Hûb Helcharaes (S. "Bay of Cracking Ice"): The Lossoth dwelt on both shores of this bay, taking whales, seals, and fish from it when they could. Exiled Umli dwelt on the eastern shore, around the estuary of the Lókosir; Cardolandrim and Riverman whalers came here in the summer months before the Witch-king brought down cold from the north and made the voyages too dangerous. It was said that it was also the Witch-king who summoned the Uidhrogath (S. “Demon-whales”) to plague mortals, but the Lossoth said that the Uidhrog was older than any mortal magic. The Lossoth of the northern shore of this gulf made their sod and snow huts close to its shores.
A village of this people was immortalized by a parchment kept in the collection of the Kings of Arthedain:
- Late and sad it was that I learned this caution of the Hemoel Lossoth: no man is let out unguarded in snow weather in this season. All of our company are now lost to the Icewoman save my husband. I have seen them standing un-cloaked in the snow; pale, tormented, guarding their new mistress with her lace gowns and her fine white teeth. By the grace and guile of my ancestors, she will not have Thorluin while I breath. -Ammerethiel Foros
The inscriber of the parchment seemed to have brought it back to Arthedain in the 12th century (T.A.), but no further details were recorded.
Bay of Cracking Ice[]
The Bay of Cracking Ice was a large inlet along the Herd Tundra, lying due south of Sheltered Bay and north of Hûb Helchui. The bay got its name from the ice that was broken, heaped, and battered upon its surface. This was caused by the fact that the bay never completely froze over in winter and, as a result, its ice hove and broke constantly, as the restless waters trapped within its relatively narrow confines reared and swelled. This process was amplified by the inflowing waters of the Everhir, which forced the ice westward, and by the opposing currents of Forochel, which drove it back into the bay, where it collided with other ice-floes.
Travel on the bay was virtually suicidal in winter. The ice-sheet could suddenly break beneath walkers' feet, sending them plunging to a cold and watery grave; or (more commonly) great fissures could splinter an ice-floe, setting the unfortunates adrift. Wanderers on the bay would not even realize they were adrift until they suddenly found the sea both before and behind them, discovering that they stood upon an island of ice. Such wretched, trapped between the contesting currents of sea and river, could only wait for a slow death by cold, starvation, or drowning. In summer, the Bay could be traveled in the relative safety of a boat, but the waters remained ice-cold.
The shores of Hûb Helcharaes were rough and rocky along its northern coast, near to the boggy mouth of the Everhir, but pebble-strewn and sandy along the southern rim. In spring and summer, the northern shores became the breeding ground for seals, while the southern strands were covered with the rookeries of birds. Encounters with any of these creatures at this time were inevitably hostile, zealous as they were to protect their harems, nests, eggs, or young. The Bay's eastern shores were less rough, and blended into the vast, open tundra beyond. Looking southeast from the southern coast of Hûb Helcharaes, a wanderer could discern the dim and distant glint of the white Emyn Nimbrith, their heights twinkling tantalizingly like far-off jewels. The Lumimiehet maintained villages upon both the northern and southern shores, while Umli inhabited the eastern side of the bay, near the river Everhir. While rustic and isolated in the extreme, the villagers of the Bay of Cracking Ice were not completely cut off from the rest of the world. The Lumimiehet lived by hunting whales, fish, and seals on the bay as the weather and the season permitted, and engaged in a small amount of trade with the Cardolanian whalers. The Umli lived in much the same manner as the Lumimiehet, but traded heavily with Dwarves and others of their own kind further east.
The Lumimiehet called the Bay "Jäänainen's Home"; and among all the Bay's dangers, none was more feared than the Mistress of the Cold or (as the Lumimiehet also name her) "Jäänainen the Icewoman". Jäänainen was an evil spirit, an Umaia whose lair was the ice-choked mouth of the Everhir. She was as old as the river itself, and dwelt there when the land was still in the throes of its reshaping after the destruction of Morgoth's realm. Where Jäänainen made her home before the War of Wrath was a matter of conjecture. She later troubled the lives of mortals only as the air cooled and winter deepened. She could journey several miles from her home, but had eventually to return to the bosom of its cold embrace. Jäänainen held no power over the deathless Elves; but Men, Dwarves, and Umli were all her prey. (As Jäänainen had never encountered a Hobbit, the outcome of such a meeting could not be predicted, but it was unlikely that it would have been pleasant.)
Stories and descriptions of Jäänainen varied from village to village along the shores of the bay, but the accounts generally agreed that she appeared as an extremely beautiful woman clad in white, whisper-thin lace and silk. It was said that a man, once his eye caught sight of the Ice-woman and her raiment, was lost to her. The Lumimiehet greatly feared her presence, and menfolk did not venture forth after sundown from mid-Hithui to mid-Lothron. Even these were not sure times, for the Mistress of the Cold would come early or depart later than expected. The Lumimiehet relied on the extent of ice-floes on the bay as a measure of their peril. The larger and closer an ice-sheet, the greater the chance that the evil huntress was near. Hunters who failed to return home in mid-autumn or mid-spring were routinely said to have fallen to Jäänainen; though in truth, many may have merely become prey to one or another of the many misfortunes in the world that had nothing to do with the Umaia.
Though she wielded no weapon but the charm of her voice, over the years Jäänainen had collected many weapons and mementos of past victims, including a number of spears, harpoons, earrings, rings and rune-knives. Almost all were of Lumimies origin and of low-level enchantment. Jäänainen stored them on whatever ice-floe she currently occupied, abandoning them as she moved on. Adventurers would find such paraphernalia littering the ice where the Umaia once dwelt (or was still dwelling).
References[]
- MERP: Arnor
- MERP: The Northern Waste