Ered Wethrin

The wall of Hithlum

The Ered Wethrin, the Mountains of Shadow, formed a great curve of highland that enclosed Hithlum on its eastern and southern sides. Northward they ran up toward the cold lands near the Iron Mountains; southward they bent west to meet the sea beyond Nevrast. Their eastern face looked over the plain of Ard-galen and down the vale of Sirion, and on that face, at the springs where Sirion rose, Fingolfin built Barad Eithel, the fortress of Eithel Sirion, the strongest place of the Noldor in the north.

The mountains were a barrier both ways. They shielded Hithlum from the direct assault of Angband, and in the Dagor Bragollach it was here that Fingon held while all the other fronts gave way; Hador died in the defence of Eithel Sirion, and his son Galdor fell there some years later. But they also cut Hithlum off from the rest of Beleriand, and the few passes over them were dangerous. When Morwen sent Túrin to Doriath, his guides took him over the Ered Wethrin by a hard road, and after the fall of Hithlum the mountains sheltered the outlaws and the hidden Elves who would not submit to the Easterlings.

On the southern face the river Narog rose at the pools of Ivrin, a place of unusual beauty that Ulmo kept clean until Glaurung defiled it. Beneath the Ered Wethrin the Noldor of Hithlum also held the country as far as the vale of Sirion, and the mountains' shadow gave their name to the whole northern realm as seen from the south. They went under the sea with the rest of the north in the War of Wrath.