Locations of certain places

[Gorthaur the Cruel]

There are some places I've never been able to figure out their locations inn the Tolkien maps. I' like to know where the following are:

1. Angband
2. Utumno
3. Lake Cuivienen (birthplace of the elves)
4. Two Lamps (before the Two Trees)
5. First realm of the Valar (before Valinor)

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

Well... that's a little bit complicated, but I'll try to answer as best as I can. Hopefully someone else can make the information more precise.

Angband is just outside the map in Silmarillion, I guess about the same longitude as the long vertical line is (maybe a little bit to the east. But it is big anyway). In the Silmarillion, we are told that:

Originally Posted by Silmarillion, Chapter 10 "Of the Sindar"

But Morgoth, as has before been told, returned to Angband, and built it anew, and above its doors he reared the reeking towers of Thangorodrim; and the gates of Morgoth were but one hundred and fifty leagues distant from the bridge of Menegroth: far and yet all too near.

(emphasise mine)
That's probably the closest description we have. You can measure it for yourself

Concerning Utumno, it is probably somewhere "around" (but the distance can be quite great), maybe a little bit more to the north and definitely further to the east.

Originally Posted by Silmarillion, Chapter 14 "Of Beleriand and Its Realms"

In the north of the world Melkor had in the ages past reared Ered Engrin, the Iron Mountains, as a fence to his citadel of Utumno; and they stood upon the borders of the regions of everlasting cold, in a great curve from east to west. Behind the walls of Ered Engrin in the west, where they bent back northwards, Melkor built another fortress [Angband]

In the Atlas of Middle-Earth by Karen Wynn Fonstad (quite a good tool, and I consider it quite trustworthy) Ered Engrin are pictured like some sort of circumpolar-oriented mountains (of course Middle-Earth was flat back then, so it's just half a circle). In that case Utumno lies practically on the pole (or, on the edge of the world) and Angband is in the southmost part of the mountains, somewhat more to the west than Utumno.

The last three are a problem, since they are all situated to the same environment (more or less, Cuiviénen is maybe a little bit better, but the two others are quite a big problem). At the time of the Lamps, when the first realm of Valar was on the island of Almaren, Arda looked completely different than after, because the wars between Valar&Morgoth even before the coming of the Elves completely changed its face. You simply had the world, where the only sea was in the midst, on the northern edge there was one lamp, soutwards the other, and in its middle there was the island where Valar dwelt. I guess if you sought for the place using geographic coordinates, you'll find the places matching some spot between M-E and Valinor (somewhere in the sea). Maybe the original island matched even the place of later Númenor?

And Cuiviénen. I'm not much sure about this one, but Fonstad in her atlas puts it about the same latitude as lake Rhun, but more to the east, as if you took the distance from Misty Mountains to Lake Rhun and multiplied it twice. She draws there the sea of Helcar, which, interestingly, is flooding Mordor and then all the space through Dagorlad to lake Rhun, and then further to the east as far as Cuiviénen. I'm not much sure about it being 100% reliable, but I think it will be more or less precise. We don't have much info about it, anyway, and Fonstad relied solely on the Professor's work when she was making it (but where he was not clear about something, she might have interpreted it in her view).

[Elmo]

To Cuiviénen there is no returning

so I don't think you could find it on any map.

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

Originally Posted by hewhoarisesinmight

so I don't think you could find it on any map.

Of course, I forgot to add that as in the case of the Lamps, the location applies to Middle-Earth at the time of Awakening. Though it could be argued that the quotation you used is meant in a more "spiritual" way than just geographically.

[Iarwain Ben-adar]

1. Angband
2. Utumno
3. Lake Cuivienen (birthplace of the elves)
4. Two Lamps (before the Two Trees)
5. First realm of the Valar (before Valinor)

Those are what you want to know the location of. I will give a detailed description of the location pf each place.
Angband

-Location Angband is located in the Lands North of Beleriand. It is approximately 130-140 miles North-west of Thangorodrim. Directly to the north of Angband were the Ered Engrin (The Iron Mountains), and Dor Daidelos (the Regions of Everlasting cold). It is approximately 415-425 miles South-west from the Firth of Drengist (a Firth is a wide inlet of the sea). As the crow flies (a straight line) it is approximately 26-2800 miles from Aman.

