Lindon Geography Question

[michael.harrel]

Can anyone help me identify this river? It seems to be in the same place as the river Gelion from the First Age, but I can't seem to find any (canonical) source for it beyond the War of Wrath. The Elven anchorage of Forlond seems to be located at its mouth.

[ThrorII]

I don't remember that Tolkien named it officially in any of his sources. Karen Fondstad did not name it either in her book. ICE called it the Gelion in their MERP maps.

[zedturtle]

Otaku-sempai named it The Linduin aka The Singing River, in the map I was doing for him. Not at all official (in any sense of the word), of course.

[Otaku-sempai]

The unnamed river does not completely match up with the Greater Gelion which had its source in Lake Helevorn and in the hills north of Mount Rerir. The source of the river that feeds into the harbor of Forlond is about fifty miles or so to the south, between the sites of Rerir and Mound Dolmed. It might have been called the Gelion in memory of the First-Age river (this is what was done for MERP) or the Elves of Lindon might have given it its own name; Tolkien never specified. For my own purposes, I have dubbed it the Linduin (Singing River). Before that, I was calling it the River Forlond.

I also came up with a name for the river that feeds into the R. Lune from the Twilight Hills, calling it the Siruial (River Twilight). Again, this is my own invention and is not official.

[michael.harrel]

That....is an amazing looking map. Makes my own efforts look like chicken scratches.

I'm leaning toward using Gelion, because my players may have that in in their minds from MERP, but Linduin is very good, as is Siruial. I may swipe the latter at least for my Fourth Age map, if that's all right.

[zedturtle]

That....is an amazing looking map. Makes my own efforts look like chicken scratches.

*Doffs hat.* Your maps are good, and cover a different time and space than mine. It's all good.

[Otaku-sempai]

I'm leaning toward using Gelion, because my players may have that in in their minds from MERP, but Linduin is very good, as is Siruial. I may swipe the latter at least for my Fourth Age map, if that's all right.

Feel free to borrow either or both. I didn't want to use Gelion, partially because I was minimizing direct references to The SIlmarillion and partially because the old First-Age rivers of Lindon and Western Eriador were pretty-much wiped out during the sinking of Beleriand.

[Tolwen]

I'm leaning toward using Gelion, because my players may have that in in their minds from MERP, but Linduin is very good, as is Siruial. I may swipe the latter at least for my Fourth Age map, if that's all right.

It is entirely possible that it is indeed the "old" Gelion - or what is left of it. As you have noticed, it lies in the same general area and follows a roughly similar course. The upheavals following the War of Wrath and later the sinking of Númenor caused great devastation along the (north)western coasts and it is not at all unreasonable that the course of the river was changed by these events as well. This might also have caused a change in its appellation of course
Fo a direct comparison (on a great scale) of the area in the First, Second and Third Ages you might also check out the maps in Other Minds, Issue 2.

Cheers
Tolwen

[Otaku-sempai]

It is entirely possible that it is indeed the "old" Gelion - or what is left of it. As you have noticed, it lies in the same general area and follows a roughly similar course. The upheavals following the War of Wrath and later the sinking of Númenor caused great devastation along the (north)western coasts and it is not at all unreasonable that the course of the river was changed by these events as well. This might also have caused a change in its appellation of course

Cheers
Tolwen

That's a perfectly reasonable interpretation, Tolwen. Question, were the Elves of Lindon and the Grey Havens in the Third Age exclusively (or almost exclusively) Sindar? Or might some remnant of Gil-galad's followers (presumably Noldor) remain?

[Tolwen]

Question, were the Elves of Lindon and the Grey Havens in the Third Age exclusively (or almost exclusively) Sindar? Or might some remnant of Gil-galad's followers (presumably Noldor) remain?

That's not easy to answer. Off the top of my head I remember a note in UT that the Elves of Harlindon (=the part south of the Lune) were largely of Sindarin origin. Nothing else is said about the rest, but this stressing of a dominating Sindarin population in Harlindon might imply a more Noldor-dominated elvish population in Forlindon.
Whatever the case, the most important feature of the elvish population of Lindon in the Third Age is its constant dwindling and therefore a steady negative population dynamic. Over the course of the Third Age more and more Elves of Lindon leave Middle-earth for Eressëa.

So in an early or mid-TA setting, you are certain to have a much higher total number (and proportion of Noldor) of Elves in Lindon than in the TOR era. In the latter timeframe, it is conceivable that only the Mithlond area still contains a noteworthy population, with all other settlements abandoned already. Compare this to the end of the second millenium TA, when there were still at least two sizeable harbours more in operation as Gondor's expeditionary forces landed in Lindon to aid Arthedain against Angmar.

EDIT: Pengolodh, the elvish loremaster whom Tolkien used in many of the texts in the later HoME (and who supposedly compiled the many of lore available to us) is said to have lingered long in Middle-earth, but at the final arising of Sauron in TA 2951 he finally gave in to his fears and departed for the Undying Lands. This is a convenient date to place the last big exodus wave of Elves from Lindon who finally departed and left Círdan with only a small population remnant for the next seven decades until the war of the Ring.

Cheers
Tolwen