Mirkwood
There stood, in former times, a solitary tower upon a rock almost surrounded by the water...[4][5]William Morris used Mirkwood in his fantasy novels.
And from the beginning this clearing in the wood they called the Mid-mark...[7]A Mirkwood appears in several places in J. R. R. Tolkien's writings, among several forests that play important roles in his storytelling.
[6] Tolkien stated in a 1966 letter that he had not invented the name Mirkwood, but that it was "a very ancient name, weighted with legendary associations", and summarized its "Primitive Germanic" origins, its appearance in "very early German" and in Old English, Old Swedish, and Old Norse, and the survival of mirk (a variant of "murk") in modern English.
He wrote that "It seemed to me too good a fortune that Mirkwood remained intelligible (with exactly the right tone) in modern English to pass over: whether mirk is a Norse loan or a freshment of the obsolescent O.E.
"[T 3] He was familiar with Morris's The House of the Wolfings, naming the book as an influence (for instance on the Dead Marshes) in a 1960 letter.
[6][10] In The Hobbit, Bilbo Baggins, with Thorin Oakenshield and his band of Dwarves, attempt to cross Mirkwood during their quest to regain their mountain Erebor and its treasure from Smaug the dragon.
[T 14] The White Council flushes Sauron out of his forest tower at Dol Guldur, and as he flees to Mordor his influence in Mirkwood diminishes.
[T 16] The wizard Radagast lived at Rhosgobel on the western eaves of Mirkwood,[11] as depicted in the film The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey.
[12] Dol Guldur (Sindarin: "Hill of Sorcery")[T 17] was Sauron's stronghold in Mirkwood, before he returned to Barad-dûr in Mordor.
[T 22] 19th-century writers interested in philology, including the folklorist Jacob Grimm and the artist and fantasy writer William Morris, speculated romantically about the wild, primitive Northern forest, the Myrkviðr inn ókunni ("the pathless Mirkwood") and the secret roads across it, in the hope of reconstructing supposed ancient cultures.
[6] The Tolkien Encyclopedia remarks also that the Old English Beowulf mentions that the path between the worlds of men and monsters, from Hrothgar's hall to Grendel's lair, runs ofer myrcan mor (across a gloomy moor) and wynleasne wudu (a joyless wood).
[16] The Goths had lived in Ukraine until the attack by the Huns in the 370s, when they moved southwest and with the permission of the Emperor Valens settled in the Roman Empire.
[18] Tom Shippey noted that Norse legend yields two placenames which would place the Myrkviðr in the borderlands between the Goths and the Huns of the 4th century.
The Hervarar saga also mentions Harvaða fjöllum, "the Harvad fells", which by Grimm's Law would be *Karpat, the Carpathian Mountains,[14][19] an identification on which most scholars have long agreed.
[23] Tolkien's forests were the subject of a programme on BBC Radio 3, with Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough and the folk singer Mark Atherton.
Several enemies are listed, including Spider Queens,[32] Castellans of Dol Guldur, Sauron the Necromancer, Wild Warg Chieftain, and their respective armies.
[37] Howe created many drawings for Peter Jackson during the filming of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, worked for Tolkien Enterprises, and drew for Iron Crown Enterprises' collectable Middle-earth card game, which mentions Dol Guldur on Gandalf's card.
In Peter Jackson's 2012-2014 film trilogy adaptation of The Hobbit, Dol Guldur is depicted as a massive overgrown castle in ruins.
According to Alan Lee and John Howe, the concept artists, this was used to give the impression that the fortress had been built by Númenóreans during the Second Age, only to fall into ruin when Númenór's power waned.
