The Gladden Fields (Sindarin Loeg Ningloron) is a location in J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth. In his works, the Gladden Fields are located where the Gladden river joins the Anduin.
In the year T.A. 2, at the Gladden Fields, Isildur and his three eldest sons (Ciryon, Aratan and Elendur) were ambushed by Orcs. Isildur attempted to escape by jumping in to the Anduin, using the power of invisibility of the One Ring, but the Ring slipped from Isildur's finger and sank to the bottom of the river. Isildur landed on the other bank of the river where he was killed by Orcs looking for survivors of the ambush. Isildur's squire Ohtar saved the shards of Narsil from the enemy horde; Isildur's sons were killed during the battle. This incident would become known as the Disaster of the Gladden Fields.
It was here, twenty-five centuries after the ambush, that the Stoor hobbit, Déagol, retrieved the One Ring from the Anduin and he was killed by his relative Sméagol, who became the creature Gollum.
One of three passes through the Misty Mountains is at the headwaters of the Gladden River, the other two being Redhorn Pass and the High Pass.
Famous quotes containing the words gladden and/or fields:
“When the course of events shall have removed you to distant scenes of action where laurels not nurtured with the blood of my country may be gathered, I shall urge sincere prayers for your obtaining every honor and preferment which may gladden the heart of a soldier.”
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)
“Nature will not let us fret and fume. She does not like our benevolence or our learning much better than she likes our frauds and wars. When we come out of the caucus, or the bank, or the abolition-convention, or the temperance-meeting, or the transcendental club, into the fields and woods, she says to us, “so hot? my little Sir.””
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)