Timeline Event
Undying Lands removed from Arda in the Downfall of Númenor (estimated date)
Event Type: Environment/Disease
Age: Akallabêth/Last Alliance
Date: May 9, 3319
Description:
An event in the Downfall of Númenor; see that entry for an overview:
Númenor was thrown down and swallowed in the Sea, and the Undying Lands were removed for ever from the circles of the world.
The Return of the King, LoTR Appendix A, Annals of the Kings and Rulers: Númenor
... Ilúvatar showed forth his power, and he changed the fashion of the world ...
But the land of Aman and Eressëa of the Eldar were taken away and removed beyond the reach of Men for ever. ... For Ilúvatar cast back the Great Seas...; and the world was diminished, for Valinor and Eressëa were taken from it into the realm of hidden things.
The Silmarillion, Akallabêth
For the Dúnedain ... longed ever to escape from the shadows of their exile and to see in some fashion the light that dies not; for the sorrow of the thought of death had pursued them over the deeps of the sea. Thus it was that great mariners among them would still search the empty seas, hoping to come upon the Isle of Meneltarma, and there to see a vision of things that were. But they found it not. And those that sailed far came only to the new lands, and found them like to the old lands, and subject to death. And those that sailed furthest set but a girdle about the Earth and returned weary at last to the place of their beginning; and they said:
'All roads are now bent.'
Thus in after days, what by the voyages of ships, what by lore and star-craft, the kings of Men knew that the world was indeed made round, and yet the Eldar were permitted still to depart and to come to the Ancient West and to Avallónë, if they would. Therefore the loremasters of Men said that a Straight Road must still be, for those that were permitted to find it. And they taught that, while the new world fell away, the old road ... still went on, as it were a mighty bridge invisible that passed through the air of breath and of flight (which were bent now as the world was bent), and traversed Ilmen which flesh unaided cannot endure, until it came to Tol Eressëa, the Lonely Isle, and maybe even beyond, to Valinor, where the Valar still dwell and watch the unfolding of the story of the world.
The Silmarillion, Akallabêth
The only Stone left in the North was the one in the Tower on Emyn Beraid ... But we are told it was unlike the others and not in accord with them; it looked only to the Sea. Elendil set it there so that he could look back with 'straight sight' and see Eressëa in the vanished West; but the bent seas below covered Númenor for ever.
The Return of the King, LoTR Appendix A, Annals of the Kings and Rulers: Eriador, Arnor, and the Heirs of Isildur
[Note: the year is canon, but the date is an estimate, set to follow the estimated date of the sailing of the Great Armament by thirty-nine days.]
Contributors:
Elena Tiriel 6Dec05
