, estuary, lake, reservoir, flat arid area, or another river. Deltas are formed from the deposition of the sediment carried by the river as the flow leaves the mouth of the river...
known as the Mouths of Anduin.
Tributaries
In order from north to south: the Rhimdath (Rushdown), the Gladden (Ninglor) which joined at the marshes known as the Gladden FieldsGladden Fields
The Gladden Fields is a location in J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth. In his works, the Gladden Fields are located where the Gladden river joins the Anduin....
, the Silverlode (Celebrant), the River Limlight, the Entwash (Onodló), the Morgulduin, the Erui, the Sirith and the Poros. The first five had their sources in the Misty Mountains, the Morgulduin and (presumably) the Poros in the Ephel Dúath on the border of Mordor
Mordor
In J. R. R. Tolkien's fictional universe of Middle-earth, Mordor or Morhdorh was the dwelling place of Sauron, in the southeast of northwestern Middle-earth to the East of Anduin, the great river. Orodruin, a volcano in Mordor, was the destination of the Fellowship of the Ring in the quest to...
, and the rest in the White Mountains.
Crossing Points
Any traveller attempting to pass into the eastern regions of Middle-earth would have to cross the Anduin at some point along its long course (unless one passed through the extreme north, risking a passage through the Grey Mountains). The Old Forest Road which led from the High Pass into Mirkwood crossed the river at the Old Ford, to the south of Beorn's HallsBeorn
Beorn is a fictional character created by J. R. R. Tolkien. He appears in The Hobbit as a shape-shifter , a man who could assume the appearance of a great black bear.-Literature:...
. In the time of the War of the Last Alliance, a bridge had been there.
There were many bridges in the city of Osgiliath, broken by the forces of Mordor.
Settlements
During the March of the Elves in the Time of the Trees, the Nandor left the Eldarin host when faced withthe great heights of the Misty Mountains, and lived in the Vale of Anduin. Some
of those people later left and became the Green-elves
Laiquendi
In the fictional works of J. R. R. Tolkien the Laiquendi are an ethnic group of Elves, so named because their attire was often green.-History and origin:...
of Ossiriand, but Elves
remained present even until the time of the War of the Ring
War of the Ring
In the fictional high fantasy-world of J. R. R. Tolkien, the War of the Ring was fought between Sauron and the free peoples of Middle-earth for control of the One Ring and dominion over the continent. The War of the Ring took place at the end of the Third Age. Together with the Quest of Mount Doom,...
, strengthened by refugees
from Beleriand
Beleriand
In J. R. R. Tolkien's fictional legendarium, Beleriand was a region in northwestern Middle-earth during the First Age. Events in Beleriand are described chiefly in his work The Silmarillion, which tells the story of the early ages of Middle-earth in a style similar to the epic hero tales of Nordic...
(at the end of the First Age
First Age
In the fiction of J. R. R. Tolkien, the First Age, or First Age of the Children of Ilúvatar is the heroic period in which most of Tolkien's early legends are set...
) and Eregion
Eregion
In the fiction of J. R. R. Tolkien, Eregion or Hollin was a kingdom of the Noldorin Elves in Eriador during the Second Age, located near the West Gate of Moria under the shadow of the Hithaeglir . Its capital was Ost-in-Edhil...
(during the Second
Second Age
The Second Age is a time period from J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth fantasy writings. Tolkien intended for the history of Middle-earth to be considered fictionally as a precursor to the history of the real Earth....
).
Settlements in the Vale of Anduin during the Third Age included the northman
Northmen (Middle-earth)
J. R. R. Tolkien adopted the term Northmen in his fiction; his "Northmen" were Men that lived in the north of Rhovanion in Middle-earth, and were friendly to Gondor....
city of Framsburg, Beorn's Halls, and the Stoor settlements near the Gladden Fields (where Sméagol/Gollum
Gollum
Gollum is a fictional character from J. R. R. Tolkien's legendarium. He was introduced in the author's fantasy novel The Hobbit, and became an important supporting character in its sequel, The Lord of the Rings....
was born). It was in the Gladden Fields
Gladden Fields
The Gladden Fields is a location in J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth. In his works, the Gladden Fields are located where the Gladden river joins the Anduin....
in the northern reaches of Anduin that Isildur
Isildur
Isildur is a fictional character in J. R. R. Tolkien's legendarium. He appears in the author's books The Lord of the Rings, The Silmarillion, and Unfinished Tales....
was slain and the One Ring
One Ring
The One Ring is a fictional artifact that appears as the central plot element in J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth fantasy novels. It is described in an earlier story, The Hobbit , as a magic ring of invisibility. The sequel The Lord of the Rings describes its powers as being more encompassing than...
lost; and it was there, more than two millennia later, that Déagol
Déagol
Déagol is a fictional character in J. R. R. Tolkien's legendarium. His story is related in The Fellowship of the Ring, the first of three volumes comprising Tolkien's most famous novel, The Lord of the Rings, in the chapter "The Shadow of the Past"....
found the Ring and Sméagol took it from him. The Vale of Anduin was also to home at various times to many woodmen and other folk. At the time of the War of the Ring, the descendents of Beorn
Beorn
Beorn is a fictional character created by J. R. R. Tolkien. He appears in The Hobbit as a shape-shifter , a man who could assume the appearance of a great black bear.-Literature:...
