The Complete Tolkien Companion (45 page)

It was at this time that the Men of Gondor were forced to abandon their long watch on the neighbouring borders of Mordor. From Gondor the plague then spread north-west to Eriador, where it devastated Cardolan and Minhiriath, and also caused great suffering in the Shire.

Great Rider
–
OROMË THE GREAT
.

Great Rings
– The Rings of Power: the Nine Mortal-rings, the Seven Dwarf-rings and the Three Elven-rings – plus the Ruling Ring of Sauron. Other rings of various properties were made by the Noldor of Eregion, but these were ‘only essays in the craft before it was full-grown, and to the Elven-smiths they were but trifles'.
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Great Sea
– A translation of the Sindarin name
Belegaer;
the Western Seas, which lay between Middle-earth and the far-off shores of the Undying Lands.

Great Smials
– The chief burrowing-place or dwelling of the preeminent Took Family, in the Green Hills of Tuckborough. They were commenced in 2683 Third Age (1083 Shire Reckoning) by Thain Isengrim II.

Great Song
– The
GREAT MUSIC
.

Great Water
-The Sea.

Great West Road
– The main highway between Rohan and Gondor, running from Edoras in the north-west to Minas Tirith in the south.

The Green Dragon
– The leading inn of the village of Bywater in the Shire. It was patronised by Hobbits from Hobbiton and Bywater.

Green-elves
– A translation of the Quenya name
Laiquendi;
the name given by the exiled Noldor to the silvan Elves of Ossiriand, most rustic and wary of all the Eldar of Beleriand. These wore green, shot with bows, and lived exclusively in the forests; and were by comparison with the Noldor – and even the Sindar – primitive in their culture, not knowing even the uses of iron.

Yet for all this they were valiant, and, moreover, they were not Avari, but akin from afar to the Noldor, and closer still to the Sindar (Grey-elves). The Laiquendi were of Telerin race, as were the Sindar of Beleriand, being an offshoot of the
NANDOR
. The latter represented the first Sundering of the Eldar, for they were in origin the hindmost portion of the Teleri – themselves Hindmost of the Three Kindreds on the Great Journey – who had baulked at crossing the Misty Mountains into Eriador, and instead, led by a certain Lenwë, had turned back into the forests of Wilderland, to wander unrecorded paths for many centuries. They became the foremost of all Woodland peoples, and by far the most woodcrafty of all the Eldar; but they still spoke their Eldarin language, though this changed greatly as the years waned. But as the Ages wore away of Melkor's imprisonment in faraway Valinor, evil things awoke once more in Middle-earth; and the forests of the Nandor grew dangerous. Then the vanguard, who by now had wandered further west, south of the dreaded Misty Mountains and so north into Eriador, turned their faces still westward, and, led now by their chief Denethor, the son of Lenwë, eventually came over the last mountain-range between them and the Sea and so entered Beleriand. In Ossiriand, the easternmost part of that ancient region, they then dwelt, with the permission of Thingol the King, and Denethor was their lord.

But war was on their heels. And although the newcomers fought for Thingol in the First Battle of Beleriand, Denethor was slain in that fight, upon the hill of Amon Ereb; and they were reduced in number; whereupon they withdrew into their green and secret country beyond Gelion, and suffered no strangers to enter, save those from Doriath, whom they still held in friendship. They took little part in the wars which followed, and when Beleriand was drowned and broken at the end of the First Age a remnant of Ossiriand was spared: it was named Harlindon. But what became of the Green-elves no records tell. They were accounted, together with the Nandor, among the Moriquendi, which means they are thought never to have completed the Great Journey into the West.

Greenfields
– A part of the Northfarthing of the Shire where, in 2747 Third Age (1147 Shire Reckoning), a band of Orcs was defeated by Bandobras ‘Bullroarer' Took.

Greenhand
– A family of Shire-hobbits descended from Holman the Greenhanded of Hobbiton, through his son Halfred. They later removed from Hobbiton and founded their own settlement of Greenholm. Fastred, who wedded Elanor Gamgee in the early Fourth Age, was of this kin.

Greenholm
–
See
preceding entry.

Green Isle
– A translation of the Grey-elven name
TOL GALEN
.

