Mount Dolmed

The mountain of the Dwarf-road

Mount Dolmed was the tallest peak in the middle stretch of the Blue Mountains and the landmark of the whole eastern border of Beleriand. The two Dwarf-cities lay on either side of it, Belegost to the north and Nogrod to the south, and between them the Dwarf-road climbed to a pass beneath the mountain's shoulder and descended westward along the river Ascar into Ossiriand. Its name meant Wet Head, for its summit gathered the clouds that came in from the sea and the streams of the eastern rivers were fed from its slopes. Every Dwarf who came to trade with the Sindar or the sons of Fëanor, and every host they sent to war, passed under Dolmed. Long before, in the Years of the Trees, the Dwarves' road had also been the way by which the Nandor of Denethor descended into the land.

The end of the road

Dolmed's place in the tales comes at the very end of the Elder Days. When the army of Nogrod had sacked Menegroth and been broken at Sarn Athrad by Beren and the Green-elves, the survivors fled up the road toward home. Beneath Mount Dolmed they were met by the Shepherds of the Trees, the Ents, whom the tales say drove the Dwarves into the shadow of the woods so that none came back to Nogrod. This was the one recorded intervention of the Ents in the wars of Beleriand, and it was the last journey ever made by an army on the Dwarf-road. In the War of Wrath the Blue Mountains were rent and the sea broke in; Dolmed is not named again, though the southern part of the range still stood in later ages above the Gulf of Lune.