, with these some of these men, known as the Beornings, maintained a realm between the Misty Mountains
Misty Mountains
In J. R. R. Tolkien's fantasy world of Middle-earth, the Misty Mountains is a mountain range, running for 795 miles from north to south, between Eriador and the valley of the Great River, Anduin, and...
and Mirkwood
Mirkwood
Mirkwood is a name used for two distinct fictional forests in J. R. R. Tolkien's legendarium. In the First Age, the highlands of Dorthonion north of Beleriand were known as Mirkwood after falling under Morgoth's control. During the Third Age, the large forest in Rhovanion, east of the Anduin in ...
, including control of the passage of the old ford. Rhosgobel, home of Radagast
Radagast (Middle-earth)
Radagast the Brown is a fictional character in J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth legendarium. He is one of the Istari or Wizards who were sent by the angelic Valar to aid the Elves and Men of Middle-earth in their struggle against the Dark Lord Sauron...
the Brown, and the Elven Realm of Lothlórien also lay in the Vale of Anduin.
Once it had entered Gondor the river flowed past Osgiliath and Minas Tirith and then Pelargir, close to the sea. After the fall of Osgiliath the river effectively marks the eastern limit of Gondor's influence.
Islands
The principal islands appear to have been Cair Andros, on the borders of IthilienIthilien
In J. R. R. Tolkien's fictional Middle-earth, Ithilien is a region and fiefdom of Gondor.Ithilien, or "Moon-land," is the easternmost province of Gondor, the only part of Gondor across the Great River Anduin lying between the river and the Mountains of Shadow , subdivided by the stream of...
and Tol Brandir in Nen Hithoel. Carrock, in the north was where the Eagles
Eagle (Middle-earth)
In J. R. R. Tolkien's fictional universe of Middle-earth, the eagles were immense flying birds that were sapient and could speak. Often emphatically referred to as the Great Eagles, they appear, usually and intentionally serving as agents of deus ex machina , in various parts of his legendarium,...
deposited Thorin
Thorin Oakenshield
Thorin Oakenshield, son of Thráin, son of Thrór, King Under the Mountain is a major character in The Hobbit and is mentioned in passing in The Lord of the Rings...
and Company. There was also an eyot, where the Fellowship rested during their travel between Lórien and Parth Galen.
Anduin Reach naming debate
In March 2009 it was submitted to the New Zealand Geographic BoardNew Zealand Geographic Board
The New Zealand Geographic Board is constituted under the New Zealand Geographic Board Act 2008, formerly under the New Zealand Geographic Board Act 1946. Although an independent institution, it is responsible to the Minister for Land Information...
that a 2-kilometre stretch of the Upper Waiau River
Waiau River, Southland
Waiau River is the largest river in the Southland Region of New Zealand. It is the outflow of Lake Te Anau, flowing from it into Lake Manapouri 10 kilometres to the south, and from there flows south for 70 kilometres before reaching the Foveaux Strait eight kilometres south of Tuatapere...
in Fiordland National Park be named "Anduin Reach
Anduin Reach
The Anduin Reach, an unofficial name for a section of the Upper Waiau River, Southland, is in the South Island of New Zealand. It is part of a river system that feeds from Lake Te Anau and discharges into Shallow Bay eighteen kilometres downstream from where it leaves Lake Te Anau. Water at the...
" to honour the work of director Peter Jackson
Peter Jackson
Sir Peter Robert Jackson, KNZM is a New Zealand film director, producer, actor, and screenwriter, known for his The Lord of the Rings film trilogy , adapted from the novel by J. R. R...
's The Lord of the Rings film trilogy
The Lord of the Rings film trilogy
The Lord of the Rings is an epic film trilogy consisting of three fantasy adventure films based on the three-volume book of the same name by English author J. R. R. Tolkien. The films are The Fellowship of the Ring , The Two Towers and The Return of the King .The films were directed by Peter...
, which was filmed in the country. A debate was sparked as to whether landmarks should be named in honour of motion picture productions, and several newspapers ran stories when the submission was denied by the Board.