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Something Wicked This Way Comes - Page 5

© Michael Martinez

That is, he established his base on Dol Guldur and made it secure enough to discourage casual visitors and light assaults. But he also refrained from using Dol Guldur to actively participate in events unfolding in the lands around southern Greenwood. Instead, he built up the Easterling populations. "Dwarves and Men" tells us that the Hobbits began fleeing the Vales of Anduin after the "steady increase of invaders from the East...harassing the older 'Atanic' inhabitants, and even in places occupying the Forest and coming through it into the Anduin valley.'" Of course, there had to be other evil things involved. Trolls may have survived for thousands of years in the Ettenmoors north of Imladris, but it seems more probable that they had been driven east from Mordor at the end of the Second Age. As Sauron recruited Easterlings to his cause, he would have brought Trolls back to the west. And because he was known as the Necromancer, Sauron must have consorted with disembodied spirits. He may have bred Wargs and summoned ancient were-wolves and vampires to serve him again. Men would have renamed the Forest Mirkwood for very good reason. It had to quickly become a place of dread and menace, a land where only the hardiest tribes would dare live and fight with creatures once relegated to fairy-tales and folklore. Monsters had to walk the land again, sickening the trees and darkening the woods with a depressing shadow that had nothing to do with sunlight. But what could the Hobbits, with their lack of magical curiosity (except "the everyday sort"), have sensed that even the Istari failed to notice? Did the animals of southern Greenwood migrate en masse, seeking new homes far from the evil? Did the arrival of more Easterlings lead to constant feuds and raids between peoples? Did phantoms and were-wolves haunt the hills and riversides where the Hobbits lived quietly by themselves? The Prologue to The Lord of the Rings tells us that the Harfoots "had much to do with Dwarves in ancient times, and long lived in the foothills of the mountains". They must have heard rumors of changes in the Forest from both the Dwarves and the Stoors. The Stoors had remained close to the Anduin and probably lived mostly near the Gladden Fields. The Gladden Fields had originally been a lake which stretched to the highlands where Isildur's column was attacked. Through time, the lake became marshland and gradually the marshland dried out and receded toward the Anduin's natural course.

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