Rauros

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"...It is a long tale..." — Aragorn
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Falls of Rauros
Waterfall
Ted Nasmith - At the Falls.jpg
General Information
LocationThe Anduin river
TypeWaterfall
DescriptionA great waterfall
RegionsGondor
Reunited Kingdom
GalleryImages of Falls of Rauros
"As they went south the fume of Rauros rose and shimmered before them, a haze of gold. The rush and thunder of the falls shook the windless air."
The Two Towers, The Departure of Boromir[1]

Rauros, the Falls of Rauros or the Rauros-falls, were the great falls of River Anduin beneath Nen Hithoel, where the river fell from Emyn Muil to the wetland of Nindalf.

History

The Kings of Gondor had built the North Stair, a portage-way that bypassed the Falls.

At the breaking of the Fellowship of the Ring, Frodo and Sam paddled a boat from the west bank of the river to the east just above the falls and had to use all their strength to avoid being swept over the falls by the current. Shortly afterward Boromir's body was placed in another boat by Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli who sent it over the Falls. Aragorn declared in the Lament for Boromir that ever after the Tower of Guard would gaze "to Rauros, golden Rauros falls until the end of days".

But it apparently survived the fall; at any rate, soon afterward it was seen by his brother Faramir upon the lower reaches of the Anduin in what felt to him like a dream yet from which there was no waking, and he retrieved Boromir's cloven horn in truth and not in seeming.

Etymology

In his unfinished index, Tolkien glossed the name Rauros as "roaring spray".[2] A pencilled annotation in a manuscript also gives the translation "Rush-rain" or "Roar-rain".[3]

In another manuscript, the name Rauros(se) is said to be composed of raw and ros, and meaning "roaring rain". It is noted that the repetition of r in a name is usually retained in those with "phonetic or onomatopoeic significance".[4]

References