A bay in the eastern shores of Aman, across which the swan-ships of the Teleri sailed. When that clan of Elves first travelled across the Great Sea into the West, they remained for many years on the island of Tol Eressëa, within sight of Aman's coasts. After an age on the isle, Ossë taught them the art of ship-building, and their first vessels were drawn across the smooth sea of the Bay by flocks of swans.
Though they had now come ashore on the mainland of Aman, the Teleri loved the sea too strongly to travel inland into Valinor itself, and so they founded a harbour-city at Alqualondë. The Noldor that dwelt in nearby Tirion gave the Teleri gems and jewels in great numbers, which were strewn across the beaches around the Bay. There the Sea-elves wandered among the waves, or sailed across the still waters in the light of the Two Trees that shone through the Pass of Light.
Notes
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The map shown here is based on rough maps presented in volume IV of The History of Middle-earth, though it should be noted that these maps show very little detail in this region of Aman, and belong to an early period of Tolkien's writing. While this map gives a broad idea of the general geography of the area, then, the placing of particular features is necessarily conjectural.
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- Updated 27 May 2023
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