The Complete Tolkien Companion (66 page)

Mode of Erebor
–
See
ANGERTHAS MORIA
.

Monendei
– An archaic form of the Hobbits' word for the third day of the week, being actually a translation of
Isilya,
‘Moon's-day' (Q.), the name for this day in the ancient Númenorean system of Kings' Reckoning. The week was the first part of this Númenorean calendar to be adopted by other peoples after it was taken to Middle-earth; and the Hobbits were probably using translated forms of the weekdays by the end of the first millennium of the Third Age. By the time of the War of the Ring,
Monendei
had been shortened to Monday.

Moon-letters
– A form of secret writing created by the Dwarves, who desired privacy in all things. ‘Moon-letters' were runes which were written with silver pens and which could only be read when held up before the light of the moon. The most cunningly devised moon-letters required the would-be cryptographer to illuminate the letters by a moon of the same phase and season – i.e. on virtually the same day of the year – as when they were originally drawn. Thrór's map, given to his grandson Thorin Oakenshield by Gandalf the Grey, was inscribed with runes of this type.

Morannon
‘Black-gate' (Sind.) – The heavily fortified entrance to the land of Mordor; an impregnable wall which ran from the western foothills of the Ered Lithui (Ashy Mountains) to the northern buttresses of the Ephel Dúath (Mountains of Shadow), barring the pass of Cirith Gorgor and the entrance to the vale of Udûn. Guarded at either side by the two Towers of the Teeth, Narchost and Carchost, the Morannon was in the form of a stone rampart, many feet high.

In it there was a single gate of iron, and upon its battlement sentinels paced unceasingly. Beneath the hills on either side the rock was bored into a hundred caves and maggot-holes; there a host of Orcs lurked, ready at a signal to issue forth like black ants going to war.
7

Mordor
‘Black-land' (Sind.) – The Land of Shadow, realm of Sauron the Great throughout two Ages of the World and the heart of all his ancient might, once the most potent in Middle-earth. It was chosen by Sauron early in the Second Age (
c.
1000) to serve him as a fortress-land, and its fortunes mirrored his own up to his final overthrow at the end of the War of the Ring (3019 Third Age).

Even before its adoption by Sauron, Mordor was a bleak and desert land, barren and infertile; its chief merits (from Sauron's point of view) lay in the enormous natural fortifications which walled it on the north, south and west: the Ered Lithui (‘Ashy Mountains') and the greater range of the Ephel Dúath, the Mountains of Shadow. One hundred leagues the Black Land measured from northern wall to southern buttress, and one hundred and fifty from west to east (where alone it lay open to the world). In the far northwestern corner the two mountain-chains met, enclosing the deep-shadowed vale of Udûn (‘The Pit'); and in the very centre of the plain of Gorgoroth stood the fire-mountain Orodruin, amid the ruin of untold years of volcanic torment. South of this northern desert stretched the wider plain of Nurn, in the centre of which lay a great Inland Sea.

Such was Mordor during the early years of the Second Age – and to Sauron, newly arisen and not yet powerful, it must have seemed made especially for his purposes: for in those days his chief foes were stronger than he, and he desired above all a realm which could with little trouble be made secure. Accordingly, he took Mordor and fortified its passes, and upon a huge south-facing spur of the Ered Lithui he raised a mighty fortress, the
Barad-dûr,
the ‘Dark Tower', to dominate the plain of Gorgoroth. Orodruin's fires he learned to harness to his own uses, and in a short time he had made himself master of the Black Land, which he filled with evil folk, bred to his service.

With the forging of the Ruling Ring in the middle years of the Age, Sauron finally gained enough power to send his hosts forth from Mordor to ravage the Westlands of Middle-earth; and for much of the remainder of the Second Age his forces continued to threaten the southlands. Yet at the very end of the Age Sauron overreached himself, and the combined strength of the Elves and the Dúnedain cast him from his dark Throne and drove his spirit away in exile. Mordor then became desolate and uninhabited, except for a few garrisons from Gondor, stationed in fortresses built by the Dúnedain to watch over the passes and prevent any evil thing from entering or leaving. For many years the Black Land was quiet and Orodruin's fires were stilled. (It was at this time that the castles of Durthang, Narchost, Carchost and Cirith Ungol were built.)

