The Weather Hills

The Weather Hills stretch northward from the Great East Road for many miles through the empty middle of Eriador, a chain of grassy, broken heights between the plains of the old kingdom of Arthedain on the west and the valley of the Hoarwell on the east. Their southern end is Weathertop, the tallest and most conspicuous of them, whose ruined tower of Amon Sûl gave the whole range its purpose. Along the western feet of the hills runs a faint, ancient path, once a road used by the guards of the tower, and among the northern hills stand the remains of walls and earthworks raised when the hills were the front line of a kingdom.

By the end of the Third Age the hills were quite deserted, part of the Lone-lands that travellers on the Road hurried through. Strider and the hobbits followed the old path along their western side for several days in October 3018 to keep out of sight of the Road, and from the ridge north of Weathertop they saw the Black Riders gathered below.

When Arnor divided in T.A. 861 the Weather Hills became the meeting point of its three successor states, and the tower of Amon Sûl the prize each of them wanted. In 1356 King Argeleb I of Arthedain, who had claimed the lordship of all Arnor, fortified the hills against Rhudaur, which was by then a client of Angmar, and died in battle on that border. His son Arveleg I drove the enemy back and held the hills for half a century, but in 1409 the Witch-king's great invasion broke through, burned Amon Sûl and slew Arveleg. Arthedain kept a foothold on the range but never again ruled the lands beyond it, and after the fall of the North-kingdom in 1974 the hills were left to the wind and the Rangers.

A range of hills running north-south through central Eriador, with Weathertop at the southern end beside the Great East Road; the Hoarwell and Rhudaur lie to the east, the plains of Arthedain and the North Downs to the west and north.