The Ruins at the end of the Forest road?

For all of the Talk that doesn't fit elsewhere.

Moderators: caedmon, Greg

Post Reply
User avatar
Darnokthemage
Silent Watcher over the Peaceful Lands
Posts: 144
Joined: Wed Feb 14, 2018 9:02 pm

The Ruins at the end of the Forest road?

Post by Darnokthemage »

The forest road ends at quite a weird place, instead of ending at Dale or Erebor, it simply stops at the River Running, with no mention or even hint at a port. Or is there? I was reading an old article about the Hobbit folk tale of the Mewlips. It proposed that the location of the mewlips was at the end of the forest road, in the marshes of the eastern Mirkwood.
"...To knock upon their door,
While down the grinning gargoyles stare
And noisome waters pour..."
Gargoyles?! In middle earth?! This may be later Hobbit enbelishment, but would it not make sense that the cellars of old Merchant houaes were decorated? Especially if there are Dwarves around?
"...The shadows where the Mewlips dwell
Are dark and wet as ink,
And slow and softly rings their bell,
As in the slime you sink..."
Bells, just like in Dale...
"...The cellars where the Mewlips sit
Are deep and dank and cold
With single sickly candle lit;
And there they count their gold.

Their walls are wet, their ceilings drip;
Their feet upon the floor
Go softly with a squish-flap-flip,
As they sidle to the door..."
Cellars... Bells and gold? Does this not sound more and more like the tombs of rich lords, or perhaps the celalrs of rich merchants, trading up and downstreams with Dale and Esgaroth? There is mention of there being an older town before Lake-Town that was greater, perhaps these ruins are from that time too?

I think it does, maybe this is a long lost trading post and port at the end of the Old Forest Road? What do you think? Perhaps its an old town of Vidugavias Rhovanion? Or one of the ones that survived the invasion of the wainriders?
"Through the spider-shadows and the marsh of Tode,..."
The Marsh of Tode might be the name of the marshes south of Laketown and along the River Running. Anyone have any etomological ideas around it?
Maybe it is from the same language that spawned Esgaroth and Girion.
Maybe the name was Todeoth, from Esgaroth (which likely means strand-burg, or reedlake, or even reedlake-burg.) the burg at the marshes of Tude.
Other article exploring the idea of a town at the end of the old forest road: https://middle-earth.xenite.org/where-d ... d-lead-to/


Article; https://web.archive.org/web/20140204170 ... wlips.html
Artist, larper and history lover.
Post Reply