Estolad

The Encampment

Estolad lay in East Beleriand between the river Celon on the west and the Gelion on the east, south of Nan Elmoth and north of the wide woods that stretched toward Amon Ereb. It was an open, unclaimed land, well within the marches guarded by the sons of Fëanor but far from any Elven dwelling.

When Finrod found the people of Bëor in Ossiriand, the Green-elves would not let them stay, and Finrod led them west over Gelion into this country. The name means the Encampment, and it was here that the first of the Edain made their homes in Beleriand. The Haladin followed a year later and settled further north in Thargelion, and the great host of Marach crossed the mountains a year after that and camped south and east of Bëor's folk. Finrod took Bëor into his service and the Elven-kings became the lords of Men.

Debates and departures

Estolad was the scene of the first stirrings of discontent among Men. Some, led by Bereg of the house of Bëor and by Amlach, a grandson of Marach, argued that Men had come west to escape the Shadow, not to fight in the wars of the Elves, and that the Valar and Morgoth alike were nothing to them. Morgoth's agents fostered this, and one appeared in Amlach's likeness to speak against the Elves; when the real Amlach learned of it he went to Maedhros in anger and served him thereafter. Bereg led a thousand people back over the mountains and out of the story. Those who wished to serve the Eldar moved on in the following generations: the Bëorians to Dorthonion, the people of Marach to Dor-lómin. But many Men stayed on in Estolad, and there were still folk there when the land was drowned, their descendants mingled with the later Easterlings who came through the same country. In the Nirnaeth, their choice for or against the Elves was among the matters that decided the day.