Lothlann

Northward of Beleriand during the First Age ran a vast grassland known as Ard-galen, separating the realms of the Elves to the south from the Iron Mountains and the domain of Morgoth to the north. At the eastern end of this wide land, where it ran down past the highlands of Dorthonion and approached the Blue Mountains, lay a wide and empty plain. This was Lothlann, whose very name means 'wide and empty'.

During the time of the Wars of Beleriand, Lothlann was strategically important. It lay directly northward of the range of low hills known as Maglor's Gap, the widest break in the mountains that protected most of northern Beleriand. In the hills to the southwest of the plain a narrow pass, the Pass of Aglon, led between Himring and Dorthonion directly into Himlad. The empty plain of Lothlann, therefore, offered an opening into East Beleriand for invaders from Angband, an opening guarded by the brothers Maedhros and Maglor. These Sons of Fëanor kept an unceasing watch on the open southern edge of Lothlann, and their mounted guards rode out across the open grasslands of the plain.

The defences of southern Lothlann were tested as early as I 60, when Morgoth sent out a huge force from Angband. A great part of this force marched over the plain, aiming to enter Beleriand through Maglor's Gap, and then capture the highlands of Dorthonion to the west. The defenders of Maedhros and Maglor proved equal to the task, counterattacking the incoming Orcs and decimating them in a battle that came to be known as Dagor Aglareb, the Glorious Battle.

After the Glorious Battle, the Elves sought to prevent any further assaults by establishing the Siege of Angband. This great Siege held for nearly four hundred years, and throughout this time Lothlann was free of any incursions by the Dark Lord's armies. The Siege was broken in the Dagor Bragollach, the Battle of Sudden Flame of I 455, in which Morgoth sent out fire and flame across the plains, and unstoppable armies that he had built up during the centuries of the Siege. A vast force passed over Lothlann, accompanied by the great Dragon Glaurung. These Orcs forced a way through the Pass of Aglon, but Maedhros was able to recapture that way through the hills. Meanwhile Glaurung broke through Maglor's Gap, bringing ravage and ruin to the lands beyond.

After this time, the plain of Lothlann fades from history. In I 472, when Maedhros and his forces set out into Anfauglith to face Morgoth in a final great battle, those armies must have passed through the southern part of Lothlann on their way westward. That battle - which came to be known as Nirnaeth Arnoediad - was a disaster for Maedhros and his allies. Afterward, Lothlann would presumably have fallen under the power of Morgoth (though with more direct southward routes now open to the Dark Lord, it would have had no real military significance after this time). At the end of the First Age, the War of Wrath led to the Great Sea rushing in over the northern lands, and the wide plain of Lothlann was lost beneath its waters.