Places in Middle-earth
Dimholt, The
Type: Forests, Fields, Plains
Region: Rohan
Meaning: gloomy wood
Location: The dark conifer forest between the refuge of Dunharrow and the foot of the Dwimorberg mountain; the path to the Gate of the Dead runs through it.
Description: 'But as for the Paths of the Dead, you have yourself walked on their first steps. ... The road that we have climbed is the approach to the Door, yonder in the Dimholt. But what lies beyond no man knows.'
The Return of the King, LoTR Book 5, Ch 3, The Muster of Rohan
... there faced the riders, the grim black wall of the Dwimorberg, the Haunted Mountain rising out of steep slopes of sombre pines. Dividing the upland into two there marched a double line of unshaped standing stones that dwindled into the dusk and vanished in the trees. Those who dared to follow that road came soon to the black Dimholt under Dwimorberg....
The Return of the King, LoTR Book 5, Ch 3, The Muster of Rohan
The light was still grey as they rode, for the sun had not yet climbed over the black ridges of the Haunted Mountain before them. A dread fell on them, even as they passed between the lines of ancient stones and so came to the Dimholt. There under the gloom of black trees that not even Legolas could long endure they found a hollow place opening at the mountain's root, and right in their path stood a single mighty stone like a finger of doom.
'My blood runs chill,' said Gimli, but the others were silent, and his voice fell dead on the dank fir-needles at his feet. ... And so they came at last deep into the glen; and there stood a sheer wall of rock, and in the wall the Dark Door gaped before them like the mouth of night.
The Return of the King, LoTR Book 5, Ch 2, The Passing of the Grey Company
Etymology
... The ancient word mbar (Quenya mar, Sindarin bar) meant the 'home' both of persons and of peoples, and thus appears in many place-names, as ... Dimbar (the first element of which means 'sad, gloomy')....
The Silmarillion, Appendix: Elements in Quenya and Sindarin Names
... Firienholt -- a word recorded in Anglo-Saxon poetry (firgenholt) -- means ... "mountain wood."
Unfinished Tales, Part 3, Ch 2, Cirion and Eorl and the Friendship of Gondor and Rohan: Notes, Note 48
... The g in the Anglo-Saxon word firgen "mountain" came to be pronounced as a modern y.
Unfinished Tales, Part 3, Ch 2, Cirion and Eorl and the Friendship of Gondor and Rohan: Notes, Note 33
Contributors: Elena Tiriel 2Feb05
