Henneth Annûn

In the hills of North Ithilien, a few miles from the road, a stream fell over a cliff into a pool and from the pool ran away towards the Anduin. Behind the fall, reached by a hidden tunnel from the hillside, lay a wide, dry cave whose only window was the curtain of falling water. When the sun set in the west the fall was lit red and gold, and the Men of Gondor named the place the Window of the Sunset. It could hold Faramir's whole company, and it was furnished with stores, beds and the Rangers' gear; no fire was lit that could be seen from outside, and the pool below, the Forbidden Pool, was watched, for any who saw the cave's approach and were not of Gondor were killed lest the secret be spread.

The cave was the oldest and largest of the refuges made when Ithilien was abandoned, and the last that the enemy had not found.

Steward Túrin II built the refuge in T.A. 2901, when the Orcs of Mordor drove most of the people out of Ithilien and Gondor determined to keep a presence there by stealth. It served Faramir's Rangers in the years before the War of the Ring. On March 7, 3019, after the ambush of the Haradrim, Faramir brought Frodo and Sam there blindfolded. That night Sam let slip that Frodo carried Isildur's Bane, and Faramir, who had guessed much, refused it, declaring that he would not pick up what his brother had sought. In the small hours Gollum was seen fishing in the Forbidden Pool; Frodo persuaded him into capture to save him from the archers, and Faramir spared him at Frodo's plea. In the morning Faramir gave the hobbits provisions and staves and warned Frodo against the pass of Cirith Ungol before sending them on their way. The Rangers were withdrawn from Ithilien when the armies of Morgul marched, and the cave was empty during the siege of Minas Tirith. In the Fourth Age, with Ithilien restored, it was a refuge no longer.

Henneth Annûn lay in the hills of North Ithilien, north of the Morgul-road and west of the Ephel Dúath, roughly a day's march south of the Morannon road and not far from the river.