East Beleriand

The wide lands

East Beleriand was the largest and emptiest part of Beleriand, stretching from the river Sirion to the Gelion and from the northern marches down to the coast. It was divided across its middle by the Andram, the Long Wall, a line of hills running east from the gorge of Narog past the Falls of Sirion to Ramdal, the Wall's End, where the hills sank into the plain a little west of the lonely hill of Amon Ereb. North of the Andram the country was open: the plain of Estolad south of Nan Elmoth where Men first settled, the lands of Himlad and Thargelion toward the marches, and the long ride of empty grass between the Aros and the Gelion that the riders of the sons of Fëanor patrolled. South of the Andram lay Taur-im-Duinath, the forest between the rivers, a tangled wilderness stretching down to the sea in which few Elves and no Men ever lived, so that all that country was outside the tales.

Who held it

Thingol claimed all Beleriand, but in practice East Beleriand was the domain of the sons of Fëanor, who had the land east of the Aros and north of the Andram from the day Maedhros took his people to Himring. Amrod and Amras, the huntsmen, ranged the southern woods and later held Amon Ereb; Caranthir ruled Thargelion; the Dwarf-road crossed the whole region from Sarn Athrad to the fords of Aros. The Green-elves of Ossiriand lived across Gelion on its eastern edge and had dealings with the Fëanorians, and Bëor's people and the folk of Marach lived for a time in Estolad before moving to the north-western realms.

Wars and ruin

The Dagor Bragollach broke the north-eastern defences and drove Caranthir and the twins south to Amon Ereb, where with Green-elven help they kept a watch. After the Nirnaeth Arnoediad the sons of Fëanor lost all their strongholds and lived as wanderers in the woods of the east and south. It was from those woods that they came to attack Doriath and later the Havens of Sirion, and there that Maedhros and Maglor remained, the last free lords in Beleriand, until the host of the Valar landed. In the War of Wrath the whole region was broken and drowned, and only a fragment of its eastern rim beneath the Blue Mountains survived as part of Lindon.