Emyn Beraid - The Tower Hills

I have already mentioned here my dreams or memories of places and people.
Among them, there are these three towers. I had searched for them in vain, without being able to find a place.
And recently, during wanderings on the Internet, I found them.
Like a flash in the face.

I recently found out about Emin Beraid , in the southeast of Mithlond. Also called The Tower Hills.

A region of hills near the Grey Havens, to the west of the Shire. Before the end of the Second Age, Gil-galad built Elven-towers in these hills as a gift for Elendil. The tallest tower, Elostirion, held one of the palantíri of the North.

There were three towers and the tallest was named Elostirion.
In it was a palantir to look back across the sea to the West.

For years I've been searching for these three towers. For years I've been dreaming about them and frantically searching for pictures on the net.
And yet they were here from the beginning. All it tooked was too look on a map of Arda..
I have tears my heart, it was right in front of my eyes and yet I didn't saw ..
I put here a drawing I have made 5 years ago.
I would really ask if someone here also had visions or dreams about this place.
Please mp me It would be wonderful.
I've been searching for so long.

here is my drawing executed with my memories in 2015

And now , let's see what I've found about those hills :

The hills ranged between 750 to 950 feet in height and range over 1,150 square miles. They were the home of Nandorin elves. The names of the three towers were Elostirion (Q. "Star-fortress"), the middle and tallest, Ivrostirion (Q."Moon-Fortress") the northern, and Árëstirion (Q. "Sun-fortress"), the southern. Each was manned by several dozen mortals during the times of Arnor.

The Three towers had been built by Gil-galad in the early Second Age to survey the heights, warn of enemies and overlook the distant bay, though the Elves did found more pleasing accomodations in the scattered forests of the hills. After the return of the Numenorean mariners to Middle-earth, they were permitted to use the towers for astronomical observation. This license was extended and a permanent settlement of the Faithful lived at the Towers between the dissolution of the Venturers and the Downfall. When Elendil decided on the placement of the palantiri, it was found that the orb viewed from Elostirion, the tallest of the three towers, could pierce the shroud that shielded Eldamar from mortal eyes, and look upon the peak of Andoróthe tip of Meneltarma, now a mere basalt islet or sea-mount. So to satisfy the longings of both Elves and Dunedain, it sat there unmolested through to the Fourth Age, guarded by mortal mystics and the visiting Calaquendi, for whom it became a place of pilgrimage before taking ship. The palantir of Elostirion was removed and taken West by Elrond in T.A. 3021.

These hills were little visited by mortals or the troubles of the world for most of the later Third Age.After FA 30, the Westmarch of the Shire nominally extended into the hills as far as the watershed line.Undertowers, built where the Great East Road climbed up towards the line.It was the largest village of the province.However, Elves roamed these green, forested slopes, and Hobbits were leery of meeting them. Fastred, the Warden of Westmarch, had little problem with Hobbit farmers crossing the line into Lindon, but quite a few problems with Hobbit treasure hunters digging into old Elvish campsites.

Location: Hills in western Eriador, on the Great East-West Road between the Shire and the Grey Havens; location of the White Towers.




« Towers raised upon Emyn Beraid and upon Amon Sûl; and there remain many barrows and ruined works in those places, but the towers of Emyn Beraid still look towards the sea. »
The Silmarillion, Of the Rings of Power and the Third Age


The only Stone left in the North was the one in the Tower on Emyn Beraid that looks toward the Gulf of Lune. That was guarded by the Elves, and... it remained there, until Círdan put it aboard Elrond's ship when he left....
The Lord of the Rings, Appendix A, Annals of the Kings and Rulers: Eriador, Arnor, and the Heirs of Isildur, Footnote

« Three Elf-towers of immemorial age were still to be seen on the Tower Hills beyond the western marches. They shone far off in the moonlight. The tallest was furthest away, standing alone upon a green mound. The Hobbits of the Westfarthing said that one could see the Sea from the top of that tower;... »
The Lord of the Rings, Prologue, Concerning Hobbits

« The ancient East-West Road ran through the Shire to its end at the Grey Havens.... »
The Fellowship of the Ring, LoTR Book 1, Ch 2, The Shadow of the Past


