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Places in Middle-earth

Sea, The

Type: Seas, Oceans, Bays

Region: Other Arda

Other Names
Belegaer 'the Great Sea'
the Sundering Seas
the Western Sea
the Great Water
the Great Sea

Location: The great sea between Aman and Middle-earth.

Description: ... Oromë did not lead the hosts of the Eldalië into the far north, but brought them to the fair lands about the River Sirion, that afterwards were named Beleriand; and from those shores whence first the Eldar looked in fear and wonder on the Sea there stretched an ocean, wide and dark and deep, between them and the Mountains of Aman.

The Silmarillion, Quenta Silmarillion, Ch 5, Of Eldamar and the Princes of the Eldalië

But the east shores of Aman were the uttermost end of Belegaer, the Great Sea at the West; and ... upon the shores of the sea [the Valar] raised the Pelóri, the Mountains of Aman, highest upon Earth.

The Silmarillion, Quenta Silmarillion, Ch 1, Of The Beginning of Days

... Túna beneath Taniquetil was set nigh to the girdle of Arda, and there the Great Sea was immeasurably wide, whereas ever northward the sundering seas grew narrower, as the wasteland of Araman and the coasts of Middle-earth drew together.

The Silmarillion, Quenta Silmarillion, Ch 9, Of the Flight of the Noldor

For between the land of Aman that in the north curved eastward, and the east-shores of Endor (which is Middle-earth) that bore westward, there was a narrow strait, through which the chill waters of the Encircling Sea and the waves of Belegaer flowed together, and there were vast fogs and mists of deathly cold, and the sea-streams were filled with clashing hills of ice and the grinding of ice deep-sunken. Such was the Helcaraxë....

The Silmarillion, Quenta Silmarillion, Ch 9, Of the Flight of the Noldor

And they observed the winds and the air, and the matters of which Arda was made...: but of all these water they most greatly praised. And it is said by the Eldar that in water there lives yet the echo of the Music of the Ainur more than in any substance else that is in this Earth; and many of the Children of Ilúvatar hearken still unsated to the voices of the Sea, and yet know not for what they listen.

Now to water had that Ainu whom the Elves call Ulmo turned his thought, and of all most deeply was he instructed by Ilúvatar in music.

The Silmarillion, Ainulindalë

Contributors: Elena Tiriel 11May05

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