Loeg Balimur

Loeg Balimur (S. "Balimur Pools") was thr name given by the Daen fisherfolk of the lower Anduin to the swamplands that emerged on both banks ot the Great River at the latter's confluence with the Poros. Although often lumped together with the ferns of Ethir Anduin by the maps of the Dúnedain, the Loeg Balimur were in fact, geographically quite unrelated to the Ethir. The Balimur was essentially a lowland vale that had been flooded by the increased volume of water passing into Anduin from the Poros. (The Ethir Anduin proper was, by contrast, the product of silt and sediment build up from the river itself.) In one respect, however, these two swamps shared a common origin; like the fens of Ethir Anduin, the Loeg Balimur came into being as a result of the physical changes in the shape of the land caused by the cataclysm of Númenór's Downfall near the end oft the Second Age.

While the wealth of its plant and animal life was drawn upon by The neighboring fishermen and hunters of the Vale of Anduin, the Balimur (again, unlike Ethir) remained uninhabited by Men, with the occasional exception of outlaws. The reason tor this was thai the Ethir-folk depended upon a fairly extensive web of waterways for movement from one campsite to another, whereas the Loeg Balimur were poor in the way of navigable watercourses. Nevertheless, what later became the Loeg Balimur were once fertile farmlands, and the swamps contained numerous marks of this history of settlement, including an old, stockaded fortification of forgotten origin.