« And when they had passed from the Shire, going about the south skirts of the White Downs, they came to the Far Downs, and to the Towers, and looked on the distant Sea; and so they rode down at last to Mithlond, to the Grey Havens in the long firth of Lune. »
The Return of the King, LoTR Book 6, Ch 9, The Grey Havens

I find in note 16 (p.414 of Unfinished Tales) information about the palantír at Emyn Beraid, and the Master Stone in the Tower of Avallónë upon Eressëa

According to Tolkien’s notes in The Road Goes Ever On, Gildor Inglorion and his companions were returning from a pilgrimage to the Emyn Beraid in which they used the stone to “gaze upon” Tol Eressëa and perhaps the rest of Aman. In the handful of passages where he discusses this stone Tolkien seems to imply that it could indeed be used to pass messages back and forth between Tol Eressëa and Middle-earth.

Gil-galad built the three towers of Emyn Beraid for Elendil and it was Elendil who placed the palantír in Elostirion (the tallest of the three towers, and the westernmost).  This stone could only look west and it did not communicate with the others.

So you have a situation where, after the Downfall of Numenor, Elendil and his sons arrive in Middle-earth.  The world has been made round, Numenor is gone, and no one really knows what has become of Aman.  Elendil has three palantíri.  Of these, one is placed on Weathertop (Amon Sûl) and one is placed in Annúminas. 

 The Annúminas stone is later moved to Fornost Erain, but Arvedui takes it and the Amon Sûl stone north in Third Age 1974, and they are lost at sea.  Until the fall of Arnor, however, the two kingdoms were able to maintain communication with each other via the palantíri of Minas Anor, Minas Tirith, Osgiliath, and Angrenost in the south and the two aforementioned stones in the north.

The stone of Osgiliath, the first to be lost, was able to survey all the others (in Middle-earth).  Tolkien doesn’t say if that includes the stone of Elostirion; however, given that the Elostirion stone was unable to communicate with the other six in Middle-earth, it probably did not require a warden for messaging.

So why did Elendil want or need to use the Elostirion stone?  As someone who had been born in Andúnië, and the son of its last lord, Elendil may have met some of the Eldar of Tol Eressëa, even though they could only have visited Numenor secretly had they done so.  Hence, Elendil may have had friendships he wished to maintain and the stone of Elostirion would have allowed that.

On the other hand, Elendil may simply have been nostalgic for glimpses of the Lonely Isle.  We only have this passage from “Of the Rings of Power and the Third Age”:

It is said that the towers of Emyn Beraid were not built indeed by the Exiles of Nœmenor, but were raised by Gil-galad for Elendil, his friend; and the Seeing Stone of Emyn Beraid was set in Elostirion, the tallest of the towers. Thither Elendil would repair, and thence he would gaze out over the sundering seas, when the yearning of exile was upon him; and it is believed that thus he would at whiles see far away even the Tower of Avallónë upon Eressëa, where the Masterstone abode, and yet abides. These stones were gifts of the Eldar to Amandil, father of Elendil, for the comfort of the Faithful of Numenor in their dark days, when the Elves might come no longer to that land under the shadow of Sauron. They were called the Palantíri, those that watch from afar; but all those that were brought to Middle-earth long ago were lost.

Although Gil-galad's kingdom didn't have clear bounds south of the Lune, the Elves of Lindon maintained an outpost there

In S.A. 600, when the first ship of the Númenóreans sailed up the Gulf of Lune there was a meeting between the men from the sea and their distant kinsmen in the Hills.

The White Towers upon the Tower Hills were built before the end of the Second Age by Gil-galad for his friend Elendil.

During the Third Age, bands of Elves would go in pilgrimage to Elostirion in order to have a glimpse of the West through the Elostirion-stone. The Stone remained in its tower until the end of the Age; it was then taken back into the West





In Fo.A. 31 the Westmarch was added to the Shire, making the Tower Hills the new western border of the land. Three years later Thain Peregrin I made Fastred of Greenholm the first Warden of Westmarch. He and his wife Elanor, daughter of Samwise Gamgee, moved to the Tower Hills and founded the town of Undertowers on the eastern slopes.

Edi
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