Middle-earth
the mortal lands; the great continent of the east
Name and Position
Middle-earth — in Quenya Endor (“the Middle-land”) — is the name given to the great lands of Arda east of the Sea (excluding the far West of Aman and the far East of the unknown): “Middle-earth” because it lay (in the elder cosmology) between the sea and the uttermost East — “the mortal lands”. Its west coast held Beleriand (in the First Age) and the regions of the later ages (Eriador, etc.); its east stretched farther than any tale reached.
The Realm of the Ages
- The theatre of the Children: In the First Age, Middle-earth was the stage of the Great Journey’s departure (Cuiviénen), of the wars of Beleriand, and of the lives of the Edain; its forests and mountains (Blue Mountains, the highlands) framed the hideaways of the Elves.
- The mortal kernel: Where Aman was the realm of the immortal Valar, Middle-earth was the proper land of Men (and of the mortal life of the Children) — its “mortal lands” the place of death and birth, sorrow and change, against the unchanging West. Its great rivers and regions (the Sirion, the later Eriador, etc.) and its whole later history (Rings, Númenor) unfold upon it; the drowning of Beleriand narrowed it, and the world’s reshaping (after Akallabêth) made it the round world’s seat.
Significance
Middle-earth is the “everyday world” of the mythology — the land of the long defeat where the Elves fade and Men prevail; its very name (in the later books) became synonymous with Tolkien’s whole world. Within this vault its whole story is followed age by age: the Beleriand of the First Age, the isle of Númenor and the coasts of the Second, and in the Third Age the Shire, Eriador, Rohan, Gondor and the lands of the Ring — from the Lonely Mountain to the paths of Mordor.