What...If you need to, you can look at a map in the Silm. Or maybe I don't understand your question.

Besides topographically middle earth wouldn't really be similiar to the first age. Because in the first age melkor kept sabotaging the works of the other valar and ainur (sp?). Also there weren't orcs and men in the first age... I believe. At least they weren't as dominant, with the recession of the elves. I do need to reread the Silm, and I guess I could suggest the same for you.

Hope I could help...But I probably didn't.

With the exception of the immediate environs of Orodruin (which feature prominently in a short story I thought I could never share, but get to write now that i can post it here) I don't thing Middle-Earth changes significantly at the end of the Third Age. It might have changed more after the drowning of Numenor. So the location of Beleriand is unchanged: largely submerged.

In the War of Wrath the forces of both sides were so fierce that the whole Beleriand got drowned. Read the Silmarillion carefully, it should be in the war of wrath section, something about the "sea running through many chasms in the earth" and stuff. Anyways, Beleriand sunk beneath the sea. But Beleriand was always on the west side of Middle-Earth. And you'll notice on the maps at the back of the Sil. and LOTR they have one thing in common : the blue mountains at the easternmost of Beleriand and the blue mountains at the northwestern of ME. So, in comparision to Gondor, Bekeriand would be on the west or northwest side.

check out here for a reconstitution of Beleriand

Not quite sure it is reliable - but seems quite correct.

Apart from that I'm new here - so hello to everybody.

Hi Eädollon, welcome to our happy family.

That map is okay except I think it is bent too far to the northwest once it gets west of the Gulf of Lune. This is probably due to the curature of Arda and projecting a curved map onto a flat page.

However now that I've looked at it I guess it depend where you put the Gulf of Lune. I figured it lies between the two Cities of the Dwarves, putting them both under water. And then I figured that Nargothrond was at about the same latitude as the Grey Havens. Of course I'm probably wrong on all this. We do have Himling as a common point on both maps which should help.

Here is another map Beleriand+Eriador.

Quite good IMO.

Interesting to notice Tol Morween as a reference point - which I think (?) is the location of Turin Turambar' grave. Also a pace called Gondobar which I believe is the not far from Gondolin

According to that map, it seems Tol Galen did not sink beneath the waves. Just as I had expected and hoped.

Although since it is not mentioned, it seems that one of the arms of Adurant enveloping the island, dried up. Alas!

I'll stick to JRR Tolkien-approved maps in any case (no Tol Fuin or Himling, no Tol Gondobar...). Or entertain Christopher Tolkien-approved maps that are well based on his father's text (or his father's maps).

As for maps 'on the interweb' made by 'someone'... well, who knows!

We have been through this before however... those sources for Tol Fuin and Himling are dated generally about the same time as the mention of Gondobar above.

And I said JRR Tolkien-approved maps (meaning for publication) in any case, none of which indeed include Tol Fuin or 'Himling'.

The 'Himling text' and the early map drawn by JRRT appear to date about 1940, when Tolkien had yet to finish writing even The Fellowship of the Ring and his ideas about the survival of Beleriand appear to be fluid.

Note the date for 'Gondobar'

You can quote Christopher as you like, and I'm well aware of his statements, but JRRT did not include Himling even in the revised map drawn by Pauline Baynes (regarding which Tolkien himself did add details).

The textual disparity is clear here however.



More specifically, as later HME volumes reveal, Christopher Tolkien is actually describing what was 'true' in 1940, but he does not explain why these details weren't published in the 50s or 60s (by Tolkien or his publishers), nor explain that he knew (somehow) that his father 'still' wanted the details published in the late Baynes map for example (but yet did not advise her to add them). Maybe JRRT 'forgot' but Christopher doesn't even claim this much.

Christopher neglects (at least here in the Unfinished Tales explanation) to mention the detail that according to Treebeard's chant, at least, Dorthonion was under water (Tol Fuin is a fairly large Isle on the map). I should add that Christopher does not actually certainly state that Himling should now go on to 'silently' take its place in new editions of The Lord of the Rings

If anyone wants to imagine Himring as an Isle I'm not going to say he or she can't (I'm a Maedros fan in any case)... but what I will say is that an unpublished text or map from 1940 has no textual parity with maps published in Tolkien's day.

Good question

Grey-elven Gondolin interpreted as 'Hidden Rock' and Ondolinde 'Rock of the Music of Water' (High-elven) are noted. The later Fall of Gondolin (in Unfinished Tales) was at least written after The Lord of the Rings was completed, but it seemingly never gets far enough to give us the 'updated' actual names!



Early names from The Book of Lost Tales are noted too:
1) Gondolin 'Stone of Song'
2) Gondobar (in the Gnomish Lexicon 'Gonthobar') 'City of Stone'
3) Gondothlimbar 'City of the Dwellers in Stone'
4) Gwarestrin 'Tower of Guard' ('Watchtower')
5) Gar Thurion 'Secret Place'
6) Loth 'Flower'
7) Lothengriol 'Flower that blooms on the plain'

There exist the variants: Gar Furion, Lôs 'a flower and in Eldarissa losse which is a rose (all after the word flower struck through)' and Lósengriol 'flower of the Vale or lily of the valley'.

Later than The Book of Lost Tales, in Etymologies one finds: Gondobar, or for example 'Another name of Gondolin Gondost...' or '... Garthurian = fenced Realm = N Ardholen (which was also applied to Gondolin)' or 'cf. Garth(th)oren 'fenced fort' = Gondolin - distinguish Ardh-thoren = Garthurian.'

There's also Loth-a-ladwen 'Lily of the Plain' said (back in HME III) to have replaced Lothengriol (see 'Poems Early Abandoned' and the footnote concerning this form)

There's probably more that could be posted on this. From these we might guess at a list of updated names at least (while considering that JRRT had come to be working in Sindarin or Grey-elven too, as opposed to the very early Gnomish language).

Probably a stupid idea - but I wonder if figure 7 has some special/hidden signification with respect to Gondolin : Gondolin has 7 names, 7 gates

I just thought - which map are you refering to Galin that doesn't have Himling on it?

My Copy of The Lord of the Rings has about 5 maps in the back and Himling is listed on the one which shows Eriador and the lands west of Middle-earth.

I believe the maps in the back of the Harper Collins Paperback editions (black in colour) are created whilst Tolkien was alive. And they contain Himling.