Goblins of the Misty Mountains

Origins and homeland

When Angband fell at the end of the First Age the surviving Orcs fled east and north, and many made their homes in the Misty Mountains. Their chief stronghold was Mount Gundabad at the northern end of the range, the very place where Durin had awakened, which the Dwarves never forgave. From Gundabad they spread south, delving Goblin-town beneath the High Pass, holding Mount Gram in the north-west, and, after the Dwarves fled Khazad-dûm in T.A. 1981, occupying Moria itself. They were tolerated and encouraged by the Witch-king of Angmar, whose war on Arnor they aided, and by Sauron in Dol Guldur.

Nature

The northern goblins were on the whole smaller than the Uruks of Mordor and Isengard, bow-legged and long-armed, and utterly averse to the sun. They were superb tunnellers and worked in numbers, made crude weapons and cruel devices, and rode the great wolves, the Wargs, with whom they had a standing alliance. Their tunnels under the High Pass were so extensive that Bilbo's party, taking shelter in a cave, were carried off through a hidden door into Goblin-town without ever being seen on the mountainside.

Wars with the Dwarves

Their long feud with the Longbeards came to a head in 2790 when Azog, the Orc-chief of Moria, murdered Thrór and threw his mutilated body on the steps of the East-gate. In the War of the Dwarves and Orcs that followed, the united Dwarf-host cleared every Orc-hold from Gundabad to the Gladden, and at Azanulbizar in 2799 destroyed the Orcs of the mountains in open battle, Azog falling to Dáin Ironfoot. Those who survived fled into the deep places or south into the White Mountains, and Rohan and Gondor were troubled by them for a generation.

The Hobbit and the Battle of Five Armies

By 2941 the goblins had recovered. The Great Goblin ruled Goblin-town when Thorin's company came through the High Pass; Gandalf killed him with Glamdring, and the escape of the Dwarves, with the death of their king and the discovery that the ancient Elf-swords were abroad again, roused the whole North. Bolg son of Azog gathered the goblins of Gundabad and the wolves of the mountains, and in the aftermath of Smaug's death marched on Erebor. The Battle of Five Armies destroyed his army: Elves, Men and Dwarves held the spurs of the Mountain, the Eagles fell on the goblins, and Beorn killed Bolg. Three quarters of the goblin warriors of the North died, and for many years the mountains were quiet.

In the War of the Ring

Orcs of Moria, led by a great chieftain, attacked the Fellowship in the Chamber of Mazarbul and drove them to the Bridge of Khazad-dûm, where the Balrog came. Goblins of Moria pursued them to Lothlórien and were destroyed by the Elves, and Northern Orcs marched with Uglúk's Uruk-hai from Amon Hen and were slaughtered with them. In the last years of the Third Age Sauron drew on the goblins of the North to threaten Lórien and the Woodland Realm.

Fate

After the fall of Sauron the goblins of the mountains were reduced to robber-bands. Dwarves, Beornings and Rangers hunted them, and the tale of Moria in the Fourth Age suggests that even that den was in time cleansed.

Smaller than the Uruks, the goblins of the North were long-armed, bow-legged, swart-skinned, big-headed and sharp-toothed, with wide flat faces and eyes that saw far in the dark. Their size varied: the Great Goblin was huge, and the largest of them approached the height of a Man. Sunlight weakened and confused them, and they never marched in daylight if they could help it.

Goblin-town shows their way of life: a huge cavern lit by a red fire, a chieftain on a stone throne surrounded by armed guards, prisoners driven with whips, and a cruel mocking song sung while they worked. They were skilled at engines and instruments of torture, mining and tunnelling, and made weapons enough to arm their hosts. Their alliance with the Wargs, with whom they shared raids and a rough understanding, was their most distinctive custom; goblin wolf-riders scoured the vales of Anduin. They hated Dwarves with special ferocity and feared the Elf-blades of Gondolin, which they knew by name.

Descended from the Orcs of Angband that escaped the War of Wrath and multiplied in the northern mountains through the Second and Third Ages, strengthened at times by Sauron and the Witch-king.

Reduced to remnants by Azanulbizar and Five Armies, and left masterless by the fall of Sauron, the goblins of the Misty Mountains dwindled to scattered bands in the Fourth Age.