Green Mound
–
See
EZELLOHAR
.

Greenway
– The name given during the later years of the Third Age for the old North Road, where it ran through desolate regions of Eriador. It was so called in the village of Bree because this ancient highway was thickly grass-grown from lack of use.

Greenwood the Great
– A translation of
Eryn Galen
(Sind.) The mightiest forest remaining in western Middle-earth in the Third Age. It was over four hundred miles from north to south and two hundred miles across at its widest point, where the old Forest Road threaded a path from Wilderland to the River Running. In the north-east dwelt Wood-elves of Thranduil's realm; in the southwest lived scattered settlements of woodmen.

Towards the end of the first millennium of the Third Age, Greenwood began to acquire an evil reputation: fell beasts stalked the gloom under the closely packed trees, and the trees themselves began to rot and wither and strive one against the other. It was not known until later that the evil came from the fortress of Dol Guldur in the far south-western reach. Greenwood then became known as
Taur e-Ndaedelos
(‘Forest of Great Fear'), translated as
Mirkwood.
At the turn of the Fourth Age it was renamed
Eryn Lasgalen,
‘Wood of Green Leaves'.

Grey Company
– A company of thirty Rangers of the North who rode south to Aragorn's aid during the War of the Ring. They were led by Halbarad and also included Elladan and Elrohir, the sons of Elrond.

Grey-elves
– The
SINDAR
.

Greyflood
– The river
GWATHLÓ
, as it was known to Men of Eriador. Properly speaking, the Greyflood was the name of the conjoined Mitheithel (Hoarwell) and Glanduin (Swanfleet), below Tharbad.

Grey Havens
– A translation of the Sindarin name
Mithlond,
being the name of the harbour and city founded by the Falathrim in Year I Second Age, as the chief haven of the Eldar in Middle-earth.

Mithlond lay near the mouth of the river Lhûn (Lune) where this emptied into the Gulf of the same name. First and only Lord of the Havens was Círdan the Shipwright of the Falathrim, formerly Lord of Eglarest in West Beleriand.

Greylin
‘Noisy-torrent' – The name given by the Men of Éothéod to the short river that flowed south from the Grey Mountains.

Greymantle
– A translation of the Quenya name
Singollo
(orig.
Sindacollo
); its Sindarin form is
Thingol.
It was the surname or appellation of Elwë, Lord of the Teleri (jointly with his brother Olwë) on the Great Journey from Cuiviénen to Beleriand, who afterwards became King of Beleriand and Doriath; and was more usually translated ‘Grey-cloak'.

Grey Mountains
– A translation of the Grey-elven name
Ered Mithrin;
a far northern range, running east from the Misty Mountains to the Withered Heath. The Grey Mountains were notoriously infested with Dragons.

Grey Wood
– The south-eastern reach of the Forest of Druadan.

Gríma
‘Mask' –
See
WORMTONGUE
.

Grimbeorn
– The son of Beorn and the Chieftain of the Beorning folk, who maintained the high pass over the Misty Mountains and the Ford of Carrock in the latter days of the Third Age.

Grimbold
– A Marshal of Westfold in Rohan at the time of the War of the Ring. He fought in both battles of the Fords of Isen,
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where he held the dying King's heir Théodred in his arms, and later commanded the left wing of the Rohirrim in their great onset against the besiegers of Gondor. He fell in that battle, far from his home in Grimslade, and was laid to rest in the ‘Mounds of Mundburg'.

Grinding Ice
– The
HELCARAXË
.

Grindwall
– A small hythe (harbour) on the north bank of the river Withywindle, outside the protection of the High Hay. It was guarded by a
grind
or fence which extended into the river.

Grishnákh
– The leader of those Orcs of Mordor who collaborated with the Uruk-hai of Saruman (led by Uglúk) in the attack upon the Fellowship near Parth Galen on February 26th, 3019 Third Age. He was described as ‘a short crook-legged creature, very broad and with long arms that hung almost to the ground.'
12

Grithnir
– A man of Dor-lómin; an aged retainer sent with the boy Túrin to Doriath by his mother Morwen to keep him safe and act as a guardian. He died of old age and sickness while still in Doriath.

