The Rivers and Beacon-hills of Gondor

Several other names in Gondor are apparently of similar origin. The element Bel- in Belfalas has no suitable meaning in Sindarin. Falas (Q. falasse) meant ‘shore'—especially one exposed to great waves and breakers (cf. Q. falma ‘a wave-crest, wave). It is possible that Eel had a similar sense in an alien tongue, and Bel-falas is an example of the type of place-name, not uncommon when a region is occupied by a new people, in which two elements of much the same topographical meaning are joined: the first being in the older and the second in the incoming language.{34} Probably because the first was taken by the Incomers as a particular name. However, in Gondor the shore-land from the mouth of Anduin to Dol Amroth was called Belfalas, but actually usually referred to as i·Falas ‘the surf-beach' (or sometimes as Then-falas ‘short beach',{35} in contrast to An-falas ‘long beach', between the mouths of Morthond and Levnui). But the great bay between Umbar and Angast (the Long Cape, beyond Levnui) was called the Bay of Belfalas (Côf Belfalas) or simply of Bel (Côf gwaeren Bêl ‘the windy Bay of Bêl').{36} So that it is more probable that Bêl was the name or part of the name of the region afterward usually called Dor-en-Ernil ‘land of the Prince': it was perhaps the most important part of Gondor before the Númenórean settlement.

Christopher Tolkien writes: "With ‘the windy Bay of Bêl' cf. the poem The Man in the Moon came down too soon in The Adventures of Tom Bombadil (1962), where the Man in the Moon fell ‘to a foaming bath in the windy Bay of Bel', identified as Belfalas in the preface to the book.—This passage was struck through, presumably at once, since the next paragraph begins again ‘Several other names in Gondor are apparently of similar origin. A page of rapid manuscript found with the typescript essay shows my father sketching an entirely different origin for the element Bel-. I have referred to this text and cited it in part in Unfinished Tales (p. 247), observing that it represents an altogether different conception of the establishment of the Elvish haven (Edhellond) north of Dol Amroth from that given in Of Dwarves and Men (XII:313 and 329 n. 67), where it is said that it owed its existence to ‘seafaring Sindar from the west havens of Beleriand who fled in three small ships when the power of Morgoth overwhelmed the Eldar and the Atani'. The manuscript page obviously belongs to the same very late period as the essay, as is seen both from the paper on which it is written and from the fact that the same page carries drafting for the Oath of Cirion in Quenya (UT:305)." This manuscript page is given below in full; two notes that Tolkien made to the text are collected together at its end:

Belfalas. This is a special case. Bel- is certainly an element derived from a pre-Númenórean name; but its source is known, and was in fact Sindarin. The regions of Gondor had a complex history in the remote past, so far as their population was concerned, and the Númenóreans evidently found many layers of mixed peoples, and numerous islands of isolated folk either clinging to old dwellings, or in mountain-refuges from invaders (Note 1). But there was one small (but important) element in Gondor of quite exceptional kind: an Eldarin settlement.{37} Little is known of its history until shortly before it disappeared; for the Eldarin Elves, whether Exiled Noldor or long-rooted Sindar, remained in Beleriand until its desolation in the Great War against Morgoth; and then if they did not take sail over Sea wandered westward [sic; read "eastward"] in Eriador. There, especially near the Hithaeglir (on either side), they found scattered settlements of the Nandor, Telerin Elves who had in the First Age never completed the journey to the shores of the Sea; but both sides recognized their kinship as Eldar. There appears, however, in the begi

Note 1. Though none of the regions of the Two Kingdoms were before (or after!) the Númenórean settlements densely populated as we should reckon it.

Note 2: All Elves were naturally skilled in making boats, but the craft that were to make a long voyage over Sea, perilous even to Elven-craft until Middle-earth was far behind, required more skill and knowledge.

The manuscript page ends here, mid-sentence, and without reaching an explanation of the element Bel-. Christopher Tolkien writes: "It was perhaps a purely experimental extension of the history, at once abandoned; but the assertion that Cirdan was a Noldo is very strange. This runs clean counter to the entire tradition concerning him—yet it is essential to the idea sketched in this passage. Possibly it was his realization of this that led my father to abandon it in mid-sentence."

The typescript resumes with a replacement of the rejected passage on Belfalas (and now avoiding discussion of that problematic name):

Several other names in Gondor are apparently of similar origin. Lamedon has no meaning in Sindarin (if it was Sindarin it would be referred to *lambeton-, *lambetân-, but C.E. lambe- ‘language’ can hardly be concerned). Arnach is not Sindarin. It may be co

Suggestions of the historians of Gondor that arn- is an element in some pre-Númenórean language meaning ‘rock’ is merely a guess.{38} More probable is the view of the author (unknown) of the fragmentarily preserved Ondonóre Nómesseron Minaþurie (‘Enquiry into the Place-names of Gondor’).{39} On internal evidence he lived as far back as the reign of Meneldil, son of Anárion—no events later than that reign are mentioned—when memories and records of the early days of the settlements now lost were still available, and the process of naming was still going on. He points out that Sindarin was not well-known to many of the settlers who gave the names, mariners, soldiers, and emigrants, though all aspired to have some knowledge of it. Gondor was certainly occupied from its begi

34

This not uncommon phenomenon of place names is exemplified further in The Lord of the Rings by such forms as Bree-hill, bree being an anglicization of British *brigā (> Welsh bre ‘hill'); and Chetwood, containing an anglicization of British *kaito- (> Welsh coed ‘wood, forest'). Cf. XII:39 n., 81.

35

With then ‘short' cf. the verse-mode names Minlamad thent / estent *'short alliterating' (XI:311) and a