The Encyclopedia of Arda - an interactive guide to the world of J.R.R. Tolkien
Dates
The ancient name 'Greenwood the Great' fell out of use around III 1050, when the Shadow began to fall on the Forest, and it became known as 'Mirkwood'
Location
Rhovanion, to the east of the Vales of Anduin
Settlements
Home to a division of the Silvan Elves; at the time the Forest was known as the Greenwood, they dwelt in its southern reaches
Other names

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About this entry:

  • Updated 13 June 2013
  • Updates planned: 1

Greenwood the Great

The former name of Mirkwood

Map of Greenwood the Great
Greenwood the Great as it appeared in the later Third Age1
Greenwood the Great as it appeared in the later Third Age1

The ancient name for the mighty forest known as Mirkwood throughout most of the Third Age.


Notes

1

The features shown on this map reflect the appearance of the forest at the end of the Third Age, though in fact several of these features did not appear until after the name Mirkwood became more generally used. (We have no canonical map for the appearance of the Greenwood during this earlier period.)

Most notably, the fortress of Dol Guldur did not exist at this earlier time, and indeed it was Sauron's settlement on Amon Lanc that drove many of the later changes (notably giving rise to the forest's new name of Mirkwood). The Elves of the Wood had at one time lived as far southward as Amon Lanc itself, but Sauron's growing power caused them to move northward. Even by the time Sauron came to the forest, they had already removed as far as the Mountains of Mirkwood, and they would move their realm further north still to its more familiar location in the far northeast.

It was in the years after Sauron's arrival that the Northmen of Rhovanion began their work cutting the trees in earnest. In the time when the forest was still known as Greenwood the Great, there would have been no East Bight (or, at least, it would have been much less pronounced). What's more, the Dwarves would not arrive at Erebor for several centuries, so there was no Dwarf-kingdom beneath the Lonely Mountain (nor a township at Dale) during the times of Greenwood the Great.

Indexes:

About this entry:

  • Updated 13 June 2013
  • Updates planned: 1

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