Nan-tathren

The Land of Willows

Nan-tathren lay in the south of Beleriand where the Narog, coming down from Nargothrond, joined the great river Sirion a little way above its delta. Sirion had already passed through the Fens and beneath the Andram, and in this lower country it ran slow and wide through meads of willow and long grass, full of flowers, birds and butterflies. Nobody ruled it and nobody lived there in numbers; it was a green interval between the wilderness of the south and the Mouths of Sirion. Of all the Valar, Ulmo loved it most, for his power ran in Sirion's waters, and the Elves held that his presence was strongest there. Its Quenya name, Tasarinan, was remembered long afterward in the songs of Treebeard, who had walked its willow-meads in his youth when the Ents ranged over Beleriand.

Travellers and fugitives

The Land of Willows was a place that people passed through and did not forget. Voronwë, sent by Turgon to find Círdan's ships, lingered there for a whole season under the spell of the flowers and the running water before he went on to the sea. After the fall of Gondolin, Tuor and Idril brought the survivors down the vale of Sirion and made a long halt in Nan-tathren, and there they held a feast in memory of the city and of those who had died, at which Tuor sang to his son Eärendil of the Sea. There the longing that Ulmo had planted in him awoke in earnest, and the company went on down to the coast to the Havens. Like all the rest of the south it was drowned at the end of the Age.