Arnach (Cardolan)

The Iaur Men Formen swept out of the Tyrn Gorthad by way of the gap of Andrath, then ran southward over the rolling chalk-prairie that marked the divide between the drainages of the Baranduin and the Gwathlo in Mintyrnath. It skirted the heights of Arnach on the east by dropping into the valley of the Sirihini (S. "Children's Stream"; D. "Cheilwistrem"). In the shadow of the heights, the brook ran through a bowl-shaped vale, some two leagues north to south, that retains its forest all through the Eras of Burning and Abandonment. The North Road followed eastern edge of the bowl. Between the road and the stream long stood the old village of Arnach. In the Second Age, Arnach was an Eriadorian farming village and for a while the seat of a petty kingdom. This, together with its central and fertile location in the northern highlands of Mintyrnath, may account for it having been the site of several traditional fairs, festivals, and religious ceremonies throughout the years of Arnorian and Cardolani prosperity. However, it faded with the rest of northern Cardolan after the Witch-king's armies passed through in 1409. Only subsidies from the Ernil Hallas of Dol Tinare kept Arnach's inns open in the years before the Great Plague. When Andrath, its neighbor to the north, was destroyed by Broggha the Hillman in 1639, most of the inhabitants of Arnach fled. The abandonment of the two towns left all of Mintyrnath open to infiltration by the Orcs of Angmar, but the ruins of Arnach remained relatively safe, and its streamside campsites were rarely troubled by the horrors afflicting the rest of the region. Unknown to most, the Vale of Arnach was an Elf-haunt; it was a key stopover for Noldo "Wandering Companies" that secretly passed across Mintyrnath from Lindon to Lorien and Rivendell. Andovan Pasdal, a trusted Elf under Gaerdae of Harlindon, paused here several times a year. He and his people patroled the vale, maintained the "Faerie dances" (the clearings west of the Chielwis where the Elvish travellers camped), and inspected the magical plants that served the Companies as alarms and tripwires