Middle-Earth Tours

Tour 2: The Places of Middle-Earth

Mirkwood
As their eyes became used to the dimness they could see a little way to either side in a sort of darkened green glimmer. Occasionally a slender beam of sun that had the luck to slip in through some opening in the leaves far above, and still more luck in not being caught in the tangled boughs and matted twigs beneath, stabbed down thin and bright before them. But this was seldom, and it soon ceased altogether. --The Hobbit, "Flies and Spiders"

Mirkwood, by Alan Lee

Mirkwood, by Dean Morrisey

Dol Guldur, by Rob Alexander
I myself dared to pass the doors of the Necromancer in Dol Guldur and secretly explored his ways, and found thus that our fears were true: he was none other than Sauron, our Enemy of old, at length taking shape and power again. --Gandalf warns of Sauron's presence in Mirkwood, FotR, "The Council of Elrond"

Mirkwood Spiders, by Alan Lee		 He had picked his way stealthily for some distance, when he noticed a place of dense black shadow ahead of him black even for that forest, like a patch of midnight that had never been cleared away. As he drew nearer he saw that it was made by spider-webs one behind and over and tangled with another. Suddenly he saw, too, that there were spiders huge and horrible sitting in the branches above him, and ring or no ring he trembled with fear lest they should discover him. Standing behind a tree he watched a group of them for some time, and then in the silence and stillness of the wood he realised that these loathesome creatures were speaking to one another....
    With that one of the fat spiders ran along a rope, till it came to a dozen bundles hanging in a row from a high branch. Bilbo was horrified, now that he noticed them for the first time dangling in the shadows, to see a dwarfish foot sticking out of the bottoms of some of the bundles, or here and there the tip of a nose, or a bit of beard or of a hood. --The Hobbit, "Flies and Spiders"
In a great cave some miles within the edge of Mirkwood on its eastern side there lived at this time their greatest king. Before his huge doors of stone a river ran out of the heights of the forest and flowed on and out into the marshes at the feet of the high wooded lands. This great cave, from which countless smaller ones opened out on every side, wound far underground and had many passages and wide halls; but it was lighter and more wholesome than any goblin-dwelling, and neither so deep nor so dangerous. --The Hobbit, "Flies and Spiders"

Thranduil's Halls, by Rob Alexander

The Wood Elves' Hall is home both to King Thranduil, depicted in The Hobbit as less than a perfect gentleman, and to his nobler (but less titled) son Legolas of LotR fame.
Thranduil's Halls, by Alan Lee
Thorin, Prisoner of the Elves,
by Michael Hague
So [the Elves] sang as first one barrel and then another rumbled to the dark opening and was pushed over into the cold water some feet below. Some were barrels really empty, some were tubs neatly packed with a dwarf each; but down they all went, one after another, with many a clash and a bump, thudding on top of ones below, smacking into the water, jostling against the walls of the tunnel, knocking into one another, and bobbing away down the current. --The Hobbit, "Barrels out of Bond"
Barrels out of Bond, by Alan Lee
Bilbo Comes to the Huts of the Raft-Elves, by J.R.R. Tolkien
Full-size versions of these pictures are on display at Rolozo Tolkien.