Anduin

When Aragorn meets with the mouth of Sauron in the books, a regular person, by the way, not an evil monster creature, he lays out the terms that Sauron would accept for the immediate surrender of the army of the West.

and we read this in return of the king these are the terms said the messenger and smiled as he eyed them one by one the rabble of gondor and its deluded allies shall withdraw at once beyond the anduin first taking oaths never again to assail souron the great in arms open or secret All lands east of the Anduin shall be Sauron's forever solely.

West of the Anduin, as far as the Misty Mountains and the Gap of Rohan, shall be tributary to Mordor, and men there shall bear no weapons, but shall have leave to govern their own affairs.

But they shall help to rebuild Isengard, which they have wantonly destroyed, and that shall be Sauron's, and there his lieutenant shall dwell.

Not Sauron, but one more worthy of trust.

They're terrified of the forest.

It's not like Fangorn's a threat to them, but they've got Fangorn to the north, enemies that have come from the east across the Anduin in the past.

Uh, you know, they of course, uh, fought off the Balchoth, you know, at, at the beginning.

That's how they got the land in the first place.

I also think it's a good reminder that we get all of our Elder Days histories from the elves, and the elves could really care less about these insubstantial, historically insignificant creatures.

Uh, that is to say historically insignificant until they are not [laughs], you know? Uh, and so because they played no significant role in the histories, they are simply never mentioned in terms of the Elder Days.

I mean, the, the soonest we get of them is, you know, middle of the Third Age as we start to understand a little bit more about their origin in the Veils of the Anduin, but that's not where they just sprouted up like, like weeds.

So yeah.

He was said to march in haste to assume the crown of the north and to reunite with his wife and youngest son Valandil, whom he had left in Rivendell during the War of the Last Alliance.

So instead of choosing the longer but safer Western Road through pathless and marshy lands, Isildur chose the direct route north up the vales of Anduin, alongside the eastern foothills of the Misty Mountains.

We are told that Isildur marched with a company of around 200 battle-hardened men.

It was a formidable force of tall, grim, heavily armed warriors, but still small in the safeguarding of a king on such a journey.

With his guard broken and his sons now dead, Isildur yielded to what was the final request of his son Elendur and fled to prevent the ring from falling into evil hands.

Isildur put on the ring, vanished and fled toward the great river, followed by orcs who tracked him by his scent and the draw of the ring.

he plunged into the dark waters of the Anduin and began to swam toward the western bank.

And it is here that the ring betrayed him and avenged its maker, slipping from his finger as he swam.

Riding to Rivendell, as he did, would have felt to him like he was riding away from danger, rather than towards it.

But to return to the start of his story, he and his brother Faramir were on the banks of the Anduin with a Gondorian force in the ruins of the ancient city of Osgiliath.

Much of the eastern side of the Great River had been overrun by Sauron's forces years earlier, but Gondor still held the city and the Great Bridge across it.

It was the most strategically important site to hold if they wanted to keep Mordor at bay.

Orcs, Haradrim and Easterlings led by the Witch-King himself.

It was a rout.

Boromir's company managed to destroy the last bridge over the Anduin and swim back, but only four of them survived, including Boromir and Faramir.

Destroying the bridge would earn them some time.

And what was the the.

well what became Mirkwood what's known as the Veils of Anduin where Bjorn the Bjornings are right? The Wilderland yes and now I was kind of surprised that like that was actually that's one of the reasons I was surprised that Bjorn like in the Bjornings never really heard of hobbits before they kind of inherited the land from them in effect but whatever

I feel like everybody spends time in that land at some point.

I mean, the Rohirrim came from there.

At that time, Elrond went westward, probably simply meaning he didn't cross the Misty Mountains, and established the refuge of Imladris.

But Celeborn went at first to Lorien and fortified it against any further attempts of Sauron to cross the Anduin.

When, however, Sauron withdrew to Mordor, and was, as reported, wholly concerned with the conquests in the East, Celeborn rejoined Galadriel in Lindon.

Lorien had then long years of peace and obscurity under the rule of its own king, Amdir, until the downfall of Numenor and the sudden return of Sauron to Middle-earth.

The downfall of Númenor had cost him his fair body and his island's stronghold, but not his malice.

He rebuilt himself in Mordor, raised the Dark Tower anew, and struck west, seizing Minas Ithil, burning the White Tree of Gondor, driving Isildur into flight down the Anduin.

The realms of the Dunedain in exile were young, and they were already bleeding.

What rose to answer him had never existed before, and would never exist again.

Out of Lindon came the Noldor in their gleaming mail.

From the two realms in exile came the Dunedain, tall and grim.

Down the Vale of Anduin the host gathered the sylvan elves of the Greenwood under Oropher, and of Lorien under Amdir.

And from the deep halls of Khazad-dûm came a host of Durin's folk, the dwarves marching to war beside elves and men.

In total, they could muster 7,000 troops.

They marched east out of the city on the 18th of March, crossing over the River Anduin, turning north at the crossroads.

Aragorn left some archers there to protect his rear, and proceeded along the border of Mordor through Ithilien.

In keeping with their plan, there was no pretense of secrecy here.

A couple of days into their march, there was an attempted ambush by some Orcs and Easterlings, but that was relatively easily dealt with.

Then, on the 23rd, Aragorn ordered all the faint-hearted, all those who didn't fancy marching to their almost certain death, to peel away from the main force and head west instead, to liberate the fortified island of Caer Andros.

Remember that? Sauron sent a force earlier to secure that northern crossing over the River Anduin, and push on into Rohan to intercept the Rohirrim en route to Minas Tirith.

Theoden avoided them by going through the Druidan forest, so the orcs were still there, loitering between Gondor and Rohan, and Kaer Andros needed reclaiming.

For good.

Saruman finds out that Sauron's servants are searching the same stretch of the Anduin, and that Sauron therefore has learned of Isildur's end.

So the enemy knows where the ring was lost and is hunting for it, and Saruman knows it.

The Tale of Years finishes the entry in nine words.

But of this, he said nothing to his colleagues.

The last meeting is 2953, and this time he does lie.

He feigns that he has discovered that the One Ring has passed down Anduin to the sea.

Gandalf quotes him at Rivendell decades later, still hearing the confidence in it.