Rhosgobel

We have no solid information to confirm when the Wizard Radagast settled at Rhosgobel, and hardly any basis for guessing when that might have been, except that it must have been after the arrival of his Order in Middle-earth in about III 1000.

Whenever Rhosgobel was founded, it seems that Radagast still dwelt there long into the Third Age. In The Hobbit (chapter 7), Gandalf speaks of 'my good cousin Radagast who lives near the Southern borders of Mirkwood', which strongly suggests that he was still at Rhosgobel in the year III 2941 when Bilbo's adventures took place. In fact, given its location close to Dol Guldur, it probably played an important part of the attack against Sauron that took place in that year.

At the Council of Elrond in III 3018, however, Gandalf announced that Radagast 'at one time dwelt at Rhosgobel' (The Fellowship of the Ring II 2). So, we must assume that the Brown Wizard left his home sometime between these two dates. The estimate of c. III 3000 given above is based on this reasoning, though clearly there is considerable margin for error here.

There is a certain amount of confusion over the exact location of Rhosgobel. The initial draft map for The Lord of the Rings, reproduced in volume 7 of The History of Middle-earth, shows it in the far south of the forest, precariously close to Dol Guldur. However, in the notes to The Istari in Unfinished Tales, Christopher Tolkien quotes the location as being 'in the forest borders between the Carrock and the Old Road', which would place it much farther to the north.

The latter location seems to fit the established dating rather better, allowing for Radagast to remain there safely long into the Third Age. However, the only remotely canonical statement comes from The Fellowship of the Ring II 3, where the scouts of Elrond 'had come down into Wilderland and over the Gladden Fields and so at length had reached the old home of Radagast at Rhosgobel.' This description can only reasonably apply to the southern location, near Sauron's stronghold at Dol Guldur.

The relations between these two variable accounts are unclear. The southern version appears to be the older, so perhaps Tolkien intended to revise Rhosgobel's location to place it in less direct danger from Sauron. If so, however, that change never made it into the text of The Lord of the Rings. We can place Rhosgobel, therefore, on the western fringe of the Narrows of the Forest, opposite the East Bight.