Minor Places in Beleriand - B

B

Barad Eithel

The fortress of Fingolfin. It is located in the mountainous eastern foothills of the Ered Wethrin, at the source of the River Sirion.

Barad Nimras

A tower built by Finrod, on the Falas between the havens of Brithombar and Eglarest. It was built to keep watch, should Morgoth try to assail them from the sea.

Bay of Balar

An ocean inlet of the Belegaer south of Beleriand, fed by the River Sirion. It was presumably created in the cataclysms that accompanied the struggles of the Valar with Morgoth long before recorded history. The Isle of Balar was a large island in the bay.

The name refers to the Valar (and Maiar), especially Ossë, who was associated with continental shelf areas.

Belegost

One of two Dwarven cities in the Ered Luin, lying to the north of its neighbouring dwarven city Nogrod. It was the home of the Dwarven people known as Broadbeams. Both clans were early trading partners of the Sindar in Beleriand. Belegost translates from Sindarin as "Great Fortress". The dwarves called it by its Khuzdul name, Gabilgathol of unknown meaning, and although Tolkien used Mickleburg as an Anglicization of the Westron form of the name, this would clearly have been retrospective translation of the Sindarin name, as Westron, 'the common speech', did not begin to develop until centuries after Belegost's destruction.

Belegost's only named king, Azaghâl, lived in the First Age, and forged a firm alliance with the Noldorin Prince Maedhros after the latter rescued him from an orc ambush. Towards the end of the Nírnaeth Arnoediad, Azaghâl was killed in combat with Glaurung, the Father of Dragons, but his attack wounded it so badly that Azaghâl's debt to Maedhros was repaid: the remaining Noldor were able to escape from certain destruction when the wounded Glaurung fled the field along with all his brood.

In the years after the battle, the surviving Dwarves of the Mickleburg did not join the Dwarves of Nogrod in the Sack of Menegroth, and actually attempted to dissuade their friends from it. They thus saved themselves from the calamity of destruction inflicted upon the host of Nogrod by the Green-elves and the Ents, but even so, the emigration of many Broadbeams from their ancestral home become necessary shortly thereafter following the War of Wrath, wherein Belegost was 'ruined' when the Blue Mountains were shrunk and broken at that time.

Even after the War of Wrath, relations between the remaining dwarfs of the Ered Luin and the Eldar who remained to establish Lindon - successor to all the destroyed Eldar Kingdoms of Beleriand - began at a low ebb due to the calamitous war between Doriath and Nogrod. During the early decades of the Second Age, "The Dwarves of Belegost were filled with dismay at the calamity and fear for its outcome, and this hastened their departure eastwards...".

Although a great many Dwarves did indeed emigrate across Eriador some forty years after the war to join with Durin's folk in Khazad-dûm, the mountains and flatlands north and west of the Little Lhûn remained Dwarf country. It seems likely that those who lived there stayed politically independent from Khazad-dûm, despite presumably much reduced circumstances: the seven Rings of Power given to seven Dwarf-lords during the Second Age for example, are analogous with the dwarfs' seven clans, amongst whom the Firebeards and Broadbeams are numbered.

Additionally, one of Tolkien's earlier maps, as shown by Christopher Tolkien in The Treason of Isengard (and also echoed in Karen Wynn Fonstad's Atlas of Middle-earth) still shows Belegost in the Ered Luin in the time of the Third Age, indicating that Belegost may have survived the upheavals of the Second and early Third Ages, or that at least a more recognizable mansion had persisted therein than at Nogrod.

Brethil

A cluster of woods bordering Dorthonion, which was probably originally part of Doriath. It was to Brethil that the House of Haleth removed after dwelling east of the river Gelion. Some Drúedain also dwelt there.

The main feature of the forest was the hill of Amon Obel, upon which stood Ephel Brandir, the main settlement of the Haladin. The river Taeglin crossed the forest.

Brithiach

The only ford over Sirion south of the Fens of Serech. The road from Nan Dungortheb and Dimbar crossed Sirion by this ford just to the north of the Forest of Brethil.