Eregion

Eregion, called Hollin in the Common Speech, was a realm of the Noldorin Elves in Eriador during the Second Age of Middle-earth, lying west of the Misty Mountains near the West-gate of Moria. It is famed above all as the place where the Rings of Power were forged, for in Eregion dwelt the greatest Elven-smiths of the age, the Gwaith-i-Mírdain, who, deceived by Sauron in fair disguise, made the Rings, while Sauron in secret forged the One Ring to rule them all.

By the time of The Lord of the Rings, Eregion lay desolate and ruined for thousands of years, its people destroyed and its works thrown down, remembered only as Hollin, the land of holly, where the holly-trees still grew as a sign of the Elves who once dwelt there.

Geography

Eregion lay in the angle between the rivers Glanduin and Bruinen (the Loudwater), at the foot of the Misty Mountains, close to the West-gate of Moria with which it had close friendship and trade. The land was marked by the holly trees that gave it its name. Its chief city was Ost-in-Edhil, where the Elven-smiths had their forges and the House of the Mírdain.

History

Eregion was founded in the Second Age by Noldorin Elves, among them Celebrimbor, grandson of Fëanor and the greatest smith of his age. The Elves of Eregion had unusually close friendship with the Dwarves of Moria nearby, and the two peoples traded and prospered together. Sauron came to Eregion in a fair and lordly guise, calling himself Annatar, the Lord of Gifts, and taught the smiths the making of the Rings of Power. But he had betrayed them: in Mordor he forged the One Ring to master the others. When the Elves perceived his treachery, war broke out; Sauron invaded Eregion, slew Celebrimbor, destroyed Ost-in-Edhil, and laid the realm waste. The survivors fled, and Elrond led some of them to found the refuge of Rivendell nearby.

In the story

By the time the Fellowship of the Ring passes through it, Eregion is an empty, holly-grown country at the foot of the mountains, where the company camps before attempting the pass of Caradhras and then turning to Moria. Gandalf and the others note the old peace and skill of the vanished Elven realm, and the holly that still marks the land. Eregion's deeper significance lies behind the whole story, for it was there that the Rings, including the One Ring at the heart of the quest, first came to be.