Weathertop

Also known as Amon Sûl

mountain
ancient ruins

Weathertop is a prominent conical hill with a flattened summit bearing the grassy, crumbling ring of an ancient watch-tower reduced to a rough crown of tumbled blackened stones with a central cairn. Its western flank holds a sheltered bowl-shaped grassy dell with a spring, while steep rocky slopes rise from a grey-green bank. From the summit, wide empty views stretch to southern woodlands, the winding Old Road, distant glinting water, and far mountains with brown foothills, grey shapes, and white peaks.

Type: mountain
Style: ancient ruins
First appears: Book 1 · Ch. 13
Books: 2

Weathertop, the lone hill of the Weather Hills, first appears in The Fellowship of the Ring as a ruined watch-tower whose summit becomes the site of the Fellowship’s desperate stand against the Nazgûl. Its crown of blackened stones and sheltered dell mark both a strategic vantage and a place of peril, where the Witch-king wounds Frodo with a Morgul-blade. By The Return of the King the hill has receded into memory, a silent landmark that the returning company passes on the East Road, its crown still a ruin against the sky.

History

BOOK 1The Fellowship of the Ring: Being the First Part of the Lord of the Rings
Weathertop is a prominent conical hill with a flattened summit bearing the grassy, crumbling ring of an ancient watch-tower reduced to a rough crown of tumbled blackened stones with a central cairn. Its western flank holds a sheltered bowl-shaped grassy dell with a spring, while steep rocky slopes rise from a grey-green bank. From the summit, wide empty views stretch to southern woodlands, the winding Old Road, distant glinting water, and far mountains with brown foothills, grey shapes, and white peaks.
BOOK 3The Return of the King: Being the Third Part of the Lord of the Rings
The lone hill of the Weather Hills beside the East Road, a landmark of the earlier journey recalled on the return. Its crown is a ruin against the sky.