Exploring Tolkien's Annotated Map of Middle-earth

本站添加: 2026-05-15

[00:00:00]The people who watch this channel love videos with maps. And that's fine because I also love videos with maps. If you've watched my tour of Middleear videos, you'll know the maps I prefer to use. Today, we're not using that map.

[00:00:11]We're using a special map, one that was annotated by Paulina Baines and Tolken himself. And these annotations provide some interesting insights into Middle Earth that can't really be found anywhere else. In this video, we look at Tolken's annotated map of Middle Earth.

[00:00:26]In the late 1960s, Tolkien and Paulina Baines collaborated to make a poster map of Middle Earth. If you're unsure of who Paulina Baines was, she was an English illustrator, author, and artist who worked extensively with both Tolken and also CS Lewis. For Tolken, she created artwork for The Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings, as well as several of his smaller pieces. In 1968, she released this illustrated map of Middle Earth, which includes several unique features on the map, as well as drawings of famous places in Middle Earth. Keran Amaroth, the Doors of Duran, Hobbiton, the Barad Downs, the Black Gate, the Argonath, Barador, Minas Tith, Minas Morgl, and Mount Doom.

[00:01:03]Because Tolken worked directly with Baines, he was able to direct her illustrations of the map, as well as read her own suggestions for what could be included. Because emails didn't exist back then, this was all done on a physical map. And this map survived both Tolken and Baines, who passed away in 2008. This map was known about after Baines's death, but it wasn't discovered until 2015 where it was found in a copy of Lord of the Rings that Baines possessed. The annotations themselves are extremely difficult to read, but fortunately they were transcribed by Blackwell's rare books later that same year.

[00:01:37]So firstly, you can see at the top who wrote the annotations. Baines are in blue and Tolken are in green. And it's no surprise that most of the annotations were by Tolken. Many of the annotations aren't really anything interesting. They either give names that we already know about or they describe geographical features, mostly trees. However, there are some very interesting ones that give us some insight into how Tolken actually envisioned Middle Earth. And some of these details we can't necessarily find in other places.

[00:02:06]One of the things you'll notice on the map are place names. Interestingly, many of these place names were new at the time. Aaron Vaughn, the Undeeps, Ethylond, Londare, to name a few. Most of these places feature prominently in the law and thus have reappeared over and over on later maps. However, there are a handful of places that appeared on this map for the first time yet don't really make appearances on later maps either. These three places are Framburg, Darwinian, and Tumladen. Framburg was the old capital of the aode. And while Tolkien does describe where exactly it was located, he never actually places it on a map. For some reason, Framsburg doesn't really appear on later maps, probably because it was long ruined and irrelevant.

[00:02:48]Next up is Darwinian, the mysterious wine growing land that is mentioned in The Hobbit as being somewhere in the wilderland, but its exact location is never described nor shown on any map apart from this one. Interestingly, on the non-transcribed version of the map, you can see the word Mildor, meaning land of wine, showing that Tolken always associated the land with wine, even if the name was changed. The last location is Tumladen, not to be confused with the valley where the legendary city of Gondolind could be found. In Gondor, Tomaden was a valley in or next to Loenac, where most of the non-combatants from Minister Turiff and the surrounding lands were sent during the war of the ring.

[00:03:26]Other geographical features that appear on this map, but not necessarily on other maps, are some extra forests.

[00:03:31]Tolkien shaded in forests at Erin Vaughn, a new invention at the time, but also through an Edwave and Drew. This is to bring these lands in line with descriptions that Tolkien recorded across his various works. We are told that Dufi was a wooded land. So this map adds some forests there. As for Endwife, it once contained great forests which were destroyed thanks to the Num Manorans and later Sauron. However, in the unfinished tales, Tolken does mention that some forests in Enidwife and Minhir had regrown by the end of the third age.

[00:04:04]Some other smaller annotations are those that describe where animals should be.

[00:04:08]At first glance, not particularly interesting, but when you think about it, they do provide some insight about certain places. One that isn't surprising is the placement of wolves in Euron. Wolves were a constant problem in Ariador, and the fellowship was attacked by wolves not far from warrior. One of Bane's suggestions was black swans near to the dead marshes, but these weren't featured in the final map, and there's no mention of swans in the dead marshes when Froto and Sam go through there. In the wide empty lands between the Anduin and the Sea of Rune, Tolkien writes, "Kine and horses. We know Kine did exist and were hunted down near to the Sea of Rune. As for horses, the men of Raanion, ancestors of the Roherim, who lived in these lands were breeders of horses.

[00:04:48]While none of this is new information, it does tell us that these lands were probably step flat grasslands. This explains why waves of Easterlings were able to pass through here. In Harad, Tolken rides down elephants. We know about these, the mumakill, but also camels. As far as I'm aware, camels are not mentioned anywhere else, but yeah, they did exist in Middle Earth, and it's probable that the Heradrum did use them.

