Harfareth

Harfareth (S. "Southern Dry Plains") was a land of the First Age that later become the hills and deserts of Harad.

The Harfareth, as the Hawnin knew it in the Twilight, was a mighty and fair realm, filled with game and clean water. It was bordered on the west by the Sundering Sea and the south by the Yellow Mountains. To the east lay the Mountains of Crossing, later called the Mountains of Golden Sunrise, and to the north lay the Anduin and the highlands of the Fireshadow Massif, which included the haunted lands of Mordor and the Smoking-Spring Plateau that later became Khand  of the Variags. The Mountains of Crossing took their name from its many passes connecting the Harfareth to central Middle-earth. Avari Elves, belonging to a kindred who had shunned Orome's offer to live in the west, came over the passes from the east of Middle-earth soon after the Hawnin laid claim to Harfareth. Whether these Elves fought with the Hawnin over their hunting grounds no memory survives; it is only certain that most of the Harfareth remained Hawnin territory right to the end of the age, and all of the Mountains of Crossing remained in Avar hands until the coming of Men.