There was Melkor doomed to abide for three ages long, before his cause should be tried anew, or he should plead again for pardon. Vast and strong are those halls, and they were built in the west of the land of Aman. There he lay upon his face before the feet of Manwë and sued for pardon but his prayer was denied, and he was cast into prison in the fastness of Mandos, whence none can escape, neither Vala, nor Elf, nor mortal Man. Later, after the Darkening of Valinor, the Dark Lord (now known to the Eldar as Morgoth) returned to Middle-Earth and ruled from Angband, which had originally. Utumno was the older and greater fortress, but it was destroyed by the Valar in the War for Sake of the Elves. Many evil things still lingered there, and others were dispersed and fled into the dark and roamed in the waste places of the world, awaiting a more evil hour and Sauron they did not find.īut when the Battle was ended and from the ruin of the North great clouds arose and hid the stars, the Valar drew Melkor back to Valinor, bound hand and foot, and blindfold and he was brought to the Ring of Doom. In the First Age, Melkor had two fortresses, first Utumno and then Angband. Nonetheless the Valar did not discover all the mighty vaults and caverns hidden with deceit far under the fortresses of Angband and Utumno. ![]() Then Tulkas stood forth as champion of the Valar and wrestled with him, and cast him upon his face and he was bound with the chain Angainor that Aulë had wrought, and led captive and the world had peace for a long age. “But at the last the gates of Utumno were broken and the halls unroofed, and Melkor took refuge in the uttermost pit. And the shape of Arda and the symmetry of its waters and its lands was marred in that time, so that the first designs of the Valar were never after restored.” In the overthrow of the mighty pillars lands were broken and seas arose in tumult and when the lamps were spilled destroying flame was poured out over the Earth. But Melkor, trusting in the strength of Utumno and the might of his servants, came forth suddenly to war, and struck the first blow, ere the Valar were prepared and he assailed the lights of Illuin and Ormal, and cast down their pillars and broke their lamps. Then the Valar knew indeed that Melkor was at work again, and they sought for his hiding place. Or like Melkor started with that, with the beautiful, but couldn't help but delve down and expand into the darkness below, further and further. ![]() ![]() Green things fell sick and rotted, and rivers were choked with weeds and slime, and fens were made, rank and poisonous, the breeding place of flies and forests grew dark and perilous, the haunts of fear and beasts became monsters of horn and ivory and dyed the earth with blood. Part of Utumno is of course just subterranean, maybe most of it, with a palace of ice and obsidian on the surface, like an architectural version of a mask. And though the Valar knew naught of it as yet, nonetheless the evil of Melkor and the blight of his hatred flowed out thence, and the Spring of Arda was marred. “Now Melkor began the delving and building of a vast fortress, deep under Earth, beneath dark mountains where the beams of Illuin were cold and dim.
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