Welcome to the Lord of the Rings lore cast, the show that explores the background of

Tolkien's amazing world from the very beginning. You can hear the roaring, crackling fire behind me.

And there's a reason why we're using this as our soundscape for this episode.

After taking a brief side quest, I guess you could say, to discuss the nature of magic, it

is time to return to the events unfolding in Middle Earth.

And so far, our story has focused on the Noldor,

and specifically on Phaonor, his sons, his relatives, his people,

and their quest for revenge against Melkor.

But there's an event that we need to talk about that occurs just a few years before they reach

Balearion.

If we go back to episodes, now, I guess a few months ago at this point, with the description about what happened with the elves

and how they made their way to Valinor.

If you recall, a great number of them started on the journey,

but never made it across the sea.

In the time that we've been spending with the Noldor, learning about their

development under the Valar, the creation of the Silmarils, the infighting, all of those events.

The elves over in Balear, in Middle Earth Earth haven't been idle. In fact, not just the elves,

the dwarves as well. There are dwarves now in the Blue Mountains on the eastern side of the

map of Balearion, which would eventually be the western side of the map of Middle

Earth in the Third Age. But we'll get to reasons why that happens later. And during the time of

the development of the Noldor, you have to recall that Morgoth, for most of that time, was captured.

He was a prisoner of the Valar, and great lengths of time have gone by.

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