abstract
| - This hilly upland region of Cardolan lay south of the Great East Road and west of Dyr Erib. Mintyrnath contained the South Downs, the Barrow-downs, the Ceren Hills, Dol Tinare, Faerdor, Old Forest and the high plains of central Cardolan. In the earliest part of the Wandering Days , Mintymath was peaceful country , its river valleys lush farmland , its hills overrun with grazing sheep and cattle. Harfoot Hobbits migrating over the Misty Passes and Redhorn Gates in the early 12th century hired themselves out as farmhands and shepherds to the most successful farmers in Feotar , the barony that ruled most of Mintyrnath . Sometime after the cycle of civil wars began in Cardolan, in the later 13th century , law and order began to break down in Feotar . Hobbit shepherds turnet out to be very good at surviving along the Cardolandren frontier — they could hide in their holes when wargs came raiding — but society in Mintyrnath crumbled under the pressure . The Harfoots were gradually pushed westward , many carrying with them newly acquired skills in animal-husbandry and cheese-making. By T.A . 1601 , most Harfoots had fled to [[Bree-Iand and the Barrow-downs . Over the course of the next thirty years , they gathered their flocks and herds and drove them over the Bridge of Stonebows into the Shire . Their few kinfolk still scattered across Feotar and the highland s gradually got the word and followed. The region was almost completely depopulated during the 17th and 18th centuries of the Third Age, and the name virtually passed out of usage.
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