Orthanc
the Fang of the Rock; the tower of Isengard
Name and Form
Orthanc — “the Fang of the Rock” — is the great, black, four-towered pinnacle that stood at the centre of the Ring of Isengard: “a pinnacle of rock… unbreakable by any strength of men” — carved by the skill of the Numenorean builders of old and given at last into the keeping of the White Wizard Saruman for the defence of the West. Its seamless black stone (only a great staircase and the “gates of Gondor” leading to it) resisted every assault, and was counted the “unbreakable” horn of the fortress.
The Tower of the Wizard
- Within it Saruman kept his hidden things — the chamber of the palantír of Orthanc, from which (in the feet of pride) he looked to Barad-dûr and was caught; and the wind called “the horn of the Rock” upon its height. At the Ents’ onset, Isengard’s works fell but Orthanc itself stood — the Ents could not break it; Saruman was immured within until Gandalf loosed him; and at the end the tower passed into the keeping of the King (with the palantír) as it had been in the days of the Faithful.
Significance
Orthanc is the “immovable” of the later age — the ancient Numenorean work whose strength no weapon of the Shadow could harm, and whose keeper was undone not by siege but by his own looking. It binds the fortress-lore of Isengard to the old towers of the kings.