The Encyclopedia of Arda - an interactive guide to the world of J.R.R. Tolkien
Dates
The guard-post on the hill was built sometime after III 19991
Location
At the end of a ridge extending southward from the Lonely Mountain
Race
Division
Culture
Meaning
Simply 'hill of ravens'

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About this entry:

  • Updated 11 July 2020
  • This entry is complete

Ravenhill

An old guard-post of Erebor

Map of Ravenhill

An outlying hill beneath the height of Erebor, the Lonely Mountain. It stood at the end of a ridge of high ground extending southwards from the mountain itself, overlooking the Running River as it flowed through Dale in its valley on the southward slopes of the Mountain. The Dwarves of Erebor built a guard-post on the hill, and above its chamber for many years lived two intelligent ravens, Carc and his wife. It was they, and the ravens of the hill, that gave it its name.


Notes

1

It was in the year III 1999 that Thráin I led his people to Erebor to found the Kingdom under the Mountain, so that would be the earliest point in history when the Ravenhill guard-post might have been built. Of course, it might easily have been built after this time (and perhaps not until after the recolonisation of Erebor by Thrór in III 2590, or even later).

The only oblique references to its age that we have is in The Hobbit, where it's called an 'old watch-post' (chapter 11, On the Doorstep), and it's remarked that Thorin remembered the post being in place since he was a young Dwarf. This would make it at least two hundred years old when Bilbo and his companions reached it during the Quest of Erebor, but possibly far older than that.

See also...

Carc, Roäc, Spy-birds

Indexes:

About this entry:

  • Updated 11 July 2020
  • This entry is complete

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