Minas Morgul

The fortress had two names in succession, and each reflects the power that held it. Its first name, Minas Ithil, was given by Isildur, who founded it on a spur of the Mountains of Shadow as his own seat. His brother Anárion built Minas Anor, the Tower of the Setting Sun, on the western side of the Anduin, and the two names were chosen as a pair. The tower facing east toward the rising moon answered the tower facing west toward the sunset. Isildur's and Anárion's own names contain the High-elven words for moon and sun, so the brothers' foundations carried that symbolism further.1

Both names are Sindarin. The element minas means 'tower'. Ithil is the Grey-elven word for the moon and corresponds to Quenya isil. The later name replaces the moon with two darker elements: mor, meaning 'dark' or 'black', and gûl, meaning sorcery or dark craft. The same gûl appears in Dol Guldur, the Hill of Sorcery in Mirkwood. The new name therefore marked the site as a seat of black arts rather than a watchtower of Gondor. It was not the only name to change. The sister city across the river came to be called Minas Tirith, the Tower of Guard, and the old symmetry of moon and sun gave way to two fortresses facing each other in enmity.2

In The Lord of the Rings the Sindarin name Minas Ithil is used mainly in retrospect. Minas Morgul, or its English rendering the Tower of Sorcery, is the name in current use. The element Morgul also spread to the surrounding land and to anything connected with the place. The valley below is the Morgul Vale, its stream is the Morgulduin, and its army is the Morgul-host. The poisoned blade that wounds Frodo is called a Morgul-knife, which ties the weapon to its source by name alone. Tolkien's guide to pronunciation specifies a hard g in such names, as in English 'get', and so Morgul is not pronounced with the soft sound of 'gem'.3

Minas Morgul stands in Ithilien, the strip of land between the Anduin and the western wall of Mordor. It lies east of the Great River, with Osgiliath on the river between it and Minas Tirith, so the three places once formed a single line across the heart of Gondor. The fortress sits at the western edge of the Ephel Dúath, where a deep side-valley cuts into the range. From that position it watched one of the few ways by which the Black Land could be entered from the west. A road from the old city on the Anduin runs east to a crossing of ways in the woods of Ithilien, and from there continues toward the mountains and into the valley below the tower.1

The valley is a place of corruption rather than simple desolation. Its stream runs cold, and mist and vapour rise from it. The meadows on either bank are full of pale flowers that give off a faint glow and a sickly, rotting smell. The road crosses the stream on a white bridge whose carved figures of men and beasts have been defaced into something foul. Beyond the bridge the road leads straight to the gate of the city, which stands open like a mouth in the pale wall.2

The walls and tower stand high on a rocky seat against the dark lower slopes of the mountains. What sets the place apart is its light: the stone gives off a cold glimmer of its own that lights nothing around it, like a sick imitation of the moonlight that once shone on its white walls. The top of the tower seems to turn slowly, as though watching the valley in every direction. Before the bridge a narrow path leaves the road and climbs the valley side toward the heights. By steep stairs and a dark passage it reaches Cirith Ungol, the high pass guarded by its own tower on the Mordor side, so that city and pass together hold the valley.3

Minas Ithil was founded near the end of the Second Age, after Elendil and his sons came to Middle-earth from the drowning of Númenor and set up the realms in exile around SA 3320. Gondor was entrusted jointly to Isildur and Anárion, and Isildur's fortress in the east of the realm was matched by his brother's in the west, with the royal seat at Osgiliath between them. Before his house in Minas Ithil Isildur planted a seedling of the White Tree, which he had rescued from Númenor, and one of the seeing-stones brought from the island was kept in the tower. No exact year for the building of the fortress is recorded.1

The first blow came quickly. In SA 3429 Sauron, returned to Mordor, attacked Gondor and captured Minas Ithil, and the White Tree growing there was burned. Isildur got away with a seedling of the tree and went down the Anduin to join his father in the north, while Anárion held Osgiliath and Minas Anor. The war that followed ended with the Last Alliance of Elves and Men and the overthrow of Sauron in SA 3441, and the fortress returned to the keeping of Gondor. For more than sixteen centuries afterwards it served as one of the kingdom's chief strongholds against the Black Land.2

The decline of Gondor in the middle of the Third Age left the tower exposed. After the Great Plague of TA 1636 the watch on Mordor was abandoned and the forts that guarded its passes stood empty, which let evil things creep back into the land. Around TA 1980 the Witch-king, driven from the north, came to Mordor and gathered the other Nazgûl there. In TA 2000 they came out of Mordor and laid siege to Minas Ithil, and after two years the city fell in TA 2002. Its palantír was taken with it, and the place became the Nazgûl's own stronghold; from then on the rival names of the two towers, noted above, recorded the new state of war.3

The loss of the tower shaped the rest of Gondor's history. The Lord of the Nazgûl twice challenged King Eärnur to single combat, and in TA 2050 the king accepted, rode with a small escort to the gates of Minas Morgul and was never seen again. As he left no heir, the line of kings in the south came to an end and the Stewards ruled in their place. Under the pressure of Mordor, Ithilien was gradually emptied of its people, most of whom had left by TA 2901. The stone taken in the fall was probably later used by Sauron to reach other holders of the seeing-stones, among them Saruman and Denethor.4

