The Encampment

The first Men to cross the Blue Mountains into Beleriand were Bëor and his people, and they were discovered by the Elf-lord Finrod Felagund. Immediately westward of the mountains were the riverlands of Ossiriand, but the Green-elves of that land urged Finrod not to allow Men to settle there. Instead, Finrod led the Bëorians on westward across Gelion into a green place on the eastern borders of Doriath, southward of the wood of Nan Elmoth. Here, in lands formally under the power of Amrod and Amras, Men established their camps, and the land gained the name Estolad, the Encampment.

As time passed, Men of other clans passed across the Blue Mountains and into Beleriand. The Haladin were the next to achieve this feat, but they did not at first make their way to the Encampment, settling instead in the southern parts of Thargelion. The final group of Men was the most populous, a great band under the command of Marach who would give rise to the House of Hador. Hearing of the Encampment of Bëor, they too passed westward and swelled the numbers at Estolad.

The Encampment at Estolad was not a permanent settlement, and many of the Men who came there would later move on. Some of these became disenchanted with their long westward march out of the East, and abandoned Beleriand to wander back over the Blue Mountains. Many others joined the service of the Elves, travelling away to distant lands along the northern marches. Bëor himself was the first of these, choosing to become a vassal of King Finrod, but many others followed the same path. Thus the northern lands of Dorthonion and Dor-lómin became fiefs held by houses of Men, and most the followers of Bëor and Marach departed from Estolad to dwell in those new lands.

Within some fifty years, by about the year I 363, there were few Men to be found at the once-great Encampment of Men, but it was not entirely deserted. Indeed, its numbers grew briefly when the People of Haleth came there after the loss of their lord Haldad in Thargelion, before moving on to follow the dangerous path that led to the far Forest of Brethil. Even after their departure, some few Men remained at the Encampment, and their descendants were still to found there centuries later, when the War of Wrath descended on Beleriand. In that great War the land was ruined and the Encampment destroyed, and its few surviving inhabitants fled back eastward into the wilds of Middle-earth.