But the fortunes of Mordor always mirrored Sauron's own, and by the end of the first half of the Third Age he was once more awake and plotting to regain his ancient realm – although for many years he did not dare to reclaim it openly. Instead, while himself continuing to dwell in Dol Guldur, he sent his chief servants, the Ringwraiths, secretly to prepare Mordor for his re-occupation. This they did before the end of the second millennium, while Gondor was fully occupied in holding off attacks from Easterlings (doubtless stirred up for this very purpose by his other agents). For the next thousand years the power of Mordor grew again – and was allowed to grow because there was no strength capable of obstructing it; and in 2951 Sauron himself again returned to the Black Land, after an absence of nearly three thousand years.

Yet even with all this careful preparation, and despite the boasted inviolability of Mordor's frontiers, in the final test the fearsome reputation and impassable mountain-walls were insufficient to keep the foes of the Dark Lord at bay. During the War of the Ring, while Sauron's attention was deliberately held elsewhere, his borders were passed by two enemies who bore with them the key to Sauron's survival or defeat. The success of their mission brought about the fall of Sauron and the final ruin of Mordor; and although the southern lands around Lake Nurnen were afterwards settled by emancipated slaves, the northern plains of Gorgoroth, Udûn and Lithlad were deserted and were never again made habitable. Mordor became once more a desert, but an empty desert.

Morgai
‘Black Fence' (Sind.) – A ridge of jagged hills in Mordor. It ran parallel to the Mountains of Shadow for some thirty leagues south of the Durthang Spur. Thus it was an inner fence of Sauron's realm (as opposed to the ‘outer-fence' of the
Ephel Dûath
).

Morgoth
‘Dark Foe [of the World]' (Sind.) – The name given by Fëanor of the Noldor to the eldest and greatest of the Ainur,
MELKOR
the Mighty, whose fall from Grace during the Eldest Days initiated a series of lasting and profoundly tragic consequences for the World. From his very Beginnings, Melkor opposed himself to the wishes of the Creator and the Themes of the Great Music – for alone of the Ainur he envied Eru and desired to emulate (and surpass) him. And after the Making of Arda (the World) he desired to rule the ‘Little Kingdom' for himself, brooking no equals. So began his rebellion, which waxed or waned according to his circumstances for many Ages of the World until, after bringing evil, war, ruin and death to the Middle-world, he was cast out for ever by the Valar.

His first realm in Middle-earth, Utumno (‘The Pit'), was made in the Far North; its westerly outpost was Angband. But in the Battle of the Powers Utumno was ruined, and Melkor was carried, a prisoner, back to Valinor. For three ages of the world he was held captive in the Halls of Mandos, but feigned repentance, and so was released, though not permitted to return to mortal lands. But Melkor secretly hated the Valar and the Eldar, and in furtherance of this hatred he poisoned the Two Trees – the Light of Valinor and Eldamar – and stole the Silmarils which had been made by Fëanor; and slew Fëanor's father Finwë; and then fled back to Middle-earth with his prize, to plan and build anew, dwelling everafter in Angband. And the Noldor followed him, to regain that which he had stolen. So began the war of the Great Jewels, in which Morgoth, as he was then named (and ever after known in Middle-earth) was ultimately victorious over the Eldar and the Edain.

It is known that Morgoth was discomfited at least once during the War of the Great Jewels – by Beren and Lúthien – yet apart from the loss of a single Silmaril, his victory seems to have been complete. His specially bred armies of Orcs and Trolls, augmented by Dragons and Balrogs, invaded Beleriand and captured the High-elven cities of Nargothrond and Gondolin. The Elves fled or hid themselves or were destroyed in the Great Darkness that followed Morgoth's victory.

Nonetheless, a single ship, bearing an ambassador from Middle-earth, eventually arrived on the shores of the Undying Lands, guided by the Light of the recovered Silmaril; and the representations which were then made brought about the mustering of the Valar and their intervention against the Enemy. The blow struck by this host against Thangorodrim obliterated that region and brought about severe disturbances of the land and seas, inundating a sizeable part of north-western Middle-earth. Morgoth was thrust through the ‘Doors of Night' into the Void.

Yet his terrible example was to have lasting consequences, for not even the mightiest blow could destroy the evil now awake in Middle-earth. Although Morgoth's followers were for the most part overwhelmed with Angband, many of the creatures he had ‘created' lived on, and his chief servant survived – later to be revealed as Sauron the Great, Lord of Mordor.

