"...and they came to the
Enchanted Isles and escaped their enchantment; and they came into the
Shadowy Seas and passed their shadows..."
Quenta Silmarillion 24
Of the Voyage of Eärendil and the War of Wrath
The Shadowy Seas formed the western part of the Great Sea between Aman and Middle-earth. They took their name from the treacherous fogs and mists that swirled across their surface: the so-called Shadows of the Shadowy Seas. Though it isn't certain whether the Shadows were created by the Valar, they played their part in protecting the shores of Aman from vessels out of the east.
The term 'Shadows' is also sometimes used more broadly for the apparently magical darkness found far beyond the Shadowy Seas. Significantly, Sauron's domain of Mordor was also known as the 'Land of Shadow', and there are several references to the mysterious Shadow in that region. In cases like these, the singular form 'Shadow' is almost always used, but there is a notable exception: the rhyme of the One Ring makes reference to the 'Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie' (for example, in The Fellowship of the Ring I 2, appropriately titled The Shadow of the Past).
Notes
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We're not told specifically when the Shadows and their Seas came into being, but this seems unlikely to have happened until after the Valar abandoned Middle-earth and made a new realm for themselves in the West. Our earliest references describe the Shadowy Seas as existing when the Elves first came to Valinor, but other comments from Tolkien place their creation rather later, after the fall of the Two Trees and the Darkening of Valinor. Perhaps we're to take it that the Shadows existed in some form at the time of Valinor's founding, but their numbers or power were later multiplied after the betrayal and escape of Morgoth.
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- Updated 29 January 2026
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