• Mixtapes
    • Metal Mixtapes
    • Minor Key Mixtapes
    • Christmas Mixtapes
  • Mini Movie Reviews
    • Full List (A – Z)
    • Recent Reviews
  • Board Game Reviews
    • Recent Reviews
    • Children’s Game Reviews
    • Expansion Reviews
    • Full List (A-Z)
  • Reader Mail
  • About
  • Contact
  • Home
  • Mixtapes
    • Metal Mixtapes
    • Minor Key Mixtapes
    • Christmas Mixtapes
  • Mini Movie Reviews
    • Recent Reviews
    • Full List (A – Z)
  • Board Game Reviews
    • Recent Reviews
    • Children’s Game Reviews
    • Expansion Reviews
    • Full List (A-Z)
  • Reader Mail
  • About
  • Contact

Middle Earth Monday 3: The Withered Heath

March 22, 2010

Welcome back to everyone’s favorite www.isleyunruh.com Monday feature!  Middle-earth being the place of enchantment and wonder that it is, each month I will use my love of fictional cartography to transport you to another time and place.  So why not take a moment to fill your head full of knowledge that will have no bearing  at all on the real world?

This month I’ll be looking at the desolate valley of The Withered Heath in the Grey Mountains to the North of Mirkwood.

“I don’t see that this will help us much,” said Thorin disappointedly after a glance. “I remember the Mountain well enough and the lands about it.  And I know where Mirkwood is, and the Withered Heath where the great dragons bred.”

This quote from The Hobbit brings up the most interesting feature of the long (nearly 200 mile) valley located in the eastern half of the Grey Mountains (which split into two thin ranges above and below it): that it ended up becoming the breeding ground for the Dragons of Middle Earth for much of the Third Age.  In the blasted wasteland of The Withered Heath, what little vegetation that covered the rocky ground thus became blackened and withered from the heat of the Dragons who dwelt there.

The Dragons did not actually originate in The Withered Heath, they were instead created in the pits of Angband long before the Third Age.  Tolkien only specifically named four Dragons in his notes, and of these Glaurung, father of Dragons was the first, a product of some fell sorcery of Morgoth, with Ancalagon, greatest of all Dragons, one of Glaurung’s Angband offspring.  Only Scatha (the great Long Worm who was slain by Fram of the Éothéod circa 2000 T.A.) and Smaug (who we all know from The Hobbit) originated from the Ered Mithrin (the Elvish name for the Grey Mountains).

It is unknown at what point the Dragons came to inhabit The Withered Heath, however, by the time the Dwarves had become settled in the Grey Mountains during the second millennium of the Third Age, many Dragons and Cold-drakes (Dragons without fire breath) had come to dwell there.  By 2589 (with the deaths of Dáin I and his heir, Frór at the hands of an unnamed Cold-drake) the Dragons of the Withered Heath had completely driven the dwarves out.  There is some speculation that the 4 lost Dwarven rings of power were either consumed or at the very least added to the Dragon hordes in those years.

Yet, by the time of the Hobbit 400 years later, Dragons were not one of the dangers mentioned by Gandalf as he discussed the perils of the Grey Mountains with Bilbo.  My assumption is that the orcs who settled the region after the dwarves must have eventually been successful in driving the Dragons out.

However, orcs are base creatures, full of sloth and unthourough in their methods.  Thus, who knows how many serpents still crawled the frozen plains of the Northern Wastes beyond the Grey Mountains at the time of The Lord of the Rings.  Or how many still lay in hidden slumber upon a great horde of untold riches in some lost cavern beneath The Withered Heath–waiting for some thief bold enough to venture upon their horde and arouse their wrath once more!

That’s it for Middle Earth Monday this month!  Join me the 4th Monday of next month as I take a look at The Gladden Fields!

Share this:

  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)

Related

Share

Tolkien  / Travels in Middle-earth

5 Comments


Shena
March 22, 2010 at 10:33 am
Reply

Thanks goodness it wasn’t late this time!



