Places in Middle-earth
Limlight
Type: Rivers & Lakes
Region: Rhovanion/Misty Mtns
Other Names In Unfinished Tales, Christopher Tolkien discussed the evolution of the name:
The name of the river Limlight is perplexed. There are two versions of the text and note at this point, from one of which it seems that the Sindarin name was Limlich, adapted in the language of Rohan as Limliht ("modernized" as Limlight). In the other (later) version, Limlich is emended, puzzlingly, to Limliht in the text, so that this becomes the Sindarin form. Elsewhere (p.294) the Sindarin name of this river is given as Limlaith. In view of this uncertainty I have given Limlight in the text. Whatever the original Sindarin name may have been, it is at least clear that the Rohan form was an alteration of it and not a translation, and that its meaning was not known (although in a note written much earlier than any of the foregoing the name Limlight is said to be a partial translation of Elvish Limlint "swift-light").
Unfinished Tales, Part 3, Ch II, Cirion and Eorl and the Friendship of Gondor and Rohan, Note 46
Location: Beginning in the Fangorn Forest, the river flowed east until it met the River Anduin at the field of Celebrant.
Description: At the height of Gondor's power the Limlight was the northern border of that land.
"In later days Gondor built a bridge over the upper Limlight, and often occupied the narrow land between the lower Limlight and Anduin as part of its eastern fences..."
Unfinished Tales, Part 2, Ch IV, The History of Galadriel and Celeborn, Appendix C, 'The Boundaries Of Lórien'
By the time of the Ring War, the river was Rohan's northern boundary east of Fangorn.
Contributors: Moriel 5.16.03, information on name added, Lyllyn 2.19.04