Mirkwood in the Fourth Age The Wood of the Greenleaves was freed from the Shadow at the beginning of the Fourth Age and enjoyed a brief spring over the following decades. Evil things had been slain or hid in the darkest caves and dells. The trees grew with bright green leaves and their groves were free of oppressive shadows.
Southern Mirkwood was declared East Lórien by Celeborn at the end of the War of the Ring, and for many years Elves of Lothlórien dwelt under the eaves and guarded against the Shadow’s return.
Yet when Celeborn tired of Lórien and turned west in Fourth Age 87 his folk withdrew from the great forest. The Galadrim had dwindled in number with the departure of their Queen, those that remained kept to the golden boughs of Lothlórien. Most of the Galadrim had little love for the strange and blighted southern woodland and only Celeborn’s will held them there.
For evil beasts remained in the dark corners of the wood, where twisted trees clawed the sodden earth and bent creatures of Sauron found refuge from the bright swords of the free. When the Galadrim returned to Lórien, so Thranduil and his Elves grew complacent, contenting themselves within the borders of their own realm. With the bright Elves withdrawn to their dells and caves, the short-lived men became fearful of the Southern regions of the forest once more, and not without good reason.
Deserted by men and elves the shadows grew long between the boughs of the trees and evil things crept from their long hiding. The black-rooted trees about Dol Guldur were broken and twisted by their master - well they grew into tangled thickets and hung dense curtains of stinking moss across the few paths.
So it was that the Giant Spiders could be seen in the dark clearings of Southern Mirkwood, driven from their abodes by the Elves and Woodmen that settled the northern forest. Once more travellers on the Old Forest Road are wary, lest these scuttling beasts entwine them in their webs.
In hushed voices the woodmen speak of other, even more dreadful things glimpsed in the twilight carrying off livestock. Their rumours are of the offspring of the Necromancer’s wickedness that still crawl and slither in the dark places of the forest. Rumour has it that some renegade men are said to worship these creeping horrors of the night.
The Dol Guldur, the hill of Sorcery, still rises above the southern forest - though it’s tower was thrown down, the hill remains. It stirs in its sleep, belching sulphurous fumes over the forest. As yet the odour of dread does not taint the bright glades of the northern woodland, which could still be called the Forest of Greenleaves. The south seems destined to remain forever Mirkwood.
“Bilbo sat on the ground feeling very unhappy and wishing he was beside the wizard on his tall horse. He had gone just inside the forest after breakfast (a very poor one), and it had seemed as dark in there in the morning as at night, and very secret: “a sort of watching and waiting feeling,” he said to himself.” . . .
“Do we really have to go through?” groaned the hobbit. “Yes, you do!” said the wizard, “if you want to get to the other side. You must either go through or give up your quest. And I am not going to allow you to back out now, Mr. Baggins. I am ashamed of you for thinking of it. You have got to look after all these dwarves for me,” he laughed.
“No! no!” said Bilbo. “I didn’t mean that. I meant, is there no way round?”
“There is, if you care to go two hundred miles or so out of your way north, and twice that south. But you wouldn’t get a safe path even then. There are no safe paths in this part of the world. Remember you are over the Edge of the Wild now, and in for all sorts of fun wherever you go. Before you could get round Mirkwood in the North you would be right among the slopes of the Grey Mountains, and they are simply stiff with goblins, hobgoblins, and orcs of the worst description. Before you could get round it in the South, you would get into the land of the Necromancer; and even you, Bilbo, won’t need me to tell you tales of that black sorcerer. I don’t advise you to go anywhere near the places overlooked by his dark tower! Stick to the forest track, keep your spirits up, hope for the best, and with a tremendous slice of luck you may come out one day and see the Long Marshes lying below you, and beyond them, high in the East, the Lonely Mountain where dear old Smaug lives, though I hope he is not expecting you.”
“Very comforting you are to be sure,” growled Thorin. “Good-bye! If you won’t come with us, you had better get off without any more talk!” “Good-bye then, and really good-bye!” said Gandalf.
- The Hobbit
