The Chronicles of the Vales of Anduin

In the elder days, long before the stone-craft of the Dúnedain raised the white towers of Minas Tirith, the broad basin of the Great River, the Anduin, served as the cradle for many peoples of the North-men. These folk, kin to the Edain of the First Age who never crossed the Blue Mountains into Beleriand, dwelt in the wide, mist-veiled lands between the eaves of Mirkwood and the jagged roots of the Misty Mountains. They were a hardy race, fair of face and golden-haired, living in scattered villages and hall-steads, their lives bound to the seasonal rising of the river and the ever-present shadows cast by the forest of Greenwood the Great.

The lineage of these Valesmen is of great significance to the history of the West, for from their blood sprang the Éothéod, the ancestors of the Rohirrim. In the Second Age and early Third, they lived in relative peace, though often harried by the Orcs that crept from the mountain passes. It was in the Vales that the Beornings—those skin-changers of great strength and fierce temper—carved out a realm of protection. Beorn, the chieftain who aided Thorin Oakenshield and his company in their quest for Erebor, became a bulwark against the malice of Dol Guldur. By his decree, the high pass of the mountains and the Old Ford of the Anduin were kept free of shadow, allowing travelers a rare measure of safety in a darkening world.

Throughout the Third Age, the Vales of Anduin bore witness to the shifting tides of power. It was near the Gladden Fields, a marshy expanse where the Anduin widens, that the tragedy of Isildur unfolded. There, the One Ring, lost to the river after the ambush by the Orcs of the mountains, lay hidden in the silt for centuries, waiting for the creature Gollum to claim it. The Valesmen, though often unaware of the weight of the history beneath their feet, remained the silent sentinels of the river-lands. They were a people of wood and water, possessing a deep, folk-knowledge of the wild, yet they were increasingly isolated as the shadow of the Necromancer grew long, causing the folk of the forest to retreat into the deeper fastnesses of the woods or toward the protection of the Iron Hills.

The significance of the Vales of Anduin cannot be overstated, for they acted as the northern shield of the Free Peoples. During the War of the Ring, the Beornings and the Woodmen of the Vales held the borders of the forest, preventing the forces of Sauron from sweeping north to strike at the Dwarves of Erebor or the Elves of Thranduil’s Realm. Their deeds were seldom sung in the halls of the South, yet had they faltered, the northern theater of the war would have surely collapsed. Following the downfall of the Dark Lord, the Vales entered a new era of renewal. Under the reign of King Elessar, the influence of the Reunited Kingdom extended once more to the banks of the Anduin, and the Valesmen found themselves part of a broader peace, their ancient halls secured, and their lineage preserved as a vital thread in the tapestry of the Fourth Age.