Watch-stones

The Drúedain or Woses delighted in the carving of stone, often into fantastic and artistic shapes, and one of the products of this skill was the figure known as the 'watch-stone'. Each watch-stone represented a Drúadan, and they apparently possessed strange powers, with the maker passing some of his own personality into the stone. They were greatly feared by the Orcs, especially a pair of famous watch-stones that guarded the Crossings of Teiglin, each representing a huge Drúadan squatting on a dead Orc. In the story of the 'Faithful Stone' we're told of an another watch-stone with such a strong connection to its maker that burns suffered by the stone were also suffered by the Drúadan who created it.

The carved Púkel-men that guarded the turns in the roadway to Dunharrow may have originated as watch-stones. Though they're never explicitly identified as such, we do know that it was the habit of the Drúedain to place their stones at the turns of paths, so this seems consistent with what we know of the strange and mysterious watch-stones of the Woses.