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Girithlin highlands

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One of the traditional seven Hirdyr of Cardolan, Girithlin was founded towards the end of the Eriadoran Wars in the 27th century of the Second Age. One of the founders of its noble house was among the Numenorean sorcerers who successfully used magic to drive the Awakened trees out of Minhiriath and into the Eryn Vorn. The Girithli had always led the Cardolandrim in the campaign to keep the evils of the Eryn Vorn confined to the peninsula, and the Beffraen held a special grudge against them.In the 15th century of the Third Age the friendship between the folk of Harlindon and Girithlin was broken by the crimes of Orchaldil of Girithlin. Thereafter there was no traffic between the immortals and the Dunedain of the region. The pressure on Girithlin intensified throughout the 17th century. In T

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One of the traditional seven Hirdyr of Cardolan, Girithlin was founded towards the end of the Eriadoran Wars in the 27th century of the Second Age. One of the founders of its noble house was among the Numenorean sorcerers who successfully used magic to drive the Awakened trees out of Minhiriath and into the Eryn Vorn. The Girithli had always led the Cardolandrim in the campaign to keep the evils of the Eryn Vorn confined to the peninsula, and the Beffraen held a special grudge against them.In the 15th century of the Third Age the friendship between the folk of Harlindon and Girithlin was broken by the crimes of Orchaldil of Girithlin. Thereafter there was no traffic between the immortals and the Dunedain of the region. The pressure on Girithlin intensified throughout the 17th century. In T.A. 1670, the last legitimate Baron abandoned Minas Girithlin, leading a stream of refugees up the Baranduin to Tharbad and thence south to Gondor. The lord fled some unnamed fear, rather than the pirates who had actually overrun his last riverside holdings. The pirate leaders who enteed the keep perished mysteriously, and the Arthadan expedition that cleared the pirates off the river simply sealed the doors shut, leaving behind a collection of strangely mutilated bones. In the next century, a Girithli cousin, a soldier long resident and much respected in Fornost, came south with a band of retainers and reclaimed Minas Girithlin. He succeeded because the Beffraen and Orcs had weakened one another badly by constant warfare. The soldier carved out and protected a small territory around the keep and plowed again the fields abandoned almost a century before. He told his friend, the commander at Iach Sarn, little about what he had found in the tower, but he did say that "fire keeps things down" and "a little drink clears out the dreams." Eventually he confided one of these dreams to his friend: himself lying helpless on a bed, while around him man-like shadows, their eyes burning red with hatred, held him down, and flames flickered all around. The final Beffraen attack came, several years later. About 1709 the fortress of Minas Girithlin was destroyed by the Beffraen.The Girithli soldier was immobilized with a fever; without his leadership his people were helpless. The last servant to escape over the walls, as the torch-bearing tribesmen poured in, reached Tharbad a month later, still babbling and insane, raving about dead men stalking him through the hallways and his poor master trapped and helpless in his bedchambers, awaiting the end. The Beffraen who burned the interior out of Minas Girithlin sealed the door and put a warning sigil on it. They had no use for such places. For the next thousand years, through war and peace—eventually blending so much into the hillside as to resemble a natural spike of rock— the tower stood as a mute witness to the fall of the Dunedain. Not until the Fourth Age did Men again cross its threshold.