Isley Unruh
March 22, 2010 at 10:39 am
Reply

Sigh.

**EDIT**

Crap! CRAP! twss! TWSS!!!!

It was right in front of me and I didn’t even notice it!!!



NoJoy
March 22, 2010 at 10:53 am
Reply

You twice spelled “Angband” as “Angbad”. Do you know something I don’t?



Isley Unruh
March 22, 2010 at 10:59 am
Reply

Actually, apparently you know something I don’t…I’ve always read it as “Angbad” apparently…EMBARRASSING!

Heh, thanks for the heads up though, I fixed it!



Amy
March 23, 2010 at 4:24 pm
Reply

Yay. Another Middle Earth Monday. And a whole month to wait for the Gladden Fields. Le sigh.



Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

  • Recent Comments

    • Shane on Top Ten Best Classic Black Metal Logos
    • BBK on Five More Signs That the Underground Metal Band You Are Listening to Might be Racist
    • Anonymous on Boys will be Boys: Double Standards in McLintock! and The Awful Truth.
    • isley.unruh on Brilliant Board Games 1 – Krosmaster: Arena
    • Boosh on Brilliant Board Games 1 – Krosmaster: Arena
  • Recent Posts

    • RTfISP 11: Operation Moses
    • Notes from the Library
    • Top five 2023 New Year’s Resolutions for www.isleyunruh.com
    • Painting in Miniature 6: Blood Bowl
    • Minor Key Music 87: New Model Army – The Hunt
  • Categories

    • Art (5)
    • Books (12)
      • Only the Good Parts (6)
    • Comics (6)
    • Film (249)
      • Best Movies of the Decade (2)
      • Best Movies of the Year (5)
      • Cinema Scripture School (4)
      • James Bond Picture Books (2)
      • Mini Movie Reviews (98)
      • My Favorite Movies (78)
      • Year in Reviews (6)
    • Food and Cooking (9)
    • Games (52)
      • Brilliant Board Games (2)
      • Descent D&D (7)
      • Mini Board Game Reviews (12)
      • Painting in Miniature (6)
      • RE-Zork (10)
    • Holidays (21)
      • April Fool's (8)
      • Halloween (2)
    • Internet (30)
      • Memes I Missed (21)
      • The Art of Trolling (4)
    • Lists (49)
    • Mailbag Monday (86)
    • Math and Science (3)
    • Me (60)
      • Rousing Tales from Isley's Spirited Past (12)
    • Metal Music (121)
      • Album Artwork for the Ages (3)
      • Battle Vests of the KVLT & TR00 (3)
      • Best Metal of the Year (6)
      • Extreme Metal Radio Edits (2)
      • Mid-month Metal Masterpiece (74)
      • Racism in Metal (6)
    • Myth and Fantasy (8)
      • Archetypical (4)
    • Nerd Open Letters (20)
    • Non-Metal Music (102)
      • Minor Key Music (90)
    • Other (2)
    • Philosophy (3)
    • Sports and Fitness (7)
    • Spotlight Posts (60)
    • Tales from Center Valley High (19)
      • Goth Blog (6)
      • Jock Blog (7)
      • Snob Blog (6)
    • Tolkien (97)
      • The Lost Chapters (6)
      • Travels in Middle-earth (76)
    • TV (5)
    • War (7)
  • Archives

  • Meta

    • Log in
    • Entries feed
    • Comments feed
    • WordPress.org



  • Home
  • Mixtapes
    • Metal Mixtapes
    • Minor Key Mixtapes
    • Christmas Mixtapes
  • Mini Movie Reviews
    • Recent Reviews
    • Full List (A – Z)
  • Board Game Reviews
    • Recent Reviews
    • Children’s Game Reviews
    • Expansion Reviews
    • Full List (A-Z)
  • Reader Mail
  • About
  • Contact
© Copyright www.isleyunruh.com