Mirkwood

Mirkwood, known in earlier ages as Greenwood the Great, is one of the great forests of Middle-earth, a vast woodland whose very name records a transformation from light to shadow. Its history is bound to the rise of Sauron's power, and its darkening is one of the earliest signs of the encroaching evil that shapes the events of the Third Age. The forest is both a geographical reality and a symbol of the corruption that spreads across the world, a place where the natural beauty of the Elder Days gives way to the creeping menace of the Shadow.