Beneath Your Feet – The Wizard’s Vale

This most recent entry is dedicated to Merric & Goldenstar of A Casual Stroll to Mordor. Thanks for your support over the years! Your podcast will be missed.

Nan Curunír, the Wizard’s Vale, is a place of terror. When the heroes of Rohan, with Gandalf and the remnants of the Fellowship, arrive, they are greeted by a white hand, the emblem of Saruman, hideous even in its brokenness. In earlier years, it was a beautiful and powerful place crafted by the Men of Gondor when the skill passed down to the by their Númenórean forebears was still strong. It was a fortress meant to watch the bounds of their once powerful kingdom. There was room aplenty for The Lord of Isengard and his servants and vassals, and from there the western entry into the Gondorian lands of Calenardhon (now The Mark) was kept safe where the Misty Mountains met the White.

Then the plagues came, and the invaders, and Gondor was put to the test. She came out alive, but not uninjured; many of her people were killed, in battle or in bed, and so the defenses of her marches were left untended. The Rohirrim came, Orthanc was emptied, but the fortress of Isengard itself remained manned by Gondorians. They were all but forgotten and, under some evil influence, were said to have fallen into witchcraft. They grew friendly with the wildmen and mingled with the Dunlendings and their guard slacked. Isengard slipped into the hands of the wildmen who made war against the Rohirrim and Gondor.

And then the Wizards came: a new order of an ancient race living beyond the spheres of the mortal world. Their chief was Saruman, the White, called Curunír (‘man of skill’) in Sindarin. In the beginning, he was much like his counterparts and moved here and there, helping where he might. He went East and upon his return he came into the knowledge of Orthanc and the palantir stored there in the strong, locked tower and of the trouble the failed fortress had brought the free Men of those lands. He offered his services as keeper of Isengard, warden of the western edge of Rohan. Fréaláf, King of Rohan and Beren, Steward of Gondor, agreed and it was good for a time. The valley that contained Isengard was renamed Nan Curunír — the Wizard’s Vale. But, as we all know, the White was corrupted and made the the Many Coloured. He wished to become a Power, to seize the One Ring for himself. And though he was enticed by Sauron, his double treachery became later known as he designed to capture the halflings Merry and Pippin, and with them the One Ring, or so he thought.

The once pleasant and green lands of the valley and the ring of Isengard were leveled and made into a massive war-machine. This image, for those of us who saw the films or played through this portion of LOTRO is vivid: smoke from underground chambers, catapults and siege-towers, and an army of orcs. Gandalf espies these things when he is imprisoned atop Orthanc.

The ring of Isengard itself proved to be an excellent place of war, for it was easy to defend. The perfect ring of stone, one mile across, had only a single entrance at its southern point with “mighty doors of iron. They were so wrought and poised upon their huge hinges, posts of steel driven into the living stone…”  Even before Saruman’s treachery, the area beneath the seemingly placid ground was already delved and a series of passageways and tunnels and rooms, for the keeping of the garrison at Isengard, were constructed. This made for an easy transition to the massive forges and barracks we see in the films and in LOTRO. The purpose Saruman put the underground complex to is only hinted at in the books; we never see it directly, for our only firsthand account of Isengard (at a reasonable proximity) is after it was flooded by the Ents. And that is the ultimate fate of Isengard: led by Treebeard, the Ents take Isengard and rename it Treegarth and their wish to keep it a lush garden, part of their tree-herds, is granted by King Elessar. And so the great fortress of the Númenóreans passes into equally strong, if not perfectly watchful hands.

However, the Isengard we are most familiar with is the one we see in LOTRO. We, the players, are made captives and serve out a term running errands for the Uruks who run the place before plotting our escape. It is a horrible place and we are given a look at what was a very likely possibility; Isengard had been transformed into a slave-pen, a small hell to rival that of Barad-dûr. Treebeard calls Saruman’s breeding of half-orcs a “black-evil” and it has been suspected that Men were forced to breed with Orcs there. Slaves were made to serve under the lash, fodder for Saruman’s army. Not the kind of place you want to be.

Being the intrepid, high-level explorers and adventurers we are, we break out of Isengard. Later we attack Isengard directly and smash the ring-forges of Saruman, even tangle with the many-coloured wizard himself. An unlikely scenario, but not so unlikely for we who have slain balrogs and undead dragons.

In contrast to the Dark Tower, Isengard and Orthanc are a strong symbols for the end of the Third Age. It’s a time of renewal: a new King, a new Shire, new marriage and life. Under the new occupancy of the Ents, Isengard is transformed from a war engine to a lush, green place, full of life and new hope for the Onodrim. The Dark Tower is torn down and never rebuilt, but Isengard is saved.