Black Hills
Author: Atarah al'Norahn
General
The Black Hills are located south of Saldaea and Kandor, northeast of the Caralain Grass and east of Tar Valon. The River Luan runs along its eastern edge (Map). They are made up of great lopsided heaps of half-buried boulders with many steep and twisting passages. According to Ethenielle Cosaru Noremaga, the Queen of Kandor, many of the passes through the Black Hills would give a goat pause. Ethenielle also thinks that the Black Hills are misnamed, as she has seen mountains that are smaller (TPoD, Prologue).
The Black Hills are very remote; there are places within where you can go for days without seeing a soul (TGH, Ch. 6). You can travel for three days without seeing a single sign of human habitation and then suddenly find yourself within half a day of seven or eight tiny villages, all of them ignorant about the outside world. As it is away from the trade routes, it is a rugged place for farmers to live (TPoD, Prologue).
Miscellaneous
- There are three stedding in the Black Hills: Stedding Feindu, Stedding Shajin and Stedding Jentoine (TWoRJTWoT). Stedding Jentoine is the nearest stedding to Tar Valon (ACoS, Prologue).
- The four rulers of the Borderlands, Easar Togita, Ethenielle Cosaru Noremaga, Paitar Nachiman and Tenobia Kazadi, meet in the Black Hills and agree to find Rand al'Thor (TPoD, Prologue).
- Leopards live in the Black Hills (TPoD, Prologue).
- Within the Black Hills, there is a slender spire that lies slanting and partly buried in the hillside, showing seventy paces above the treetops. It looks like it is made of gleaming golden lace. It is known by everyone in the Black Hills, but the area around it is abandoned, with no village within four days travel. No one willingly approaches within ten miles of; the stories about the spire and the surrounding area speak of mad visions, the dead walking, and death upon touching the spire. Ethenielle's Aes Sedai advisor, Nianh, says that it is a fragment from the Age of Legends and is harmless (TPoD, Prologue).
- During her exile, Toveine Gazal worked on Jara Doweel's farm in the Black Hills (TPoD, Ch. 26).
- Shortly after being raised to Aes Sedai, Cadsuane spent some time with an old wilder who had a farm in the heart of the Black Hills. It was here that Cadsuane earned her hair ornaments and learned that what must be endured can be endured (WH, Ch. 34; CoT, Ch. 23).
- Supposedly, Corlan Dashiva (Osan'gar) grew up on a farm in the Black Hills (ACoS, Ch. 2)
- Careane suggests several remote villages in the Black Hills as ideal places for using the Bowl of the Winds (ACoS, Ch. 39)