Gróin
– A Dwarf of the House of Durin; the brother of Fundin and the father of Óin and Glóin.

Grond
– The Mace of Morgoth, also known as the ‘Hammer of the Underworld'. The name was later given to the great battering-ram which broke the gates of Minas Tirith during the siege of Gondor. This ram was ‘a hundred feet in length, swinging on mighty chains. Long had it been forging in the dark smithies of Mordor, and its hideous head, founded of black steel, was shaped in the likeness of a ravening wolf; on it spells of ruin lay.'
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Grór
– A Dwarf of Durin's Line; the youngest son of Dáin I and the grandfather of Dáin (II) Ironfoot. It was Grór who founded the Dwarf-realm in the Iron Hills (2590 Third Age).

Grubb
– A family of Shire-hobbits related to the Bagginses through Laura Grubb, who wedded Mungo Baggins, Bilbo's grandfather.

Guarded Plain
– A translation of the Sindarin name
Talath Dirnen;
the expanse of deserted land – chiefly heath and moor – which lay between the rivers Narog and Teiglin, to the north of the Realm of Nargothrond, whose northern march it was. Talath Dirnen was guarded by the Elves of Nargothrond.

Guarded Realm
– Valinor.

Guard of the Citadel
– The elite men-at-arms who were appointed to guard the Citadel of Minas Tirith and the Court of the Fountain. They were robed in back, and their mithril helms were of strange shape, high-crowned, with long cheek-guards close-fitting to the face. Upon the black surcoat was embroidered a tree beneath a silver crown and many-pointed stars; the livery of the heirs of Elendil.

(The) Guests
– A name for the (short-lived) race of Men, bestowed by the (ageless) Elves.

Guild of Venturers
– A guild formed in Númenor by Prince Anardil (later Tar-Aldarion the ‘Great Captain'), with the object of exploring Middle-earth. It attracted the most venturesome young men in the Kingdom; its guildhouse was aboard Anardil's floating palace, the great ship
Eämbar
moored at Tol Uinen in the Bay of Rómenna. The Venturers were devotees of the Maia Uinen, Lady of the Seas – who in those days favoured their voyages – and were called, in Númenor,
Uinendili,
the lovers of Uinen.

Guild of Weaponsmiths
– A guild formed in Númenor of those who had skill with metals, for the preservation of various crafts developed in the First Age but no longer needed except for ceremonial purposes (in early days, before the expeditions to Middle-earth).

Guilin
– An Elf-lord of Nargothrond, of the kindred of Finarfin, remembered as the father of the brothers Gelmir and Gwindor, one of whom was tortured to death during the Nirnaeth Arnoediad, the other of whom was taken alive in the battle and enthralled for many years in the pits of Angband. Guilin's fate is not known.

Gulf of Lune
– The great firth which separated North and South Lindon. It was created by the drowning of Beleriand in the First Age, and lay over what had once been the Dwarf-cities of the Blue Mountains.

Gundabad
– Mount Gundabad, which stood at the meeting-point of the Ered Mithrin and the Misty Mountains. Traditionally the location of the chief Orc-stronghold of the North, it was sacked by the Dwarves during the War of the Dwarves and Orcs (2793–99 Third Age).

Gundor
– One of the Edain of the Third House; younger brother of
GALDOR THE TALL
of Dor-lómin, and second son of Hador Lórindol. Gundor was slain, together with his father Hador, in a last defence of the tower of Eithel Sirion on the borders of Ard-galen, during the Dagor Bragollach. He did not wed, and left no sons to follow him.

Gurthang
‘Death-iron' (Sind.) – The name given by the warrior Túrin Turambar to the black sword formerly known as
ANGLACHEL
, after it had been reforged in Nargothrond. The black sword had formerly belonged to the Elf-warrior Beleg Cúthalion, but in Túrin's hands it had taken Beleg's life by ‘accident'. Gurthang was to drink many more lives before, at the end, claiming Túrin's own. It was an accursed sword and thus matched its master perfectly.

Guthláf –
The Herald and banner-bearer of Théoden King of the Mark during the War of the Ring. He fell defending the King in the Battle of the Pelennor Fields.