Places in Middle-earth
Hill of Erech
Type: Mountains, Hills, Promontories
Region: Gondor
Location: A hill south of the White Mountains in Morthond Vale; the Stone of Erech lies atop it.
Description:
'For at Erech there stands yet a black stone that was brought, it was said, from Númenor by Isildur; and it was set upon a hill, and upon it the King of the Mountains swore allegiance to him in the beginning of the realm of Gondor.'
Lamedon and its environs, showing the Hill of Erech in Morthond Vale.
The Return of the King, LoTR Book 5, Ch 2, The Passing of the Grey Company
And thus, just ere midnight, and in a darkness as black as the caverns in the mountains, they came at last to the Hill of Erech.
Long had the terror of the Dead lain upon that hill and upon the empty fields about it. For upon the top stood a black stone, round as a great globe, the height of a man, though its half was buried in the ground. Unearthly it looked, as though it had fallen from the sky, as some believed; but those who remembered still the lore of Westernesse told that it had been brought out of the ruin of Númenor and there set by Isildur at his landing. None of the people of the valley dared to approach it, nor would they dwell near; for they said that it was a trysting-place of the Shadow-men, and there they would gather in times of fear, thronging round the Stone and whispering.
The Return of the King, LoTR Book 5, Ch 2, The Passing of the Grey Company
'[It] is, I reckoned, some 60 leagues 1 as birds fly from Erech, over Tarlang's Neck into Lamedon, and so, crossing Kiril 2 and Ringló, to Linhir beside the waters of Gilrain, where there are fords that lead into Lebennin.'
The War of the Ring, HoME Vol 8, Part 3, Ch 12, The Last Debate
Notes
1 A league is approximately three miles.
Unfinished Tales, Part 3, Ch 1, The Disaster of the Gladden Fields: Appendix, Númenórean Linear Measures
2 This text is from one of Tolkien's early drafts; the name is an earlier version of the proper name as published in The Lord of the Rings.
Contributors:
Lyllyn 9Jun03
Elena Tiriel 9May11
