Lake Helevorn

The black lake

Helevorn lay at the northern end of Thargelion, in the shadow of Mount Rerir, the great outlier of the Blue Mountains from whose slopes the Little Gelion rose. The lake was deep and still, and its name, Black Glass, described its surface, which reflected the dark of the mountain above it. It was the coldest and most remote of the dwelling-places of the Noldor in Beleriand.

Caranthir, when the sons of Fëanor spread across the eastern marches, made his chief dwelling on the shore of the lake and fortified the hillsides about it. From there he watched the mountain passes that led north and east around the Ered Luin, the way by which Morgoth's forces might come at Beleriand from behind, and controlled the road down which the Dwarves of Nogrod and Belegost travelled to trade. His wealth was great and his people numerous. It was to Helevorn that word came of the siege of the Haladin in the south of his land, and from it that his riders went to break it.

In the Dagor Bragollach Glaurung came through Maglor's Gap with a host of orcs and turned east. The stronghold on Helevorn was stormed and the lake polluted by the passage of the dragon and his army; Caranthir escaped with those he could gather and fled south to Amon Ereb. The lake and Mount Rerir went under the sea in the drowning of Beleriand, though the Blue Mountains beyond survived.