Places in Middle-earth
Slag-hills of the Morannon
Type: Mountains, Hills, Promontories
Region: Mordor/Allies
Other Names the slag-mounds
Location: A pair of barren hills in the Desolation of the Morannon outside the Black Gate of Mordor; built up to greater heights by the labors of generations of Orcs.
Description:
North amid... noisome pits lay the first of the great heaps and hills of slag and broken rock and blasted earth, the vomit of the maggot-folk of Mordor; but south and now near loomed the great rampart of Cirith Gorgor, and the Black Gate amidmost, and the two Towers of the Teeth tall and dark upon either side.
The Return of the King, LoTR Book 5, Ch 10, The Black Gate Opens
1944 III, The Battle against the Wainriders at the Morannon:
Ondoher was utterly unprepared to meet a charge of horse men and chariots.... With his Guard and his banner he had hastily taken up a position on a low knoll, but this was of no avail. The main charge was hurled against his banner..., and he himself was slain....
Unfinished Tales, Part 3, Ch 2, Cirion and Eorl and the Friendship of Gondor and Rohan: The Northmen and the Wainriders
Historians surmised that it was the same hill as that upon which King Elessar made his stand in the last battle against Sauron with which the Third Age ended. But if so it was still only a natural upswelling that offered little obstacle to horsemen and had not yet been piled up by the labour of Orcs. [Author's note.]
Unfinished Tales, Part 3, Ch 2, Cirion and Eorl and the Friendship of Gondor and Rohan: Notes, Note 16
4 March 3019:
Frodo reaches the slag-mounds on the edge of the Desolation of the Morannon.
The Lord of the Rings, Appendix B, The Tale of Years: The Third Age
25 March 3019, The Battle of the Morannon:
The Host is surrounded on the Slag-hills.
The Lord of the Rings, Appendix B, The Tale of Years: The Third Age
Therefore Aragorn now set the host in such array as could best be contrived; and they were drawn up on two great hills of blasted stone and earth that orcs had piled in years of labour. Before them towards Mordor lay like a moat a great mire of reeking mud and foul-smelling pools.
The Return of the King, LoTR Book 5, Ch 10, The Black Gate Opens
The men of the West were trapped, and soon, all about the grey mounds where they stood, forces ten times... their match would ring them in a sea of enemies....
Upon the one hill [Aragorn] stood with Gandalf, and there fair and desperate was raised the banner of the Tree and Stars. Upon the other hill hard by stood the banners of Rohan and Dol Amroth.... And about each hill a ring was made facing all ways, bristling with spear and sword.
The Return of the King, LoTR Book 5, Ch 10, The Black Gate Opens
Contributors: Elena Tiriel 1Jul06
