Ossiriand

The Land of Seven Rivers

Ossiriand lay in the far east of Beleriand, a long strip of wooded, well-watered country pressed between the great river Gelion on the west and the wall of the Blue Mountains on the east. Six tributaries came down from the mountains to join Gelion, and with Gelion itself they gave the land its name: the Ascar in the north, then Thalos, Legolin, Brilthor, Duilwen and, in the far south, Adurant, which split around the island of Tol Galen. The soil was rich, the woods were full of elms and the streams ran quick and cold. The Dwarf-road from Mount Dolmed came down through its northern part along the Ascar to the ford of Sarn Athrad, and it was the only road that outsiders commonly used.

The Green-elves

The people of Ossiriand were the Laiquendi, the Green-elves, a branch of the Nandor who had abandoned the Great Journey east of the Misty Mountains under Lenwë. A part of them, led by his son Denethor, came at last over the Blue Mountains long before the Sun rose, and Thingol welcomed them as kin and gave them Ossiriand to hold. They dressed in green, were unmatched in woodcraft and song, and could pass through the forest unseen; the Noldor later named the whole country Lindon, the land of music, for the sound of their singing. They were lightly armed, however, and when Melkor's orcs first poured into Beleriand, Denethor led them to Thingol's aid and died with many of his kin on Amon Ereb. After that loss the Green-elves took no king again. They withdrew into secrecy, refused open war, and held their woods by ambush and stealth, acknowledging Thingol as overlord but living by their own ways.

They did not welcome strangers. When Finrod found the first Men camped in the vale of Thalos, the Green-elves sent word that they would have no part in these newcomers who felled trees and hunted beasts, and the house of Bëor moved west to Estolad. Yet they were not without friends: they gave aid to Amrod and Amras at Amon Ereb, and in the last years of the Age the scattered sons of Fëanor found shelter in their forests.

The coming of Men

In the year 310 of the Sun, Finrod, hunting east of Gelion with the sons of Fëanor, came at night on the fires of a strange people encamped beside the Thalos. These were the Men of Bëor, the first of the Edain to cross the mountains. Finrod stayed with them, learned their tongue and taught them, and the friendship of Elves and Men in Beleriand began in Ossiriand. The Green-elves would not have them, and within a year the newcomers went west; the houses of Haleth and Marach that followed passed through the land by the same road and likewise did not stay.

Beren and Lúthien

When Beren and Lúthien returned from the halls of Mandos, they did not go back to Doriath. They made their home on Tol Galen in the Adurant, and the Green-elves, who alone had dealings with them, called that part of the country Dor Firn-i-Guinar, the Land of the Dead that Live. Their son Dior was born there. After the Dwarves of Nogrod slew Thingol and sacked Menegroth, Beren came out of Ossiriand one last time with Dior and the Green-elves and destroyed the returning army at Sarn Athrad. The treasure of Doriath was sunk in the Ascar, and the Nauglamír with its Silmaril was brought back to Lúthien. When the two of them died, a messenger of the Green-elves carried the jewel to Dior in Menegroth.

The end of the Age

After the Nirnaeth Arnoediad and the ruin of the eastern realms, the surviving sons of Fëanor lived as wanderers in the woods beneath the mountains, and the Green-elves endured in their forests while the rest of Beleriand went under the Shadow. In the War of Wrath the land was broken with all the rest, but the eastern margin beneath the Blue Mountains survived above the waters. There the name Lindon remained, and Gil-galad, Círdan and the last Eldar of Beleriand made their home in the Second Age. The Green-elves who remained mingled with them, and some of their kin passed east to the woodland realms of the Silvan Elves.

Ossiriand ran from the Ascar in the north to the Adurant in the south, bounded by Gelion on the west and the Blue Mountains on the east; Mount Dolmed and the Dwarf-cities of Nogrod and Belegost stood in the mountains above its northern end. Beyond Gelion to the west lay East Beleriand and the hill of Amon Ereb; north of the Ascar lay Thargelion, the land of Caranthir. The Ascar was renamed Rathlóriel after the treasure of Doriath was drowned in it.