Places in Middle-earth
Narog
Type: Rivers & Lakes
Region: Beleriand & North
Meaning: torrent
Location: The main river of West Beleriand; arises at Ivrin in the Ered Wethrin; joins the Sirion in Nan-tathren.
Description:
[The] River Narog rose in the falls of Ivrin in the southern face of Dor-lómin, and flowed some eighty leagues 1 ere he joined Sirion in Nan-tathren, the Land of Willows.
West Beleriand, showing the River Narog.
The Silmarillion, Quenta Silmarillion, Ch 14, Of Beleriand and its Realms
And following Sirion from north to south there lay upon the right hand in West Beleriand the Forest of Brethil between Sirion and Teiglin, and then the realm of Nargothrond, between Teiglin and Narog.
Ibid.
But south of Aelin-uial the land fell suddenly and steeply; and all the lower fields of Sirion were divided from the upper fields by this fall, which to one looking from the south northward appeared as an endless chain of hills running from Eglarest beyond Narog in the west to Amon Ereb in the east.... Narog came through these hills in a deep gorge, and flowed over rapids that had no fall, and on its western bank the land rose into the great wooded highlands of Taur-en-Faroth. On the west side of this gorge, where the short and foaming stream Ringwil tumbled headlong into Narog from the High Faroth, Finrod established Nargothrond. But some twenty-five leagues east of the gorge of Nargothrond Sirion fell from the north in a mighty fall below the Meres....
Ibid.
On Ivrin's lake is endless laughter.
o! cool and clear by crystal fountains
she is fed unfailing....
... Here Narog's waters
(that in tongue of the Gnomes is 'torrent' naméd)
are born, and blithely boulders leaping
o'er the bents bounding with broken foam
swirl down southward to the secret halls
of Nargothrond by the Gnomes builded
that death and thraldom in the dreadful throes
of Nirnaith Ornoth, a number scanty,
escaped unscathed. Thence skirting wild
the Hills of the Hunters, the home of Beren
and the Dancer of Doriath daughter of Thingol,
it winds and wanders ere the willowy meads,
Nan-tathren's land, for nineteen leagues
it journeys joyful to join its flood
with Sirion in the South.
From The Lay of the Children of Hurin
The Lays of Beleriand, HoME Vol 3, Ch 1, The Lay of the Children of Húrin: Failivrin, Canto III, Lines 1526-1550
Notes
1 A league is approximately three miles.
Unfinished Tales, Part 3, Ch 1, The Disaster of the Gladden Fields: Appendix, Númenórean Linear Measures
Contributors:
Elena Tiriel 5Dec04, 5Jan05, 31Jan13