At the end of the Third Age the city became the launching point of Sauron's main assault in the west. On 10 March TA 3019 Frodo, Sam and Gollum, waiting near the bridge in the vale, saw the Witch-king lead a great army out of the gate towards the Anduin. That force crossed at Osgiliath and besieged Minas Tirith, and its captain was slain on the Pelennor Fields five days later. When the Army of the West marched east towards the Black Gate, it passed the empty city; the captains had the bridge broken and set the tainted meadows alight before moving on.5

After the downfall of Sauron the fortress was not restored. When Aragorn made Faramir Prince of Ithilien, he decreed that the tower in the Morgul Vale should be destroyed completely. He allowed that the site might one day be cleansed but ruled that no one was to live there for many years to come. The history of the place therefore closes not with its reoccupation by Gondor but with the renewal of the surrounding country, whose new seat was set in the hills of Emyn Arnen instead.6

In its first age the tower belonged to the Dúnedain of Gondor. Isildur held it as co-ruler of the southern realm, and he stayed there until the loss of the city sent him north. After the war of the Last Alliance, before he set out for Arnor, Isildur gave the rule of Gondor to Meneldil, son of Anárion. From that time Minas Ithil was one of the royal strongholds of the kings of Anárion's line and no longer a separate princely seat. It was governed as part of the realm and garrisoned against the east. The moving of the King's House from Osgiliath to Minas Anor under King Tarondor shows how the weight of the kingdom later shifted westward, away from the tower that faced Mordor.1

After TA 2002 the fortress had a new lord. The Witch-king, once king of Angmar and chief of the Ringwraiths, made it his seat and became known as the Lord of Morgul. The other Nazgûl dwelt there with him and acted for Sauron, preparing his realm while their master was still absent from Mordor. When Sauron declared himself openly in TA 2951, three of the Nine were sent from Morgul to occupy Dol Guldur again. In the year of the War of the Ring the Riders who went in search of the Shire went out from the Morgul Vale.2

The later name replaces the moon with two darker elements: mor, meaning 'dark' or 'black', and gûl, meaning sorcery or dark craft.

The rank and file of Morgul in the last years were Orcs, organised in companies under their own captains and answerable to the Nazgûl. Their relations with the neighbouring garrison at Cirith Ungol, which served the Eye directly, were marked by rivalry rather than fellowship. The Morgul captain Gorbag and Shagrat of the Tower of Cirith Ungol distrusted each other openly. Their troops later fought to the death inside the tower over a captured prize. Beyond Mordor the city was simply the enemy of Gondor, whose watchers in Ithilien kept it under guard from a distance.3

Minas Morgul is mostly a threat in the background of The Lord of the Rings, and it comes into view only when Frodo's route to Mordor bends toward it. After the Black Gate proves impassable, Gollum proposes a secret way south near the old Tower of the Moon, and from then on the fortress hangs over the journey through Ithilien. Faramir, on learning where the guide means to lead the hobbits, warns Frodo against the valley and the pass above it. He calls the vale a place of evil and says it is not to be entered. The reader therefore meets the city as a place of dread before seeing it.1

When the hobbits finally stand before it, the tower acts on Frodo's will rather than his body. He feels drawn along the white road toward the open gate, and the Ring pulls at him as if urging him to give himself up to its makers. When the Lord of the Nazgûl rides out and halts at the bridge, Frodo's hand begins to move toward the Ring without his consent. He resists by closing his hand on the phial of Galadriel. The Rider looks about but turns away and leads his host westward. The scene shows the Ring working on its bearer and his bond with the servants of its maker. Afterwards Frodo's despair over the fate of Minas Tirith passes, and the hobbits go on up the stairs.2

In the book the city also stands for a fall. Minas Morgul is a Gondorian foundation in the hands of the enemy, and its pale glow imitates the moonlight it was named for. It is the counterpart of Minas Tirith, which keeps its guard across the river. The Ringwraiths who dwell there were once kings of Men, so the place and its masters together show what Sauron makes of the works of Men. The book does not restore the city when the war ends: Aragorn decrees that it be destroyed.3

Minas Morgul has its largest screen presence in Peter Jackson's trilogy, where it appears in The Return of the King (2003). The film keeps the core of the book's episode. Frodo, Sam and Gollum reach the vale and see the Witch-king lead his army out of the gate towards Osgiliath before they begin the climb to Cirith Ungol. The film also keeps the hold the city has over Frodo. It changes what surrounds the city. The earlier history of the fortress is left out: the siege of TA 2000–2002 and Eärnur's ride to its gates are not told, so viewers meet the city only as the seat of the enemy. The end of its story is also missing. The Army of the West does not pass the empty city on its way to the Black Gate, the bridge and the meadows of the vale are not destroyed, and Aragorn's decree about the tower has no counterpart. The film leaves the place as it found it, a stronghold of Mordor, where the book closes its history.1

Jackson's Hobbit trilogy touches the city's history only indirectly, but it departs from the book on the same point. It shows the Nazgûl as sealed in tombs in the northern fells and set free during Bilbo's time. The appendices give a different account: the Ringwraiths had held Minas Morgul for nearly a thousand years by then, and three of them had been sent from there to Dol Guldur. Of the older adaptations, Ralph Bakshi's animated film ends at Helm's Deep, long before the story reaches Ithilien, so the city never appears in it.2