[00:05:12]Next, we have a lot of information about boats. Near to the Grey Havens, Baines and Tolken wrote more or less the same thing, that the elven ships were small, light, or gray. Baines writing that they were single mastered. This tells us that the elves didn't really build large boats or warships, or at the very least, the ships that sailed west across the open ocean or for leisure around the coastlines that were quite small. Sure enough, illustrations of these small boats do appear on the map. Completely opposite of that is Baines's description of the Num Manoran ships, specifically those that brought Ellen and his two sons to Middle Earth. She writes that they could be as large as a gallon with as many as five masts, basically as big a sailed ship as you can get. She also suggested that the ships would be black sailed, which does match Tolkien's descriptions of later Numanorian ships and that seven of them would have a white star on the main sail. As far as I know, each of these seven special ships would carry a palanteer. I'm guessing the Palanteeri were carried on separate ships because a some of them were very heavy and b so they wouldn't all be lost at once should a ship go down. Why these ships needed special sails is anyone's guess. These giant ships don't appear on the final map, but I think that's because Bane ran out of space rather than Tolki and disagreeing with the description of the ships. We know that the Num Manorans built ships which were large enough for multi-year voyages, some even over a decade long. We also know that Ararazon's flagship was called Algarandas, the castle of the sea. So, it must have been huge. So, yeah, the Numanorans were building some pretty massive ships towards the end. But wait, there's more about ships. Tolkien also wrote down that he wanted drawings of both Gondoran and Corsair ships anywhere between single to three mastered. This may imply that after Numor the art of ship building declined because the size of the ships diminished or that the Gondorans and Corsaires did not see the need for massive ships because they weren't really sailing beyond the coasts. The Gondorian ships are described as black and silver probably were white star or the white tree to differentiate them from the Corsair ships.

[00:07:17]Speaking of the Corsair ships, their description is interesting. The Corsair fleet that attacks Gondor during the War of the Ring is described as black sailed, but on this map, Tolken says that the Corsair also used red sails, which contained either a black star or eye. The eye is self-explanatory. It's Sauron's emblem. The black star, on the other hand, isn't explained. You might notice that it's the opposite of the white star that the Numanorans and probably later Gondorian ships used.

[00:07:42]This might tell us that the black star was the emblem of the black numanorans.

[00:07:46]Or alternatively, it was the emblem of the corsair who descended from Castmir who established a rival state in Umbar.

[00:07:53]It might have been their way of representing themselves as a rival heir to Numor and later Gondor.

[00:07:58]Alternatively, it could just be mocking Gondor's white star. The last thing I want to talk about is latitude. Yes, latitude. As you can see on this map, Tolken explains how the latitude of certain locations in Middle Earth compared to places in our own world.

[00:08:12]Remember, Middle Earth and our world are supposed to be the same planet. So, mathematically, everything is the same.

[00:08:18]Tolken writes that Hobbiton is supposed to be at the same latitude as Oxford in the south of England, that Minestth is supposed to be equal to Revena in Italy or Belgrade in Serbia, and that Umbar is supposed to be around the latitude of Cyprus. He explains that you can use these measurements to roughly judge the climate and the floor and fauna of these places. The latitude comparison to our own world is kind of amusing because different places at the same latitude will have completely different climates.

[00:08:46]Talking imagine the Shia as the south of England. Fair enough. But the south of England also has the same latitude as much of Canada and parts of Siberia.

[00:08:54]Oxford and the Shia don't really have brutal winters whereas Siberia and Canada are renowned for it. Likewise, Mestif or Revena and Umbar or Cyprus are not as far south as you might think.

[00:09:06]What this tells us is that Arthur as a whole is possibly warmer than our planet right now or that the Westlands are affected by something similar to the Gulf Stream. But regardless, the latitude stuff is fairly interesting because like Tolkien said, it helps us imagine the climate in certain places.

[00:09:23]It's common knowledge that rural England inspired the Shire, but I don't think a lot of people necessarily see Gondor as having something equivalent to a Mediterranean or Balkan climate. As for Umba, while a Mediterranean climate isn't really surprising, what is more surprising is that Umba is still absolutely nowhere near Arthur's equator. You could fit an entire Westlands again in the south before you actually reach it. It helps you understand just how large Middle Earth is and just how much of it we don't know about. And that's pretty much it in regards to the interesting stuff. Thank you for watching. I hope you enjoyed it or at least found it interesting. If you want more insights into Tolken's map, you'll have to find a way to contact his ghost or something. But be warned, he'll probably just tell you about languages or trees instead. Cheers. Farewell. And remember, I wonder if any elf just decided to row a canoe into the