The Dúnedain of the South were then ruled by their Stewards, a family of high Númenorean race who remained true to their trust and never claimed the Crown for themselves throughout the thousand years they ruled in place of the Kings. And led by the Ruling Stewards, the Dúnedain regained some of their power, though they were never again able to prevent war from gathering on their borders. A protective system of alliances and defensible frontiers was established piecemeal, and in the end proved flexible enough to withstand the return to power of Sauron the Great – and his last attempt to drive the Dúnedain into the Sea.
During the War of the Ring, though all seemed lost for a while, the events of the time ultimately produced the means by which Gondor was not only delivered from peril but reunited at last with her ancient sister-realm of Arnor, long sundered from her. In that same war the Dark Lord was cast down for ever and a great threat removed from the Free Peoples of Middle-earth. The Reunited Kingdom of Gondor and Arnor lived on in the Fourth Age, last memory in Middle-earth of vanished Númenor; and the banner of Elendil flew again from the Tower of the Sun at the feet of the White Mountains.
Gonnhirrim ‘Stone-masters’ (Sind.) – A name bestowed upon the race of Dwarves by the Elves of Beleriand. The more usual terms were Noegyth, Naugrim and Nogothrim, ‘Stunted People’ (doubtless the Dwarves themselves preferred Gonnhirrim).
Goodchild – A family of Shire-hobbits related to the Gamgees. The mother of Samwise (and wife of Hamfast) was Bell Goodchild.
Gorbadoc ‘Broadbelt’ Brandybuck – From 2910–63 Third Age (1310–63 Shire Reckoning), the Master of Buckland. He was the grandfather of Frodo Baggins (and great-grandfather of Meriadoc Brandybuck).
Gorbag – An Orc-sergeant in the garrison of Minas Morgul.
Gorgoroth ‘Dreadful Horror’ (Sind.) – A word in the Grey-elven tongue, used for two different locations, distinct in time and space. The first and earlier usage is Ered Gorgoroth, the ‘Mountains of Terror’ which were the southernmost edge of the Dorthonion plateau, where the Great Spider Ungoliant came after the poisoning of the Trees and ever after made a place of abhorrence and fear.
The second instance is in the name of the ‘Haunted Plain’ of Mordor; the great plateau which occupied the north-western area of that country, a desolate, arid land, pocked with craters and fuming pits and riven with many deep crevasses. In the centre of the plain rose the smouldering cone of the volcano Orodruin.
Gorgûn ‘Orcs’ – One of the few words recorded in the aboriginal speech of the Wild Men of Druadan Forest (see WOSES).
Gorhendad Oldbuck – The founder of the Buckland. The Oldbuck family had long been prominent in the Shire when, in about 2340 Third Age (740 Shire Reckoning), they re-crossed the Brandywine eastwards and settled the strip of land between the river and the Old Forest. Gorhendad began the excavation of the Hill of Buckland, when he named Brandy Hall; at the same time he changed the family name to Brandybuck. He was later accounted the first Master of Buckland.
Gorlim the Unhappy – One of the twelve brave companions of BARAHIR of the Edain in the last defence of Dorthonion. Gorlim was unhappy – fatally so – because of the loss of his wife Eilinel, whom he believed a prisoner. He was captured by means of a cunning trick, and becoming the victim of one of the cruellest of all betrayals, was himself forced to betray Barahir and his companions. Then Gorlim was put to death. And in the ensuing attack upon their encampment, eleven of the twelve men were killed. Eilinel had been dead for nearly four years.
Gorthaur ‘The Cruel’ (Sind.) – The Grey-elves’ name (in the First Age) for SAURON THE GREAT.
Gorthol ‘Dread Helm’ (Sind.) – One of the many noms-de-guerre assumed during his life by the warrior TÚRIN TURAMBAR. It refers to the DRAGON-HELM (OF DOR-LÓMIN), which Túrin wore in battle early in his career.
Gothmog – See BALROG.
Gram – From 2718–41 Third Age, the eighth King of Rohan. He was the father of Helm Hammerhand.
Great Armament – The name given to that assemblage of arms commanded by Ar-Pharazôn the Golden, last King of Númenor, for his assault upon Valinor and the Undying Lands. It was so great that it took nine years to assemble, from 3310–19 Second Age.
