Dinach

This village, the first town in Mintyrnath to be ruled by the Dunedain, was noted by travellers merely as measuring two days' walk or one day's ride northwest of Tharbad. In the mid-Second Age, it was a small Eriadorian fort on a strategic hilltop overlooking the junction of the River Sendiel with the River Anthiel. A Dwarven bridge (on the Len Caraug) over the Sendiel was the site of the first fullscale battle of the Eriadorian Wars, but the fort soon fell to the Numenoreans to become a peaceful Dunadan outpost. When the principality of Dol Tinare was founded in the 27th century ofthe Second Age, Eruthimar, the first Ernil, made sure he gained the rule of Dinach, and Dol Tinare held on to the strategic hamlet for better then two millenia. After the Cardolani civil wars began in 1412, Dinach changed hands frequently, dwindling to an impoverished and dangerous community. In the 17th century of the Third Age, Dinach was a popular way station for all the parties despoiling Cardolan. Just out of reach of the sword of Tharbad's Canotar, it was a jumping-off point for spies, smugglers, and bandits. A small Tinare garrison held the modest tower on Dol Dinach, guarding the Iant Dinach, the Arnorian bridge over the Anthiel. The Men Formen paralleled the River Sindiel, running southeast, after it left the highlands at Metraith, but never approached the water nearer than a few miles, thus avoiding the spring floods. The approaches to the Iant Dinach were built up by Arnorian engineers to avoid having the same problem with the Anthiel; the fifty or so stone buildings and hovels that made up the village of Dinach lined the Men Formen to take advantage of the elevation, leaving the lowlying fields and willow groves along the river to be washed out every spring.

Dinach in T.A. 1640
The Water Serpent Inn is the only substantial business left in town; its middle-aged owner, Curmegil Roundpate, sells information freely to anyone with gold. Curmegil s wife, Marelen, is cheery enough to make up for his shifty manners. Unknown even to her husband, she was taught to read and write by the wandering herbalist, Gandalf the Grey. Marelen is naturally gifted and uses her skill to augment the family income; she keeps secret dairy (a meticulous daily record of anyone and anything of interest passing through Dinach). Every few months a kindly

stranger picks it up and pays her with either Arthadan gold or one Gondorian book; she does not suspect the well-spoken fellow to be an Angmarean spy, but her precisely dated, vividly descriptive diary is of immense aid to certain servants of the Witch-king.