This confused me for, like, several years, even though the two names aren’t really all that alike. Eriador is the name for this whole half of the continent: everything west of the Misty Mountains and north of Rohan, as far as I can tell. We can gloss this as 'elven historians didn’t know.’Įregion is the name of the kingdom Celeborn and Galadriel founded and which Celebrimbor now headed it’s on Khazad-dum’s western side. But it could just as easily be southern Rohan, or Gondor, or even further south.

We know that in a bit he comes raring through Rohan to destroy everything, so it’s tempting to put him in Mordor. Celeborn doesn’t trust Dwarves and doesn’t have another way of crossing the mountains, so “he remained behind in Eregion, disregarded by Celebrimbor.” He presumably has a following, even if it’s only a few dozen people, because they’re going to do some stuff in a bit. Galadriel flees with Celebrian though Khazad-dum. You’ll recall that a couple hundred years ago, Sauron encouraged the guild in Ost-in-Edhil into a coup against Celeborn and Galadriel. Celebrimbor has already given away the Three Rings. It is 1695, almost a century after Annatar fled Eregion. The map is your bog-standard Lord of the Rings one, but the lay of the land, at least, hasn’t changed since the mid-Second Age. Now, maybe everyone else is way more competent than me but my brain translates that to “then military babble happened and Sauron won”, which is rather unfair to Tolkien because not only does he not military babble at all compared to most fantasy writers but actually this is the closest he’s ever come to telling us how a war proceeded, in terms of the movement of armies and their comparative size and where, geographically, things played out. The scouts and vanguard of Sauron’s host were already approaching when Celeborn made a sortie and drove them back but though he was able to join his force to that of Elrond they could not return to Eregion, for Sauron’s host was far greater than theirs, great enough both to hold them off and closely to invest Eregion. When news of this reached Gil-galad he sent out a force under Elrond Half-elven but Elrond had far to go, and Sauron turned north and made at once for Eregion. When Sauron learned of the repentance and revolt of Celebrimbor his disguise fell and his wrath was revealed and gathering a great force he moved over Calenardhon (Rohan) to the invasion of Eriador in the year 1695.

War of the elves and sauron