Great Battle – The second Battle of the Powers; the attack upon Morgoth made at the end of the First Age by the Host of the Valar. Like Utumno of an earlier age, Angband was annihilated and Morgoth was cast out – this time for ever.
Great Bridge – The Shire-hobbits’ name for the Bridge of Stonebows, more commonly known as the Brandywine Bridge. (It had, in fact, been built by the Dúnedain of the North-kingdom long before the founding of the Shire.)
Great Darkness – The term used by the Elves to mean the immense period of time between the overthrowing (by Melkor) of the Lamps of the Valar, Illuin and Ormal, and the Rising of the Moon and Sun towards the end of the First Age. Throughout this period darkness, broken only by starlight, reigned over Middle-earth, and Melkor’s rule – the spiritual Great Darkness – was uncontested by the Valar.
Great East Road – One of the major highways of Eriador. It linked Lindon and the Grey Havens with Rivendell and the Misty Mountains, passing through the middle of the Shire and Bree. In the late Third Age the East Road was used mainly by Dwarves, who had mines in the Blue Mountains which were still in use.
Great Echo – A translation of the Sindarin name Lammoth.
Great Enemy – Morgoth.
Greater Gelion – The more easterly of the two source-streams of the river Gelion in East Beleriand. The Greater Gelion itself had two sources, on Mount Rerir and from Lake Helevorn.
Great Goblin – An Orc-chieftain who led the tribe which infested the high pass chosen by Thorin Oakenshield’s expedition when they crossed from Eriador into Wilderland (in 2941 Third Age). His followers imprisoned the Dwarves and the Hobbit Bilbo, but their leader was slain by Gandalf the Grey.
Great Gulf – The name given in Eldarin tradition to the huge expanse of water created in the south of Middle-earth during the Eldest Days by powerful seismic forces, which the Elves attributed to the agency of the Valar. In fact the Gulf was created by the earth-movements brought about by the Battle of the Powers in the North.
Great Jewels – The silmarilli created by Fëanor of Eldamar in the First Age. Their theft, by Morgoth, brought about the Exile of the Noldor and the long wars which ravaged Middle-earth.
Great Journey – The original Westward migration of the ELDAR. Far back in the Elder Days the Three Kindreds were summoned by the Valar (Guardians of the World) to journey from their homeland in the East across the western lands of Middle-earth to the shores of the Sea. From there, two of the Kindreds set out on the further journey across the Sea to the Undying Lands.
Great Lake – The lake in the centre of the World, as Arda was first shaped by the Valar. In the centre of the Lake stood the Isle of Almaren, their first home in Arda. Both Island and Lake – and much more besides – were destroyed by the renegade Vala Melkor, in the course of his second attack upon the Powers.
Great Lands – Middle-earth.
Great Music – The name given in the traditions and beliefs of the Eldar to that which took place before the Creation: the weaving of all possible sub-themes of Existence around a pre-ordained yet infinitely flexible Theme already chosen by Ilúvatar (God). This development of existential possibilities, analagous (in the legend) to musicians or choristers freely improvising within a fixed compositional mode – while all the time serving only the direct will of the Composer – was performed, or achieved, say the Elves, by the Ainur, the Holy Ones of God. When the Great Song (as it is also called) was complete for that time, two separate major Themes having been introduced and traced to their endings, God spoke; and the vision was made manifest. And then, according to the tradition, the Ainur who had taken part left the dwelling of Ilúvatar and went down into the newly created world (Arda), each to labour in making manifest his or her individual contribution to the Music. Among them was Melkor, who from th
e first had attempted to dominate all other contributions; now he, too, went down into the world and laboured towards the fulfilment of his disharmonious counterpoint.
Great Ones – The AINUR.
Great Place of the Tooks – The chief household of Great Smials.
Great Plague – In 1636 Third Age, a foul plague came out of the East and South and ravaged the Westlands of Middle-earth. Osgiliath in Gondor was particularly hard-hit. King Telemnar and all his children were struck down, and even the White Tree of Minas Anor perished (although a fortuitously preserved seedling continued the Line of Nimloth).
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’.10
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,11 where he held the dying King’s heir Théodre
d 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.’13
The Complete Tolkien Companion Page 31