What was Sarn Ford Like?

[Alcuin]

“Sarn Ford” is a mixed-language name, Sindarin “Sarn”/Stone, Common “Ford”. Similar to “Sarn Athrad” in First Age Beleriand after the stony ford across the south-flowing River Gelion before it reached the inflow of the west-flowing River Ascar. This was where the Dwarf Road passed over the Blue Mountains near Belegost (to the north) and Nogrod (to the south) into Beleriand and so on to Doriath. It was here that Beren and the Green Elves intercepted the Dwarves of Nogrod after the Sack of Doriath, where Beren recaptured the Silmaril that the Dwarves had placed in the necklace NauglamÃ*r and killed Thingol for it in a spate of mutual jealousy. In the Third Age, this point was submerged about 50 miles due west of the mouth of the Gulf of Lune.

Sarn Ford was of great antiquity. At Sarn Ford in Second Age 1700, Sauron attempted to cross the Baranduin to attack Gil-galad’s kingdom of Lindon and a small expeditionary force of Númenóreans defending the ford after the ruin of Eregion (Hollin) and the capture of the Nine Rings and six of the Seven Rings (Celebrimbor gave the greatest of the Seven to his friend and ally Durin III, probably to hide it; from this, perhaps, Sauron got the idea to dole out the others of the Seven in a futile attempt to ensnare the Dwarves), and here that the Númenórean admiral Ciryatur and his large force from Vinyalondë (later abandoned: Lond Daer) caught Sauron’s force in a trap, with Ciryatur and his army acting as hammer against Gil-galad’s anvil. Sauron retreated, but his army was caught before it could cross the Gwathló (Greyflood, at what later became Tharbad) and utterly annihilated.

Before its settlement by Hobbits in Third Age 1601 (Shire Reckoning year 1), the Shire was the royal demesne of the Kings of Arnor/Arthedain. The main roads into the royal demesne were the Great East Road (that in the First Age had crossed Sarn Athrad in Beleriand) and Sarn Ford, which went south into Cardolan. From Sarn Ford the road ran southwest to the ancient North-South Road between the Númenórean Kingdoms in Exile, the Greenway in the time of the Lord of the Rings.

Stony fords are different from other kinds of fords. They are generally shallower than other fords and so preferable for long use, as in this case. Without stones, other fords tend to deepen, become muddy and more difficult to pass over time, until they can become unusable. By Bilbo’s and Frodo’s day, Sarn Ford had been in continuous use for at least 4,600 years. Valandil is probably correct in assuming that it was wide and shallow, usable except when heavy rains and flooding made the water too deep and the current too swift for safe passage.

Buckland hobbits boated on the river upstream of the ford. It is likely the Dúnedain had, too, particularly in the earlier centuries of Arnor, when Annúminas was still the royal seat. I don’t recall that the folk of Arnor ever maintained a port along the lower Baranduin, however: Tharbad seems to have served as Arnor’s principal port, as well as the crossing point of the Greyflood. (The Númenórean bridge at Tharbad was still in use until it was destroyed by floods when Bilbo was 22 years old.) In the penultimate crisis of Arnor in Third Age 1974-1975, when the Expeditionary Force of Gondor arrived too late to prevent the conquest of Fornost Erain by Angmar but with Lindon, Rivendell, and the surviving Dúnedain of the North eventually overthrew Angmar and annihilated its army, Gondor used Lindon as its landing, not the Baranduin.

The Fords of Isen seem also to have been a stony ford, having been in continuous use since at least the end of the Second Age, when Arnor and Gondor were established, the latest date for the original construction of the North-South Road.

It is possible there was originally a town at Sarn Ford; there might still have been a community there in Frodo’s day. We cannot be certain, since it is not shown on the detailed map of the Shire. Towns are typically established at fords: Oxford in England, where oxen crossed the Cherwell; two towns called Frankfurt in Germany, fording places of the Franks; Zandvoort in the Netherlands, the sand-ford; as well as Utrecht, from “Uut Trecht”, “downstream crossing”, derived from the Latin “traiectum” (crossing/ford); and a great many other names of the sort. In that case, a dozen Rangers camping out near Sarn Ford must have attracted the attention of the local hobbits, particularly since they were stopping and querying Men passing into and out of Southfarthing.