The Rivers and Beacon-hills of Gondor

The names of the Beacon hills

The full beacon system, that was still operating in the War of the Ring, can have been no older than the settlement of the Rohirrim in Calenardhon about 500 years before; for its principal function was to warn the Rohirrim that Gondor was in danger or (more rarely) the reverse. How old the names then used were cannot be said. The beacons were set on hills or on the high ends of ridges running out from the mountains, but some were not very notable objects.

The first part of this statement was cited in the section Cirion and Eorl in UT:315 n.35.

This entry is given in full in UT:319 n. 51 (last paragraph).

This entry is given in the same note in Unfinished Tales, but in this case slightly reduced. In the original the passage begins:

Eilenach (better spelt Eilienach). Probably an alien name; not Sindarin, Númenórean, or Common Speech. In true Sindarin eilen could only be derived from *elyen, *alyen, and would normally be written eilien. This and Eilenaer (older name of Halifirien: see that below) are the only names of this group that are certainly pre-Númenórean. They are evidently related. Both were notable features.

The name and parenthetical note on Eilenaer entered here, as alterations to the typescript. Christopher Tolkien writes: "The name Eilenaer does not in fact occur in the account of Halifirien in this essay: my father intended to introduce it, but before he did so he rejected that account in its entirety, as will be seen." At the end of the description of Eilenach and Nardol as given in Unfinished Tales, where it is said that the fire on Nardol could be seen from Halifirien, Tolkien added a note:

The line of beacons from Nardol to Halifirien lay in a shallow curve bending a little southward, so that the three intervening beacons did not cut off the view.

There follow statements concerning Erelas and Calenhad, elements of which were used in the index to Unfinished Tales.

Erelas was a small beacon, as also was Calenhad. These were not always lit; their lighting as in The Lord of the Rings was a signal of great urgency. Erelas is Sindarin in style, but has no suitable meaning in that language. It was a green hill without trees, so that neither er- ‘single' nor las(s) ‘leaf seem applicable.

Calenhad was similar but rather larger and higher. Galen was the usual word in Sindarin for ‘green' (its older sense was ‘bright', Q. kalina). -had appears to be for sad (with usual mutation in combinations); if not misspelt this is from SAT ‘space, place, sc. a limited area naturally or artificially defined' (also applied to recognized periods or divisions of time), ‘divide, mark off', seen in S. sad ‘a limited area naturally or artificially defined, a place, spot', etc. (also sant ‘a garden, field, yard, or other place in private ownership, whether enclosed or not'; said ‘private, separate, not common, excluded'; seidia- ‘set aside, appropriate to a special purpose or owner'); Q. satì- verb, with sense of S. seidia- (< satya-); [Q. adj.] satya [with same sense] as S. said; also [Q.] asta a division of the year, ‘month' (sati- was in Quenya applied to time as well as space).{44} Calenhad would thus mean simply ‘green space', applied to the flat turf-covered crown of the hill. But had may stand for S. -hadh (the maps do not use dh, but this is the only case where dh might be involved, except Caradhras which is omitted, and Enedhwaith which is misspelt [?ened].{45} -hadh would then be for sadh (in isolated use sâdh) ‘sward, turf' – base SAD ‘strip, flay, peel off', etc.{46}

Halifirien

The essay ends (unfinished) with a long and notable discussion of the Halifirien; Tolkien's interspersed notes are collected together at the end of this discussion. With this account cf. UT:300-1, 303-5.

