Eglarest

The haven on the Nenning

Eglarest stood where the river Nenning met the Sea, on the coast of the Falas south of its sister haven Brithombar. It was one of the two towns of the Falathrim, the Elves of the shore who had stayed behind for love of the Sea when the Teleri sailed to Aman, and its name recalled the Eglath, the Forsaken, as those who remained called themselves. From the first it was a harbour: the quays of Círdan's ships and the workshops of his shipwrights lay at the river's mouth, and the town grew up around them. On the cape to the west of the town Finrod raised Barad Nimras, the white tower that watched the Sea for an attack that never came from that side.

Siege and rebuilding

When the orcs of Morgoth first poured into Beleriand, before the rising of the Sun, the Falathrim were cut off from Doriath and shut inside Eglarest and Brithombar. The havens held, and the arrival of Fëanor's host in the north drew the enemy away. In the years of peace that followed, the Noldor lent their skill, and Eglarest was rebuilt with strong walls and a fortified harbour. Through the four and a half centuries of the Siege it was a place of trade and shipcraft, and from it Círdan's mariners sailed the whole coast. When the Siege broke, Gil-galad was sent there for safety, and the ships that Turgon sent west were built with the help of its craftsmen.

The fall

In the year after the Nirnaeth Arnoediad Morgoth's army marched through the west of Beleriand, laid siege to both havens and took them by storm. Eglarest was sacked and its people slain or led into captivity, except those whom Círdan carried away by sea to the Isle of Balar. The walls were thrown down and the town left desolate, and it went under the Sea in the breaking of Beleriand.