But the account in annals contains two remarkable details: that there was at the place where Cirion and Eorl stood what appeared to be an ancient monument of rough stones nearly man-high with a flat top; and that on this occasion Cirion to the wonder of many invoked the One (that is God). His exact words are not recorded, but they probably took the form of allusive terms such as Faramir used in explaining to Frodo the content of the unspoken "grace" (before communal meals) that was a Númenórean ritual, e.g. "These words shall stand by the faith of the heirs of the Downfallen in the keeping of the Thrones of the West and of that which is above all Thrones for ever."
This would in effect hallow the spot for as long as the Númenórean realms endured, and was no doubt intended to do so, being not in any way an attempt to restore the worship of the One on the Meneltarma (‘pillar of heaven), the central mountain of Númenor (Note 2), but a reminder of it, and of the claim made by "the heirs of Elendil" that since they had never wavered in their allegiance they (Note 3) were still permitted to address the One in thought and prayer direct.
The "ancient monument"—by which was evidently meant a structure made before the coming of the Númenóreans—is a curious feature, but is no support to the view that the mountain was already in some sense "hallowed" before its use in the oath-taking. Had it been regarded as of "religious" significance it would in fact have made this use impossible, unless it had at least been completely destroyed first (Note 4). For a religious structure that was "ancient" could only have been erected by the Men of Darkness, corrupted by Morgoth or his servant Sauron. The Middle Men, descendants of the ancestors of the Númenóreans, were not regarded as evil nor inevitable enemies of Gondor. Nothing is recorded of their religion or religious practices before they came in contact with the Númenóreans (Note 5), and those who became associated or fused with the Númenóreans adopted their customs and beliefs (included in the "lore" which Faramir speaks of as being learned by the Rohirrim). The "ancient monument" can thus not have been made by the Rohirrim, or honoured by them as sacred, since they had not yet established themselves in Rohan at the time of the Oath (soon after the Battle of the Field of Celebrant), and such structures in high places as places of religious worship was no part of the customs of Men, good or evil (Note 6). It may however have been a tomb.
Note 1: Cf. the Coronation of Aragorn.{48}
Note 2: That would have been regarded as sacrilegious.
Note 3: And, as was generally believed by their rulers, all who accepted their leadership and received their instruction. See next note.
Note 4: For the Númenórean view of the previous inhabitants see Faramir's conversation with Frodo, especially II 287.{49} The Rohirrim were according to his classification Middle Men, and their importance to Gondor in his time is chiefly in mind and modifies his account; the description of the various men of the southern "fiefs" of Gondor, who were mainly of non-Númenórean descent, shows that other kinds of Middle Men, descended from others of the Three Houses of the Edain, lingered in the West, in Eriador (as the Men of Bree), or further south—notably the people of Dor-en-Ernil (Dol Amroth).
Note 5: Because such matters had little interest for the Gondorian chroniclers; and also because it was assumed that they had in general remained faithful to the monotheism of the Dúnedain, allies and pupils of the Eldar. Before the removal of most of the survivors of these "Three Houses of Men" to Númenor, there is no mention of the reservation of a high place for worship of the One and the ban on all temples built by hand, which was characteristic of the Númenóreans until their rebellion, and which among the Faithful (of whom Elendil was the leader) after the Downfall and the loss of the Meneltarma became a ban on all places of worship.
Note 6: The Men of Darkness built temples, some of great size, usually surrounded by dark trees, often in caverns (natural or delved) in secret valleys of mountain-regions; such as the dreadful halls and passages under the Haunted Mountain beyond the Dark Door (Gate of the Dead) in Dunharrow. The special horror of the closed door before which the skeleton of Baldor was found was probably due to the fact that the door was the entrance to an evil temple hall to which Baldor had come, probably without opposition up to that point.{50} But the door was shut in his face, and enemies that had followed him silently came up and broke his legs and left him to die in the darkness, unable to find any way out.
At the words "It may however have been a tomb". Tolkien abandoned this text, and (no doubt immediately) marked the entire account of the Halifirien for deletion.
Christopher Tolkien writes: "These last words may well signify the precise moment at which the tomb of Elendil on Halifirien [cf. UT:304] entered the history; and it is interesting to observe the mode of its emergence. The original ‘Firien was the ‘black hill' in which were the caverns of Dunharrow (VIII:251); it was also called ‘the Halifirien' (VIII:257, 262), and Dunharrow was ‘said to be a haliern' (Old English hálig-ern ‘holy place, sanctuary') ‘and to contain some ancient relic of old days before the Dark'; while Dunharrow, in my father's later words, is ‘a modernisation of Rohan Dūnhaerg "the heathen fane on the hillside", so-called because this refuge of the Rohirrim ... was on the site of a sacred place of the old inhabitants' (VIII:267 n. 35). The name Halifirien was soon transferred to become the last of the beacon-hills of Gondor, at the western end of the chain (VIII:257), which had been first named Mindor Uilos (VIII:233); but there is no indication at all of what my father had in mind, with respect to the very express meaning of the name Halifirien, when he made this transference. The account given above, written so late in his life, seems to be the first statement on the subject; and here he assumed without question that (while the hill had earlier borne the Sindarin name Fornarthan ‘North Beacon) it was the Rohirrim who called it ‘the Holy Mountain: and they called it so, ‘according to their traditions at the time of the War of the Ring', because of the profound gravity and solemnity of the oath of Cirion and Eorl taken on its summit, in which the name of Eru was invoked. He refers to a record in the annals' that ‘an ancient monument of rough stones nearly man-high with a flat top' stood on the summit of the Halifirien—but he at once proceeds to argue strongly that its presence can be ‘no support to the view that the mountain was in some sense "hallowed" before its use in the oath-taking', since any such ancient object of ‘religious' significance ‘could only have been erected by the Men of Darkness, corrupted by Morgoth or his servant Sauron.' But: ‘It may however have been a tomb.'
"And thus the 'hallowing' of the hill (anciently named Eilenaer) was carried back two and a half thousand years before the Rohirrim settled in Calenardhon: already at the beginning of the Third Age it was the Hill of Awe, Amon Anwar of the Númenóreans, on account of that tomb on its summit. I have no doubt that the account of the Oath of Cirion and Eorl given, with the closely related texts, in Unfinished Tales, followed very shortly and perhaps with no interval at all the abandonment of this essay on the names of the rivers and beacon-hills of Gondor.
"It is thus seen that not only the present work but all the history of the Halifirien and Elendil's tomb arose from Mr. Bibire's brief query.
48
The reference is to Gandalf ‘s words while placing the White Crown upon Aragorn, LR:946: "Now come the days of the King, and may they be blessed while the thrones of the Valar endure!"
50
In this sentence, the name