Hithlid is a damp, gloomy peninsula east of the Wildermoor. The sun never shines, and the rain never stops, only quiets. It is a misty, mysterious land, full of lost sheep and strange bogs and witches in caves. It is sparsely dotted with lonely homesteads and latticed with low, crumbling stone walls, the product of ancient shepherds and centuries-old property disputes. It is shaped like a diamond.
Its northwest edge is the only edge that isn’t a coast. Hithlid extends into the land a short while, and eventually becomes the Porcupine Flats, which is similar to Hithlid, but drier, more vacant, and iller at ease.
Its northeast coast is the southernmost reach of the mountains they call the Rainspatter. There, the coast is a range of high and rolling fells, cairns on bald summits, a million freezing lakes. On that coast is the only town of any size in Hithlid, a gruff place called Howling.
The people of Hithlid are hardy, independent, and don’t talk much. They live in turf houses, built of sod cut from the high meadows above their villages. Most villages in Hithlid are barely that; more a collection of houses than any real community.
Hithlid’s easternmost headland, Point Nope, is a well-known navigational marker. South of the Point the sea is known as the Headwinds, and north of the Point is the great bay known as the Waterworks. The Headwinds are rough, but the Waterworks are a terrible, menacing churn, through which few captains can pass. The Point is littered with old masts and battered lifeboats.
The southeastern coast of Hithlid is tame by comparison. More homesteads and villages dot the coast, which is incredibly green from all of the rain. There are no trees, there, and the turf grows thick like a blanket of moss across the black sea-rock. The people who live there farm potatoes, herd sheep, and hunt whales and seabirds in little boats. At wintertide the rocks become tide pools, and swampy-sand beaches stretch down to the water’s edge.
The southernmost headland is called the Horn of Hithlid. Upon it stands a grim, black, iron ruin which was once a lighthouse. Now, it is only a reminder of the lingering presence of the primordial Numir.
The southwestern edge of Hithlid is the coast of a wide, shallow, gravelly bay. In winter the bay is scarcely submerged. It is an echo of Shipbreak Bay to the west, and a few of the ancient vessels of the Numir stand, massive and broken, run aground on the tide. Across the bay is Tåsk, the ministerial city.