Valley of Saruman

At the southern end of the Misty Mountains, a wide valley opened into the peaks as they descended toward the Gap of Rohan. From its mouth, the valley ran northward into the mountains for some twenty miles, and near its head the early Gondorians had raised the impregnable Tower of Orthanc within the Circle of Isengard. Streams ran down into the valley from the surrounding heights, filling the young river Isen as it ran out along the vale and out onto the wide plains beyond. Fed by these streams, the valley was originally green and deeply forested.

In the year III 2759, nearly three millennia after Orthanc had been raised at the head of the valley, the Wizard Saruman was given leave to dwell there by Steward Beren of Gondor. At the time, Saruman presented himself as a friend to the Gondorians and the Rohirrim, who were recovering from the invasion of their land and the death of King Helm Hammerhand. The valley that held Saruman's tower thus became known as the Valley of Saruman or the Wizard's Vale (Nan Curunír in Elvish, Curunír being Saruman's name among the Elves).

Though at first he was a wise and generous ally to the neighbouring Rohirrim, Saruman later withdrew into his tower and turned against his former friends. In III 2953 he claimed Isengard and Orthanc as his own, and it was later learned that he had dared to look into the Orthanc-stone and had thus become ensnared by Sauron. Isengard then became filled with Orcs, and the trees of the valley were cut down to fuel Saruman's forges. By the time of the War of the Ring, decades later, the Valley of Saruman was an empty and treeless place, farmed in places for the feeding of his armies, and elsewhere left to turn to weeds and brambles. On the road to Isengard that ran along the valley, Saruman set up a black pillar bearing his symbol of the White Hand.

Saruman's power in the valley came to an end during the War of the Ring, when the Ents of Fangorn Forest were roused to anger over the treachery of the Wizard and his felling of trees on the mountain slopes around the vale. Under darkness of night, the Ents and their Huorns travelled up the valley and overwhelmed Isengard (Saruman had sent his armies to war, leaving himself almost defenceless). After holding the Wizard prisoner in his own tower for a time, the Ents eventually released him, and he fled from his valley. After Saruman's departure, then, this was no longer the 'Valley of Saruman', but if it had another name before or after the Wizard's time, that name is not recorded.