Isengard
Angrenost; the fortress of Saruman; the Ring of Isengard
Name and Position
Isengard — in the elder speech Angrenost — is the great fortress in the gap at the south of the Misty Mountains, guarding the way through the mountains by the river Isen. “The Ring of Isengard” was its wall of rock, and at its centre rose Orthanc, the black tower of unbreakable stone built by the old Númenorean lords — a place of the ancient kings, given in time to the guardianship of the Wardens, and at last to the head of the Istari.
The Wizard’s Hold
- Saruman the White was granted (by the counsel of the White Council) the keeping of Orthanc, and made Isengard his home and his workshop — digging his vaults, breeding his Uruk-hai, and forging alliances with the Enemy. It was the lair from which his Voice worked its poison on the counsels of Rohan and the West, and the listening point where his palantír showed him the doom he thought to serve.
- At the turn of the War, when Gandalf the White came to Isengard and the captive Saruman was broken, the Ents of Fangorn burst the Ring’s gates and drowned the wizard’s machines with the released waters — so that Isengard stood a smoking ruin under the flood.
Significance
Isengard is the “Iron-cage” (Angrenost) that the lore remembers as the fall of the second-wise: the fortress of the corrupted Istari, the seat of the betrayal and of the forest’s vengeance — the physical emblem of craft turned to tyranny in the later age.