The Destiny of Mirkwood and Dol Guldur Following Lord of the Rings
Middle-earth created by J.R.R. Tolkien is rife in enigmatic and perilous locations. Both Peter Jackson's The Lord Of The Rings and The Hobbit films feature Mirkwood, a gloomy woodland, and Dol Guldur, a southern stronghold. Though they are major players in these tales, their background goes thousands of years before Bilbo Baggins came into the One Ring.
Mirkwood's Release from Sauron's Affectiveness
According to both the book and film adaptations of The Hobbit, Mirkwood was a dark and hostile woodland northwest of Rohan. Dark magic long dogged it, leading to travelers' hallucinations, weakness, and disorientation. Getting lost, lethal spiders, Orcs, and even the woodland elves living in Thranduil's realm presented ongoing hazards. For over a generation, Dol Guldur was the most hazardous part of the forest; it finally collapsed following the destruction of the One Ring.
Once Sauron was at last vanquished at the end of the Third Age, Mirkwood's gloom was permanently banished. Several parties split the liberated woodland; the southern portion, once under Sauron's rule, became temporarily known as "East Lórien". The realm of a civilization of men known as the Woodmen grew out from the middle section of the forest. Descendendants of Ungoliant, the first enormous spider, the evil creatures—including spiders—left the forest or were driven away.
The Enchanted River was among Mirkwood's most hazardous features. Anyone who drank from it or bathed in it would go to sleep and experience severe amnesia when waking. When the dwarf Bombur fell into the river on the Quest for Erebor, he underwent this effect.
The Devastation of Dol Guldur
Represented as the haunted house of the Necromancer in The Hobbit Movies, Dol Guldur likewise collapsed with Sauron's downfall under Frodo Baggins and Aragorn. From Sindarin, its name translates to "Hill of Dark Sorcery," a fitting description for the fortification Sauron inhabited. Sauron was forced out at the time of Thorin Oakenshield's Quest for Erebor, but the darkness encircling the stronghold stayed until his fall in The Return of the King.
Dol Guldur launched raids on the Woodland Realm and Lórien while an Orc stronghold during the War of the Ring. The might of Nenya, Galadriel's Ring of might, which also accounted for the final destruction of the stronghold, resisted these strikes. Galadriel used Nenya to utterly destroy Dol Guldur following Sauron's death, therefore reverting the hill to its original name, Amon Lac.
Mirkwood's Dark Origins
Originally called Greenwood the Great, Mirkwood first arose at the dawn of the earth. Before the kingdom of the wood elves acquired the name "Mirkwood" in the Third Age, it was already rather established. In the year 1050 of the Third Age, Sauron arrived in the forest and employed his evil influence to imbue it with ferocious and lethal species. With the Dark Lord in his "Necromancer" form seizing an ancient Elven stronghold on Amon Lac, Sauron's stronghold grew to be the southern section of the forest.
Father of Thranduil and grandfather of Legolas, elf Oropher founded the Woodland Realm.
For most of the Third Age Mirkwood and Dol Guldur stayed among the most deadly of all the terrible locations of Middle-earth. Like much of Middle-earth, Mirkwood was only freed upon Sauron's death; the contaminated air and water were eradicated as the woodland returned to its natural beauty. Following the events shown in The Lord Of The Rings, Dol Guldur also collapsed to Galadriel after Barad-dûr, Sauron's former fortress was destroyed.