Halifirien is a name in the language of Rohan. It was a mountain with easy approach to its summit. Down its northern slopes grew the great wood called in Rohan the Firien Wood. This became dense in lower ground, westward along the Mering Stream and northwards out into the moist plain through which the Stream flowed into the Entwash. The great West Road passed through a long ride or clearing through the wood, to avoid the wet land beyond its eaves. The name Halifirien (modernized in spelling for Háligfirgen) meant Holy Mountain. The older name in Sindarin had been Fornarthan ‘North Beacon';{47} the wood had been called Eryn Fuir ‘North Wood'. The reason for the Rohan name is not now known for certain. The mountain was regarded with reverence by the Rohirrim; but according to their traditions at the time of the War of the Ring that was because it was on its summit that Eorl the Young met Cirion, Steward of Gondor; and there when they had looked forth over the land they fixed the bounds of the realm of Eorl, and Eorl swore to Cirion the Oath of Eorl—"the unbroken oath"—of perpetual friendship and alliance with Gondor. Since in oaths of the greatest solemnity the names of the Valar were invoked (Note 1) — and though the oath was called "the Oath of Eorl" in Rohan it was also called "the Oath of Cirion" (for Gondor was equally pledged to aid Rohan) and he would use solemn terms in his own tongue—this might be sufficient to hallow the spot.

But the account in annals contains two remarkable details: that there was at the place where Cirion and Eorl stood what appeared to be an ancient monument of rough stones nearly man-high with a flat top; and that on this occasion Cirion to the wonder of many invoked the One (that is God). His exact words are not recorded, but they probably took the form of allusive terms such as Faramir used in explaining to Frodo the content of the unspoken "grace" (before communal meals) that was a Númenórean ritual, e.g. "These words shall stand by the faith of the heirs of the Downfallen in the keeping of the Thrones of the West and of that which is above all Thrones for ever."

This would in effect hallow the spot for as long as the Númenórean realms endured, and was no doubt intended to do so, being not in any way an attempt to restore the worship of the One on the Meneltarma (‘pillar of heaven), the central mountain of Númenor (Note 2), but a reminder of it, and of the claim made by "the heirs of Elendil" that since they had never wavered in their allegiance they (Note 3) were still permitted to address the One in thought and prayer direct.

The "ancient monument"—by which was evidently meant a structure made before the coming of the Númenóreans—is a curious feature, but is no support to the view that the mountain was already in some sense "hallowed" before its use in the oath-taking. Had it been regarded as of "religious" significance it would in fact have made this use impossible, unless it had at least been completely destroyed first (Note 4). For a religious structure that was "ancient" could only have been erected by the Men of Darkness, corrupted by Morgoth or his servant Sauron. The Middle Men, descendants of the ancestors of the Númenóreans, were not regarded as evil nor inevitable enemies of Gondor. Nothing is recorded of their religion or religious practices before they came in contact with the Númenóreans (Note 5), and those who became associated or fused with the Númenóreans adopted their customs and beliefs (included in the "lore" which Faramir speaks of as being learned by the Rohirrim). The "ancient monument" can thus not have been made by the Rohirrim, or honoured by them as sacred, since they had not yet established themselves in Rohan at the time of the Oath (soon after the Battle of the Field of Celebrant), and such structures in high places as places of religious worship was no part of the customs of Men, good or evil (Note 6). It may however have been a tomb.

Note 1: Cf. the Coronation of Aragorn.{48}

Note 2: That would have been regarded as sacrilegious.

Note 3: And, as was generally believed by their rulers, all who accepted their leadership and received their instruction. See next note.

Note 4: For the Númenórean view of the previous inhabitants see Faramir's conversation with Frodo, especially II 287.{49} The Rohirrim were according to his classification Middle Men, and their importance to Gondor in his time is chiefly in mind and modifies his account; the description of the various men of the southern "fiefs" of Gondor, who were mainly of non-Númenórean descent, shows that other kinds of Middle Men, descended from others of the Three Houses of the Edain, lingered in the West, in Eriador (as the Men of Bree), or further south—notably the people of Dor-en-Ernil (Dol Amroth).

Note 5: Because such matters had little interest for the Gondorian chroniclers; and also because it was assumed that they had in general remained faithful to the monotheism of the Dúnedain, allies and pupils of the Eldar. Before the removal of most of the survivors of these "Three Houses of Men" to Númenor, there is no mention of the reservation of a high place for worship of the One and the ban on all temples built by hand, which was characteristic of the Númenóreans until their rebellion, and which among the Faithful (of whom Elendil was the leader) after the Downfall and the loss of the Meneltarma became a ban on all places of worship.

