Belegaer

Belegaer

Place from J. R. R. Tolkien's legendarium
Other names	The Sundering Seas, The Great Sea, The Western Sea, The Great Water
Description	Great Sea of Arda
Location	West of Middle-earth

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In the fiction of J. R. R. Tolkien, Belegaer, the Great Sea or the Sundering Seas, is the sea of Arda that is west of Middle-earth.

Before the Second Age, Belegaer stretched from the Gap of Ilmen in the far north, where a bridge made of ice known as the Helcaraxë connected Middle-earth and Aman, to the far south, where it also connected with Ilmen and froze. Belegaer was narrower in the north than in the south, with its widest part near the equator of Arda.

The full extent of Belegaer after the Akallabêth is never made clear, but it reaches far enough to the north to be ice-covered, and far to the south.

The name is Sindarin, and has the elements beleg ("might") and aer or eär ("sea"), the latter also present in the name Eärendil ("sea-lover"). The Quenya name of Belegaer, never used in published writing, is Alatairë.

Before the end of the Second Age, the continent of Aman, home of the Valar, formed the western edge of Belegaer. Before the ruin of Beleriand at the end of the First Age, the sea was narrow and ice-filled in the north, forming the strait of Helcaraxë, the Grinding Ice. It was thus possible to cross from Aman to Middle-earth on foot, though with difficulty, as did Fingolfin and his people of the Noldor when fleeing Valinor.^[1]

After the War of Wrath Belegaer was widened by the drowning of a large part of Middle-earth. During the Akallabêth in the Second Age, the seas were "bent" and the world was made round. Aman was removed from the world, Belegaer washed "new lands", and only the chosen could find the "Straight Road" to Valinor. The new western reaches of Belegaer are never described in the narrative, although there are indications that Númenórean refugees reached them in search for Valinor. The "new lands" have been compared before to the Americas by fans, although Tolkien himself never indicated whether that was what he intended.

Geographic features

On the west, before Aman was removed from the world near the end of the Second Age, features of Belegaer included:

• Tol Eressëa, the Lonely Isle close to the shore of Aman
• the Twilit Isles or Enchanted Isles seaward of Tol Eressëa
• Bay of Eldamar

Features near Beleriand, drowned at the end of the First Age:

• Bay of Balar
• Isle of Balar, in the Bay of Balar
• the Great Gulf
• Firth of Drengist

After the drowning of Beleriand:

• Númenor (Second Age only)
• the Western Isles (remnants of Beleriand)
  • Tol Morwen
  • Tol Fuin
  • Himling
• Ice Bay of Forochel
• Gulf of Lune
• Bay of Belfalas
• Tolfalas, in the Bay of Belfalas

References

1. ^ Tolkien, J. R. R. (1977), Christopher Tolkien, ed., The Silmarillion, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, "Of the Flight of the Noldor", ISBN 0-395-25730-1 

External links

• Belegaer at the Tolkien Gateway