Esgaroth

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Esgaroth upon the Long Lake, also known as Lake-town, is a fictional community of Men in The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien. The town is constructed entirely of wood and stands upon wooden pillars sunk into the bed of the Long Lake, south of the Lonely Mountain and west of Mirkwood. It seems that the town's prosperity is built on trade between the Men (descendants of the Edain, and thus distant cousins of the Dúnedain of Gondor), Elves and Dwarves of northern Middle-earth.

Esgaroth and Lake-town may have been separate settlements established on the same site, one predating Smaug's destruction of Dale and Erebor and the other built afterwards.

In the year 2941 of the Third Age the town was attacked by the dragon Smaug, but Bard the Bowman, who had indirectly learned of a weakness in Smaug's armour that had first been noticed by Bilbo Baggins, slew the dragon. The town was wrecked by the dragon, but afterwards it was rebuilt using some of the treasure that Smaug had stolen, though the town's Master ran off with some of the gold. Part of the town's population followed Bard to resettle the Kingdom of Dale.

As a trading people, the Men of Esgaroth knew the Common Speech, Westron. However, amongst themselves they spoke an ancient form of it, which was loosely related to but distinct from the also-ancient language of the Rohirrim. Tolkien "translated" Westron into English in his text, so to represent the ancient relative of it that the Rohirrim spoke, he substituted Old English. Thus, Tolkien substituted Old Norse for the language of the Men of Esgaroth (in person and place names, etc.) because it is an ancient relative of English that is related to Old English.