abstract
| - This village, the first town in Mintyrnath to be ruled by the Dúnedain, was noted by travelers merely as measuring two days' walk or one day's ride northwest of Tharbad. In the mid-Second Age, it was a small Eriadorian fort on a strategic hilltop overlooking the junction of the River Sendiel with the River Andeithel. A Dwarven bridge (on the Len Caraug) over the Sendiel was the site of the first full-scale battle of the Eriadorian Wars, but the fort soon fell to the Númenoreans to become a peaceful Dúnadan outpost. When the principality of Dol Tinare was founded in the 27th century of the Second Age, Eruthimar, the first Ernil, made sure he gained the rule of Dinach, and Dol Tinare held on to the strategic hamlet for better then two millenia. After the Cardolandren civil wars began in 1412, Dinach changed hands frequently, dwindling to an impoverished and dangerous community. In the 17th century of the Third Age, Dinach was a popular way station for all the parties despoiling Cardolan. Just out of reach of the sword of Tharbad's Canotar, it was a jumping-off point for spies, smugglers, and bandits. A small Tinare garrison held the modest tower on Dol Dinach, guarding the Iant Dinach, the Arnorian bridge over the Andeithel. The Men Formen paralleled the River Sindiel, running southeast, after it left the highlands at Metraith, but never approached the water nearer than a few miles, thus avoiding the spring floods. The approaches to the Iant Dinach were built up by Arnorian engineers to avoid having the same problem with the Andeithel; the fifty or so stone buildings and hovels that made up the village of Dinach lined the Men Formen to take advantage of the elevation, leaving the low-lying fields and willow groves along the river to be washed out every spring.
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