Noman-lands
The Noman-lands were a desolate region southeast of the Dead Marshes and northwest of the Desolation of the Morannon.
Southeast of the Dead Marshes lay arid moors with dead peats and wide flats of dry cracked mud that were followed by barren and pitiless long shallow rising slopes.
Frodo and Sam, led by Gollum passed through the Noman-lands on 2 March and 3 March, Third Age 3019. On their journey to the Black Gate, upon reaching the living lands and entering the desolate ones that stretched out in front of the Gate, the Host of the West could see the "marshes and the desert that stretched north and west to the Emyn Muil". This desert was almost certainly the Noman-lands.
Other versions of the legendarium
The Noman-lands appear on the first map that J.R.R. Tolkien drew while he wrote The Lord of the Rings and on Christopher Tolkien's 1943 map. On these maps they are located southwest of the Dead Marshes and northwest of Dagorlad which was just northeast of the Morannon. Although these early conceptions place the Noman-lands between Sarn Gebir (Emyn Muil) and the Gates of Mordor, this does not align with later conceptions and maps, in which the geography is rearranged and the Dead Marshes are moved southwest, so that they lie in the region between the Emyn Muil and the gates previously occupied by the Noman-lands. This geography appears on the Map of Rohan, Gondor, and Mordor, and the Noman-lands do not appear there or in any other published maps.
Frodo's journey through the Noman-lands is not included in the earliest manuscript for The Two Towers, where only the dreadful passage through the marshes is mentioned. However, the later, expanded passages, including those in the published version, also reference the Noman-lands, and two days were added to the Tale of Years and account for the time spent on this journey.
Early names
In a draft of the chapter Farewell to Lórien, the Noman-lands were called Uvanwaith. This name is not glossed, but has been conjectured to be derived from the negative prefix ú-; waith, the lenited form of gweith (which can refer to "people", or "region"); and the middle component, although more difficult to identify, has been suggested by Roman Rausch to be anw "male", or a lenited form of man "someone". Other variants of this region's name appearing in earlier drafts include "Nomenlands", "Nomen's Land", "Noman-land(s)" and "No Man's Land". In the first edition of The Lord of the Rings, the region is referred to as the "Nomen's land", rather than the Noman-lands of later editions.
Inspiration
Hammond and Scull suggest that the name was derived from no man's land, a name for the ground that lies between the trenches of one army and the trenches of the enemy army, which J.R.R. Tolkien was familiar with, because he participated in the Battle of the Somme in 1916.
Portrayal in adaptations
2016: The Lord of the Rings Online:
The Noman-lands is an area in "the Wastes" region, located east of the Dead Marshes and west of Dagorlad.
Referencias
1. Esta ficha se ha importado inicialmente de TolkienGateway.net el día 28/05/2026.
