Morgai
The Morgai (S. "Black Fence")[1][2] was a mountain ridge that ran parallel to the northern Ephel Dúath on their eastern side.[3]
On their eastern side the Ephel Dúath fell steeply in great cliffs into a trough. The Morgai rose on the other side of the trough and was much lower than the Ephel Dúath. The edge of the Morgai was notched and jagged with fang-like crags. The Morgai formed the inner wall of the fences of Mordor. The road that came over the Morgul Pass was joined by a road that came winding down from the Tower of Cirith Ungol.[4] A short way after the meeting of those two roads after a steep incline the road went over a bridge of stone over the trough between the Ephel Dúath and the Morgai.[5]. The road then went on through a jagged rift in the Morgai out into the valley of Gorgoroth.[4] Thorny bushes and briars grew in the valley between the Ephel Dúath and the Morgai. The valley between the Ephel Dúath and the Morgai sloped up gently northward with the bed of a stream at its bottom, which was dry when Frodo and Sam passed by. A track left the Morgul-road at the western bridge-end and went down by a long stair to the bottom of the valley. The track went north to lesser posts and strongholds between the Tower of Cirith Ungol and the Isenmouthe and the castle of Durthang . Trickles of water came down from the mountains into the valley. In the glens of the Morgai grew low scrubby trees, coarse grey grass-tussocks, withered mosses and brambles, some with long thorns some with hooked barbs with maggot-ridden buds. Dun or grey or black flies with an eye-shaped blotch and midges lived in the Morgai. The tops of the Morgai were without Vegetation.[5]
On 15 March T.A. 3019, Frodo Baggins and Samwise Gamgee escaped from the Tower of Cirith Ungol, and resuming their Quest for Mount Doom, they began their journey north along the Morgai towards Orodruin.[6]
References
- ↑ J.R.R. Tolkien, "Unfinished index for The Lord of the Rings", in Wayne G. Hammond and Christina Scull (eds), The Lord of the Rings: A Reader's Companion, p. 601
- ↑ J.R.R. Tolkien, "Words, Phrases and Passages in Various Tongues in The Lord of the Rings", in Parma Eldalamberon XVII (edited by Christopher Gilson), p. 101
- ↑ J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings, The Return of the King, "Map of Rohan, Gondor, and Mordor"
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings, The Return of the King, "The Tower of Cirith Ungol"
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings, The Return of the King, "The Land of Shadow"
- ↑ J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings, Appendix B, "The Great Years"