Willowbottom in the Overbourne Marshes
These marshes in the southern Shire were located on the right bank of the Baranduin.This extensive stretch of swampland flooded in its entirety every spring, often making the adjacent length of the Brandywine looked like a vast lake for several weeks in April. No Arthadan had ever tried to drain the Overbourne Marshes, nor had any Hobbit planned to do so. Those hoping to turn the Marish into fertile fields wished to preserve the adjacent wetlands to absorb runoff. Not incidentally , the reeds and thickets of the Overbourne Marshes were expected to yield a continuing harvest venison, frog-legs, marsh-rat, and duck-down.
The Dead of the Overbourne Marshes[]
A small army of Northlanders once had fled across the Baranduin here during the Forest Wars of the mid-Second Age.They had offended the Wood-elves and were besieged in camps around Willowbottom. The Sîrrandras casted wardings about the refugees and waited patiently for their surrender . However, the Eriadorians expected, mistakenly, to be sold into Númenorean slavery by the Elves. Over the course of a fierce winter, most of them starved to death. The bodies were thrown through broken ice into the deepest part of the swamp. The last and strongest of the Northland priests suspected some of his brethren of cannibalism. When he knew he was dying, he pronounced a horrible curse on his fellows and on all those he blamed; for their death and their damnation.The remaining Northlanders, including those who had been too weak to move , stood up as one man and walked into the quicksand together. The screams of those who joined the death march involuntarily reached the Elves, but they arrived too late to save anyone from the terrible enchantment. The Sirannar had avoided the Overbourne Marshes ever since, but they and the Rivermen both told of "those who have become one with the worms" .It had been said that the remains of the vanished, when the mood stroke them or there was too much magic being used locally, occasionally crawled out of the swamp and wandered about looking for Elves to slay and flesh to eat.
In TA 1640[]
A goblin sorcerer , Druleg the Raft , has been slipping over the Brandywine from the Old Forest of late. He hopes to summon the dead to drive the Elves from Sîrgala once and for all; it is said among the wood-goblins that Druleg has mannish allies somewhere along the west bank.
References[]
- MERP:the Shire
- MERP:Arnor