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In a fragment from Tolkien's incomplete revisions to The Lay of Leithan, the following appears:

Southward he turned, and south away/his long and lonely journey lay,/while ever loomed before his path/the dreadful peaks of Gorgorath.

Beren and Lúthien p. 272 (American edition)

This passage is about Beren eventually abandoning the land of his home and going south.

Is Gorgorath as an alternative for Gorgoroth used anywhere else? It seems odd that Tolkien would change the name in only one instance just so it would rhyme with path.

I do not have access to any HoME books, and I only have this in Beren and Lúthien, so is information about Gorgorath found in those books?

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  • As best as I can tell, Tolkien did indeed change the name so it'd rhyme with path, and he did it on both line 573 and line 2991. Poetic license I guess.
    – ibid
    Nov 18, 2021 at 12:26

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The glossary at the rear of the book indicates that it's simply a variant spelling

Gorgorath (Also Gorgoroth): The Mountains of Terror; the precipices in which Dorthonion fell southwards.

Beren and Lúthien

You may wish to note that while Gorgoroth appears extensively throughout Tolkien's writing, the sole reference to Gorgorath appears to be in this poem, where it is mentioned twice.

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    Ugh. Looking there would have taken much less time than writing this question. I guess I foolishly assumed that Gorgorath would not be in the glossary. Thanks!
    – Neithan
    Jun 16, 2017 at 21:49
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    @Neithan - I also checked every other canon source for you. Gorgoroth appears twice in TFoR, 5 times in TTT, 9 times in RoTK and 21 times in the Silmarillion but only once (excluding the Glossary) in any of his writings with the variant spelling.
    – Valorum
    Jun 16, 2017 at 21:51
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    @Valorum - I assume that when you checked "every other canon source" you didn't bother checking the rest of this poem, or you'd have seen that it actually appears twice in the poem, not once.
    – ibid
    Nov 18, 2021 at 12:24

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