Misty mountains: their creation and inhabitants

2025 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2025-01-24 17:46

The Misty Mountains are the largest in Tolkien's Middle-earth. In "The Hobbit" the company of heroes goes to them. Because the universe that John Tolkien imagined is so big and incredibly detailed, these mountains have their own history.

Creation and High Passage

In the universe of Middle-earth, the Misty (or foggy) mountains were created at the very beginning of the Age of the Trees by Melkor (the powerful personification of darkness), which he wanted to prevent Orome (the lord of forests and hunting in Middle-earth and beyond), who often visited there for hunting. In that era, the mountains were much taller and more massive compared to the Third Age, in which the events of the War of the Ring take place. Then the Misty Mountains frightened much more seriously by their very appearance.

High Pass - the so-called passage through the mountain range (also called the Pass of Imladris or Kirith Forn-en-Andraf), it was created by the lord of the hunt Orome himself even beforebefore the First Age of Middle-earth began. It was necessary in order to help the Eldar (elves, "people of the stars") on their way to Valinor to pass through the Misty Mountains.

The Dwarves also used this passage later when laying their own trade routes, that is, the road through Mirkwood Men-i-Naugrim, as well as the East Road.

To be precise, there were two passages in that place: an upper one and a lower one. The latter still managed to block the orcs, for this reason, travelers whose road runs through these places prefer to use the upper passage, where the likelihood of meeting an orc is somewhat less.

Famous peaks

Bunushatur (or Karadrasi Fanuidol, Celebdil) is a peak that is located in the center of a mountain range in Middle-earth. Just below it are the main parts of the infamous dungeons of Moria (or Khazad-Dum), in which the Fellowship of the Ring will expect a battle with the orcs, and Gandalf - a huge balrog.

Gundabad is a peak located in the northeast of the Misty Mountains. The caverns of Gundabad contain the most important stronghold of the northern orcs, who took over the place from the Dwarves in the Third Age. Just at the foot of this peak, a huge army gathered, which went to the Battle of the Five Armies and was defeated there. During this battle, more than half of the northern orcs were exterminated.

Mountain dwellers

The very first and original inhabitants of the Misty Mountains, or rather the underground cave systems that were located under them, were gnomes from the tribeand the line of Durin, who founded the kingdom of Khazad-Dum, about which legends were made.

But that all changed when, while excavating mithril deposits, the dwarves accidentally released a monstrous balrog hiding in the depths of the mountains, which was lucky to survive after Morgoth was defeated and expelled.

After this incident, the caves of Moria were empty, and after a certain time, orcs began to settle in them from the more northern parts of the mountains. So, during the War of the Ring, that is, in the Third Age, the mountains were a huge home for trolls and orcs.

In The Hobbit there are also references to two groups that lived inside this mountain range in Middle-earth: giants of stone, as well as huge eagles that are servants of Manwe (lord of the air, clouds and birds in Middle-earth and beyond outside). The latter settled in places on the tops of mountains that were inaccessible to other inhabitants.