Weathertop

The hill

Weathertop rises at the southern end of the Weather Hills, a conical, bare-topped hill higher than its neighbours, visible for many miles from the Great East Road which passes close beneath its southern foot. Its slopes are steep and grassy, with a sheltered dell on the western side, and its summit is a flat, wide circle of ground ringed by a crumbled wall of stones. In the middle of that ring lies a tumbled heap of masonry, all that remains of a tower that once looked out over the whole of central Eriador. From the top a watcher can see the Road running east and west like a thread, the dark line of the Trollshaws and the distant Misty Mountains to the east, and the empty lands of Cardolan to the south.

Amon Sûl

The tower was Amon Sûl, the Hill of Wind, built by Elendil in the Second Age as the chief watch-tower of the North-kingdom and the seat of the greatest of the three palantíri of Arnor. It commanded the Road, the boundary between the later kingdoms of Arthedain, Cardolan and Rhudaur, and the approaches to Rivendell; and because the Stone in it could see and speak to the other Stones, Amon Sûl was the nerve-centre of the kingdom's communications. A tradition in Rivendell held that Elendil had stood on the hill to watch for Gil-galad's army coming from the west at the founding of the Last Alliance.

The kingdoms and Angmar

When Arnor divided in T.A. 861 all three successor realms claimed Amon Sûl, since it held the palantír and guarded the border of each, and Arthedain kept it only by continual watchfulness. In 1356 King Argeleb I fortified the Weather Hills against Rhudaur and Angmar and was killed defending them. In 1409 a great host from Angmar crossed the Hoarwell, surrounded Weathertop, and burned the tower. King Arveleg I fell in the fighting, but the palantír was carried away to Fornost. The tower was never rebuilt, and when the North-kingdom fell in 1974 the Stone of Amon Sûl went north with Arvedui and was lost in the ice of Forochel.

The attack on Frodo

Sixteen centuries later the hill saw the closest the Enemy came to seizing the Ring in Eriador. Gandalf, hurrying toward Rivendell, was besieged on the summit by five Nazgûl on the night of October 3, 3018, and left at dawn drawing four of them after him. Strider and the hobbits reached the hill on the evening of October 6 and camped in the western dell. That night five Black Riders, including the Witch-king, came up the slope. Frodo put on the Ring and saw them as they truly were; the Witch-king stabbed him in the shoulder with a knife whose point broke off in the wound and began working toward his heart. Strider drove the Riders off with fire and led the wounded hobbit toward the Ford by night-marches, while the shard of the Morgul-blade drew him steadily toward the wraith-world. The summit of Weathertop still bore the scorch-marks of Gandalf's battle and a stone marked with his rune when the company examined it.

The southernmost peak of the Weather Hills, just north of the Great East Road about midway between Bree and the Last Bridge; the hills run north from it toward the North Downs.