Utumno

-Location utumno, also known as Udun, was directly north of the great lamp Illuin, which it was closer to compared to the Great lamp Ormal. Compared to ormal, it was still North of Ormal, just farther away compared to its relativeness to Illuin.. It is Protected by the iron mountains, and the Isle of Almaren is South of Utumno, in the Great Lake. Everything seemed to be in a line then. Here is the general order from Northernmost (top) to southernmost (bottom):
Utumno/Udun
Iron Mountains
Illuin
Great Lake
Isle of Almaren
More Great Lake
Ormal
And all around of this flat world was the doors of night.

Lake Cuivenien This lake is the awakening place of the Elves. It is located near the Inland sea of helcar (actually, near its Eastern bank). it is somewhere either in or on the edge of the wild wood, which is approximately 800-1000 miles from middle-earth, or Endor. The wild wood is, on its North-eastern edge, surrounded by the orocarni, the Mountains of the east. So, we can conclude several things about the location of this lake:
1) Located in or On the edge of the wild wood
2)surrounded by the Inland sea of helcar and the orocarni.
3)It is in the east
It is also in the Palisor, the Midmost region.

The locations of the two lamps is hinted at in my explanation of the location of Utumno.

I've had this map for a long time already. It helped me a lot when I tried to locate the places in the book. It looks exactly the same as how it is described. I hope it helps.

The link is: http://www.girsacrew.it/gdr/varie/ma...ppa%20arda.jpg

The coloured map is: http://www.anarda.net/tolkien/dibujo...arda_final.jpg

[Rune Son of Bjarne]

I have seen this map before and it always mannage to confuse me, I always imagined that Beleriand would be pretty much just west of Arnor. . .Is that really totaly wrong?

[davem]

Originally Posted by Finarfin

I've had this map for a long time already. It helped me a lot when I tried to locate the places in the book. It looks exactly the same as how it is described. I hope it helps.

The link is: http://www.girsacrew.it/gdr/varie/ma...ppa%20arda.jpg

The coloured map is: http://www.anarda.net/tolkien/dibujo...arda_final.jpg

Its completely 'wrong' - in the strict sense: The Shire did not exist at the same time as the Lamps, the Trees, or Numenor. However, it seems generally correct in terms of where places were/would have been in relation to each other. Forget things like scale though. Not too bad for orienting oneself

[Rune Son of Bjarne]

I think this map was made for orientation for the confused reader. . . A person that read LotR and then years later reads Silmarillion could easily get confused over where the different things are and not realise that they did not exist at the same time.

So yeah a map for orientation, but it still has me confused though. . .. about the whole ME vs Beleriand thing.

[Mithalwen]

Well the Ered Luin were the East of Beleriand. If you compare the LOTR maps with the Silamrillion you can see how the line of the mountains is the same - although broken of course by the Gulf of Lhun

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

Originally Posted by davem

Its completely 'wrong' - in the strict sense: The Shire did not exist at the same time as the Lamps, the Trees, or Numenor. However, it seems generally correct in terms of where places were/would have been in relation to each other. Forget things like scale though. Not too bad for orienting oneself

I think it's not only "wrong" in the sense you mean it, but "wrong" also in plain geographical sense. I think this one was used in David Day's "Tolkien's Bestiary", which itself is a book assuming too much of nothing (e.g. Tom Bombadil is a Maia, Goldberry as well, of course a Maia of Ulmo).

For example, on this map, if it were to be used like that, then Almaren was supposed to be in the middle of the world (there was no dividing of Middle-Earth and Valinor then), so it will be somewhere like Númenor on this map; while the Lamps were just directly north and south of it - so also around the "0° longitude", meaning the Northern lamp should have been marked somewhere near Helcaraxë. Just an example, thought, but what I'm saying is that even this map is nothing much. Fonstad's map I consider far more precise, it's more checked with the book.