Nan Rochben


 * ""Until His Lordship the Prince of Dol Amroth explained its history, we were greatly puzzled by the
 * strange contemporary name for this highland vale, 'Nan Requain',
 * in which the form Requain can be naught but Quenya roquen
 * 'knight' pluralieed in the Sindarin manner by vocalic affection,
 *  Twould seem that a few generations ago there was a man of
 * Belfalas named Halweg a former keeper of swine who had risen
 * through great initiative to the rank of knight. Halweg, abashed at
 * his humble origins, took to salting his speech with Quenya words
 * and phrases in an effort to sound as one of noble birth, though being
 * an unlettered man he often misused the High-elven tongue in the
 * most outrageous manner. It thus became a common jest at the
 * Court in Dol Amroth to refer to Nan Rochben, the 'Vale of
 * Knights' of which Halweg was lord, as 'Nan Requain' in
 * mockery of his speech, and as His Lordship
 * ''put it, 'The name stuck'."

-Findegil of Gondor

The Nan Rochben was the great upland vale of the Ered Tarthonion whose two arms separated and later reunited to the peninsula of Belfalas; Nan Rochben lay between these arms. Prince Edhelion of Dor-en-Ernil enfeoffed the lands of this vale during the early years of his rule, in order to secure Ered Tarthonion against the prospect of a Daen uprising. And indeed, the Nan Rochben bordered upon the vale of Cûm Taran, where the descendants of the Coentis chose to establish their burial ground.

Despite the fact that the Nan Rochben was watered by a substantial tributary stream of the Glinduin, the arability of its land was limited, and was much better suited to shepherding than to farming. The landed knights of the vale soon took their cue from the Daen inhabitants, and became sheep-herders in turn.To many of the nobility elsewhere in Dor-en-Ernil, this mode of life appeared rather unbecoming to their station, but the sheep-lords of Nan Rochben eventually transformed their stigma into an economic asset, finding that they could enlarge their wealth substantially by selling the wool of their flocks annually in Linhir.