Note:
also called
Bauglir
(‘The Constrainer'),
Belegurth
(‘The Great Death') and The Enemy.

Morgul
‘Black-wraith' (Sind.) – In the absence of clear information from surviving records of the Third Age, all hypotheses must assume the lesser stature of guesses; nonetheless, it seems possible that
Morgul
was the name or title of the Lord of the Ringwraiths, the Witch-king of Angmar, who later became Lord of Minas Ithil, which his armies captured on Sauron's behalf in 2002 Third Age. The Tower of the Moon was then renamed
Minas Morgul,
and the vale in which it lay became known as
Imlad Morgul.

Morgulduin
– The river which flowed through Morgul Vale (formerly Ithil Vale). It was given this name in Gondor after the Nazgûl captured Minas Ithil in 2002 Third Age; previously, it had been known as
Ithilduin.

See also
IMLAD MORGUL
.

Morgul-knife
– A deadly, sorcerous weapon, doubtless devised by the Lord of the Ringwraiths and used by him in an attempt on the life of the Ring-bearer.
8
The blade pierced the heart of the victim, simultaneously taking his life and turning him into a wraith like the wielder of the Morgul-knife, only of far lesser stature and power. If by chance the blade missed the heart, a fragment of the knife would remain in the wound and slowly work its way inwards. Like all such weapons of darkness, the blade (the bewitched part) wilted and turned to smoke when exposed to the rays of the sun; thus the dagger could only be used during the hours of night.

Morgul Vale
– A translation of
IMLAD MORGUL
.

Moria
– Of all the mighty works of stone created by the Dwarves of Middle-earth, none was greater, nor more famed, nor more dreaded (in later days) than the vast underground city of the Dwar-rowdelf, called by the Dwarves themselves
Khazâd-dûm
(‘The-Mansion-of the-Khazâd'), and by the Elves
Hadhothrond
(a rendering of
Khazâd-dûm
), but among themselves, in later Ages,
Moria,
the ‘Black-pit'.

The story of Moria is a tale with an irresistible sense of destiny, of massive achievement, great power and royalty, of uncountable wealth and unsurpassed skill in stone-working, tunnelling, mining, delving and craftsmanship. It is also a tale of greed, self-satisfaction, obsession and final loss, brought about by the very factors which made the Dwarrowdelf the mighty achievement it was, from the Elder Days until the latter half of the Third Age.

Of all the names of this ancient realm, Khazâd-dûm, the Dwarves' own term for it, was naturally by far the most venerable.
Khazâd
was the name this people had for their own race, the name they believed had been given to them by Aulë the Smith, the Craftsman of the Valar and their own demiurgic ‘sponsor', who also gave them their ancient skills and singular nature. It was fitting, therefore, that their greatest accomplishment should be given the simple title ‘Mansion-of-the-Dwarves' – for no other Dwarf-delving in Middle-earth, not even the First Age cities of Nogrod and Belegost, nor the dolven halls of Erebor, ever approached the sheer size and scale of Moria.

The name
Moria
itself is an Elvish (Sindarin) word and it was ‘given without love; for the Eldar, though they might at need, in their bitter wars with the Dark Powers and his servants, contrive fortresses underground, were not dwellers in such places of choice … and Moria in their tongue means the Black Chasm.'
9
A vast and boundless chasm it was, from its very beginning, but it did not become black until after the Heirs of Durin fled, many thousands of years later; while the Dwarves dwelt in Khazâd-dûm, ‘it was not darksome, but full of light and splendour…'
10

The beginning of the city lay far back in the Elder Days when, alone among the Dwarves' seven Fathers, Durin the Deathless awoke and came to the great vale of Azanulbizar (as it was afterwards named), on the eastern side of the Misty Mountains. There he received a sign of his great royalty (
see
DURIN THE DEATHLESS
), and there he made his dwelling, in the caves about Lake Kheled-zâram (the Mirrormere). Many Dwarves then came and laboured there, transforming the rough-hewn caves into carven halls and passages, roads and tunnels, mines and pits. Great gates they built overlooking Azanulbizar and its lake; and all of Moria which lay on or above the height of these Gates was then systemised into levels – while the halls which were delved below (and these were many, and endlessly branching) were known as deeps.