Amon Lhaw, the Hill of Hearing, was one of the three peaks above the Rauros-falls, where Nen Hithoel was drained.[1]
Description[]
Amon Lhaw towered among the Emyn Muil on the eastern banks of the Anduin directly opposite Amon Hen, which lay upon the western bank. Between these two peaks was the island hill of Tol Brandir.[1]
Amon Lhaw may possibly have been a little "over 1,000 feet" according to a 1959 letter that J.R.R. Tolkien wrote to a reader about the height of Amon Hen.[2]
Amon Lhaw may have had special acoustical properties that enabled a person on its summit to hear for miles around, analogous to the Seat of Seeing upon Amon Hen.[3]
History[]
Amon Lhaw was first fortified "in the days of the great kings" according to Aragorn II, though the precise dating is unspecified.[1] The hill was fortified before the time of the Stewards, which meant that by the year 3019, the fortifications were at a minimum 969 years old. One likely possibility is that the hill was fortified at the same time as the Argonath, which was built after Minalcar defeated the Easterlings in the year 1248 but before the end of his reign in the year 1366.[4]
At one time Amon Lhaw had been part of the North March[5] of Gondor and a high seat[6] was built there upon which Men kept watch. By the time of the War of the Ring however, it had long since fallen under the influence of Mordor, as spies often roamed there. Such spies may have been Orcs.[1]
In the year 3019, following the Breaking of the Fellowship at Parth Galen, Frodo Baggins and Samwise Gamgee took a boat and paddled across Nen Hithoel. They landed upon the southern slopes of Amon Lhaw where there was a shelving shore.[6]
Etymology[]
Amon Lhaw is a Sindarin name meaning "Hill of Hearing", or literally "Hill of Ears",[7] derived from amon ("hill, lump, clump, mass") and lhaw ("ears").[8]
In his drafts, Tolkien gave the ruins upon Amon Lhaw the Quenya name Larmindon ("Listen Tower").[9]
In adaptations[]
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring[]
Amon Lhaw briefly appears in Peter Jackson's 2001 film adaptation of Tolkien's The Fellowship of the Ring, though it is not named.
The Lord of the Rings Online[]
In the video game The Lord of the Rings Online, Amon Lhaw can be seen in detail from Amon Hen but is not accessible, just like the rest of Nen Hithoel's eastern shore.
Gallery[]
Translations[]
| Foreign Language | Translated name |
| Bulgarian Cyrillic | Амон Лав |
| Chinese | 阿蒙羅山 |
| Danish | Amon Lhaw ("Den Lyttende Bakke") |
| Georgian | ამონ ლაუ |
| Hebrew | אמון לאו |
| Macedonian Cyrillic | Амон Лав |
| Russian | Амон Лау |
References[]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 The Lord of the Rings, vol. I: The Fellowship of the Ring, Book Two, Ch. IX: "The Great River", pg. 393
- ↑ The Lord of the Rings: A Reader's Companion, pg. 350 (entry "the summit of Amon Hen"). From Waterfield's Catalogue 157, Modern Literature, 1995, item 427.
- ↑ The Atlas of Middle-earth pgs. 83-5
- ↑ The Lord of the Rings, Appendix A,
- ↑ The Lord of the Rings, vol. II: The Two Towers, Book IV, Ch. V: "The Window on the West"
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 The Lord of the Rings, vol. I: The Fellowship of the Ring, Book Two, Ch. X: "The Breaking of the Fellowship"
- ↑ "Amon Lhaw" on eldamo.org
- ↑ Parma Eldalamberon 17, "Words, Phrases and Passages in various tongues in The Lord of the Rings", pgs. 15, 62, 77
- ↑ The History of Middle-earth, vol. VII: The Treason of Isengard, XVII: "The Great River", pg. 364