A hill lying on the southern fringes of the White Mountains, near the source of the River Morthond. When Isildur came to Middle-earth, he brought with him a great Black Stone, which he placed on the summit of the Hill of Erech (and which was afterwards known as the Stone of Erech).
It was on the hill that the King of the Mountains swore his aid to Isildur, but when his people failed to fulfil his promise, they were cursed to wander the mountains as the Dead. So the hill and the stone gained a sinister reputation among the people of the Blackroot Vale where it stood, as a place where the whispering Dead would meet. At the time of the War of the Ring, Aragorn led the King of the Dead and his people to the Hill one last time, and there they granted their aid to Isildur's Heir, agreeing to follow Aragorn and fulfil their ancient oath.
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The name Erech predated the arrival of the Númenóreans in the lands that would become Gondor. It belongs to the language of the Men who had formerly occupied these lands, and its full meaning is not known. Tolkien speculates that it may have been influenced in part by the Elvish er- 'one, alone', as the hill rose separately from the main range of the White Mountains.
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- Updated 17 September 2024
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