Gates of Angband

Beren and Lúthien Approach Angband by Ted Nasmith

The Gates of Angband were the entrance to a labyrinthine tunnel system under Thangorodrim called Angband. The great wolf Carcharoth was its guard, and it was before these gates that Morgoth slew Fingolfin.

"Ever the sheer cliffs rose beside,
where birds of carrion sat and cried;
and chasms black and smoking yawned,
whence writhing serpent-shapes were spawned;
until at last in that huge gloom
heavy as overhanging doom,
that weighs on Thangorodrim’s foot
like thunder at the mountain’s root,
they came, as to a sombre court
walled with great towers, fort on fort
of cliffs embattled. To that last plain
that opens, abysmal and inane,
before the final topless wall
of Bauglir’s immeasurable hall,
whereunder looming awful waits
the gigantic shadow of his gates."

― Lay of Leithian, Canto XI, lines 3522-3537