What were Harlond and Forlond? | White Council Forum Archive - msg 37
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Posted: November 14, 1997 at 23:08:39: by Michael Martinez
I received an interesting email today and I thought I would share my reply to it. I was asked to explain why I refer to Harlond and Forlond as cities on Parma Endorion. What follows is the substance of my reply. I'll welcome comments from others. There is a certain amount of speculation that went into the essays of Parma Endorion. However, there is also a semantic factor concerned. Can one have a "haven" only? A natural harbor, perhaps, but a haven is a constructed thing. As for references, what I can quickly find includes: "...In Lindon north of the Lune Lune dwalt Gil-galad, last heir of the kings of the Noldor in exile. He was acknowledged as High King of the Elves of teh West. In Lindon south of the Lune dwelt for a time Celeborn, kinsman of Thingol...." -- Appendix B, THE RETURN OF THE KING The implication here is that Lindon is separate from Mithlond, which the entry for SA 1 also implies: "1 Foundation of the Grey Havens, and of Lindon." The Noldor were city-builders (Tirion upon Tuna, Formenos, Nargothrond, Gondolin, and others in the First Age). So it seems reasonable that they must have built at least one city in Lindon. The Sindar, too, built cities: Menegroth, Brithombar, Eglarest in the First Age. In Appendix A the story of Earnur's voyage to Eriador says: "'But when Earnur came to the Grey Havens there was joy and great wonder among both Elves and Men. So great in draught and so many were his ships that they could scarcely find harbourage, though both the Harlond and the Forlond also were filled....' "'Then Cirdan summoned all who would come to him, from Lindon or Arnor, and when all was ready the host crossed the Lune and marched north to challenge the Witch-king of Angmar....'" The implication is not so clear in these paragraphs, and probably this is the one passage most people feel implies Harlond and Forlond were nothing more than harbors. But "Alqualonde" and "Vinyalonde" are perfectly good Elven names for cities founded by Elves and Men (Vinyalonde was not permenently settled at first, but eventually became Lond Daer Ened, a great haven and city of the Dunedain between Perlargir and Lindon). In the index to THE SILMARILLION, Christopher Tolkien writes for "Mithlond": "'The Grey Havens', harbours of the Elves on the Gulf of Lhun; also referred to as *the Havens*." Brithombar and Eglarest are refered to as "the Havens" throughout THE SILMARILLION. There is even an entry for "The Havens" which states so. The entry makes it clear that several cities are referred to as "The Haven" or "The Havens" in numerous places. Another passage which some people may feel throws doubt on the matter would be in "Of The Rings of Power And The Third Age", where Tolkien writes: "Upon the shores of the Gulf of Lhun the Elves built their havens, and named them Mithlond; and there they held many ships, for the harbourage was good. From the Grey Havens the Eldar ever and anon set sail, fleeing from the darkness of the days of Earth...." So, perhaps this passage implies that Forlond and Harlond were only a part of Mithlond. However, it's about 75 miles from Harlond to the southern port we normally associate with Mithlond (the port where Gandalf and the others took ship). The distance between Forlond and the northern port of Mithlond is nearly twice that length. There is a paragraph much later which would lend credence to the idea that all the havens were considered part of Mithlond (and that Mithlond and Lindon were not separate lands): "In Eriador Imladris was the chief dwelling of the High Elves; but at the Grey Havens of Lindon there abode also a remnant of the people of Gil-galad the Elvenking...." The relationship between Lindon and Mithlond is a particularly vexing one, and it might be best to view Mithlond proper as Cirdan's fief under Gil-galad's kingdom, for Cirdan is in several places referred to as "Lord of the Havens", and Gil-galad is said in at least one place to have defended Lindon and the Grey Havens against Sauron's assault. So, that really doesn't shed any light on whether Harlond and Forlond were cities. There was a haven on the Isle of Balar which was never named and, until Cirdan fled there, was not permanently inhabited. So, too, were the original havens of Sirion just a hidden collection of small harbors used by the Elves to shelter ships and boats until Arvernien arose. Hence, there is precedent in Elvish history for having named but uninhabited harborages. On the other hand, where did Gil-galad live? In THE PEOPLES OF MIDDLE-EARTH (published after I'd mostly finished the essays for Parma Endorion) Tolkien wrote: "In the days of the earlier settlements of Numenor there were many men of different kinds in Eriador and Rhovanion; but for the most part they dwelt far from the coasts. The regions of Forlindon and Harlindon were inhabited by Elves and were the chief part of Gil-galad's kingdom, which extended, north of the Gulf of Lune, to include the lands east of the Blue Mountains and west of the River Lune as far as the inflow of the Little Lune. (Beyond that was Dwarf territory.) South of the Lune it had no clear bounds, but the Towers Hills (as they were later called) were maintained as an outpost...." There are some inconsistencies between the text this is taken from and other published sources (for instance, the towers of Emyn Beraid are elsewhere said to have been built by Gil-galad for Elendil -- but one could suppose they succeeded earlier structures that had been abandoned at some point). In any event, I have assumed that Gil-galad did not live in either of the two ports I normally consider to be Mithlond (the havens at the mouth of the river), and that there must have been at least two cities in Lindon besides Mithlond because the Eldar were city-dwellers (there are indications the Noldor built several cities in Hithlum, for instance). I would be very surprised if someone could successfully argue that the Noldor (and Sindar) of Lindon chose to live in the wild. Even at the end of the Third Age, Gildor's people made reference to their halls far from the Shire, implying that the Woody End campsite was nothing compared to their normal dwellings. They were builders. Lindon may have been crowded with cities for all we know, but the only two named regions are Harlond and Forlond. Michael ------------------ Parma Endorion: Essays On Middle-earth |
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