Cirith Ungol

Cirith Ungol is the most consequential piece of ground in The Lord of the Rings, and almost everything about it works backwards. Gondor cut the fortress into the Ephel Duath after the Last Alliance and built it facing inward on purpose - to keep things in, not out. Then the Great Plague of Third Age 1636 emptied it. No siege ever took Cirith Ungol; Gondor ran out of men. It kept the Black Gate manned three centuries longer, and in the year 2000 the Nazgul came out of Mordor through the pass nobody was watching. Guarding it instead is Shelob, last child of Ungoliant, who was in that mountain before Sauron laid the first stone of Barad-dur and who serves nobody. Sauron feeds her. He has never commanded her. The climb runs on through Gollum's blighted repentance, the tunnel of Torech Ungol, the Phial of Galadriel, Sam Gamgee's fight, and an orc garrison that destroyed itself over a mithril shirt.

Published

21 August 2026

Runtime

32 min 51 sec