Note 6: The Men of Darkness built temples, some of great size, usually surrounded by dark trees, often in caverns (natural or delved) in secret valleys of mountain-regions; such as the dreadful halls and passages under the Haunted Mountain beyond the Dark Door (Gate of the Dead) in Dunharrow. The special horror of the closed door before which the skeleton of Baldor was found was probably due to the fact that the door was the entrance to an evil temple hall to which Baldor had come, probably without opposition up to that point.{50} But the door was shut in his face, and enemies that had followed him silently came up and broke his legs and left him to die in the darkness, unable to find any way out.

At the words "It may however have been a tomb". Tolkien abandoned this text, and (no doubt immediately) marked the entire account of the Halifirien for deletion.

Christopher Tolkien writes: "These last words may well signify the precise moment at which the tomb of Elendil on Halifirien [cf. UT:304] entered the history; and it is interesting to observe the mode of its emergence. The original ‘Firien was the ‘black hill' in which were the caverns of Dunharrow (VIII:251); it was also called ‘the Halifirien' (VIII:257, 262), and Dunharrow was ‘said to be a haliern' (Old English hálig-ern ‘holy place, sanctuary') ‘and to contain some ancient relic of old days before the Dark'; while Dunharrow, in my father's later words, is ‘a modernisation of Rohan Dūnhaerg "the heathen fane on the hillside", so-called because this refuge of the Rohirrim ... was on the site of a sacred place of the old inhabitants' (VIII:267 n. 35). The name Halifirien was soon transferred to become the last of the beacon-hills of Gondor, at the western end of the chain (VIII:257), which had been first named Mindor Uilos (VIII:233); but there is no indication at all of what my father had in mind, with respect to the very express meaning of the name Halifirien, when he made this transference. The account given above, written so late in his life, seems to be the first statement on the subject; and here he assumed without question that (while the hill had earlier borne the Sindarin name Fornarthan ‘North Beacon) it was the Rohirrim who called it ‘the Holy Mountain: and they called it so, ‘according to their traditions at the time of the War of the Ring', because of the profound gravity and solemnity of the oath of Cirion and Eorl taken on its summit, in which the name of Eru was invoked. He refers to a record in the annals' that ‘an ancient monument of rough stones nearly man-high with a flat top' stood on the summit of the Halifirien—but he at once proceeds to argue strongly that its presence can be ‘no support to the view that the mountain was in some sense "hallowed" before its use in the oath-taking', since any such ancient object of ‘religious' significance ‘could only have been erected by the Men of Darkness, corrupted by Morgoth or his servant Sauron.' But: ‘It may however have been a tomb.'

"And thus the 'hallowing' of the hill (anciently named Eilenaer) was carried back two and a half thousand years before the Rohirrim settled in Calenardhon: already at the beginning of the Third Age it was the Hill of Awe, Amon Anwar of the Númenóreans, on account of that tomb on its summit. I have no doubt that the account of the Oath of Cirion and Eorl given, with the closely related texts, in Unfinished Tales, followed very shortly and perhaps with no interval at all the abandonment of this essay on the names of the rivers and beacon-hills of Gondor.

"It is thus seen that not only the present work but all the history of the Halifirien and Elendil's tomb arose from Mr. Bibire's brief query.

"This is a convenient place to notice a stage in the development of the story of Elendil's tomb that was not mentioned in Unfinished Tales. There is a rejected draft page for the passage recounting the definition of the bounds of Gondor and Rohan by Cirion and Eorl, which scarcely differs from the text printed in Unfinished Tales until the paragraph beginning: ‘By this pact only a small part of the Wood of Anwar....' (UT:306). Here the rejected text reads: