Doors of Durin

The Doors of Durin, the West-gate of Moria, are the most famous entrance to the ancient Dwarf-realm of Khazad-dûm. Hewn into the sheer grey cliff-face of the Misty Mountains, they were made not by Dwarves alone but in collaboration with the Elven-smiths of Eregion, a relic of the friendship that once existed between the two races. The doors are invisible when shut, their surface a seamless blank wall; they reveal themselves only when the moonlight or starlight falls upon the ithildin—a metal that "mirrors only starlight and moonlight"—with which the design is traced. The portal is governed by a password, not a key, and opens outward; from the inside it can be thrust open by hand, but from the outside nothing will move it save the spell of command.

Design and Inscription

When Gandalf finally coaxes the doors into visibility, the moonlight reveals an elaborate composition. At the top is an arch of interlacing Elvish letters. Below that stand the emblems of Durin: an anvil and a hammer surmounted by a crown with seven stars. Beneath these are two trees, each bearing crescent moons, representing the Tree of the High Elves. Most clearly of all, in the middle of the door, a single star with many rays shines forth—the Star of the House of Fëanor. The inscription on the arch reads, in the Elvish tongue of the West of Middle-earth in the Elder Days: "The Doors of Durin, Lord of Moria. Speak, friend, and enter." Underneath, small and faint, is written: "I, Narvi, made them. Celebrimbor of Hollin drew these signs." The doors are thus a joint work: Narvi the Dwarf-craftsman built them, while Celebrimbor, the greatest of the Elven-smiths of Eregion, designed the decorative scheme.

The Riddle of the Password

Gandalf, despite his vast lore, does not know the opening word. He tries spell after spell—"Annon edhellen, edro hi ammen!" and its variants—in every language ever spoken in the West of Middle-earth, striking the rock with his staff and shouting commands. Nothing happens. The cliff towers into the night, the countless stars are kindled, the wind blows cold, and the doors stand fast. The Company despairs, and Boromir asks bitterly what use it was to bring them to this accursed spot if the guide cannot enter. Gandalf admits he once passed through Moria, but from the East, not this way. The solution comes to him only after a long silence of bowed thought: the opening word was inscribed on the archway all the time. The translation should have been "Say 'Friend' and enter." He speaks the Elvish word for friend—"Mellon!"—and the star shines out briefly before the great doorway silently divides in the middle and swings outward inch by inch.

Significance and Irony

The simplicity of the password is a deliberate irony. Gandalf, a learned lore-master in suspicious days, overcomplicates the problem because he assumes that a secret door must have a secret, difficult key. The doors were made in happier times, when trust was common and such a portal could stand open with a doorward sitting before it. The riddle is "absurdly simple, like most riddles when you see the answer," but the very suspicion that has grown in the later Third Age blinds even the Wise to the obvious. The moment of triumph is immediately undercut by disaster: as Gandalf sets foot on the lowest step, the Watcher in the Water seizes Frodo, and the doors are slammed shut by the tentacles, blocking the passage behind the Company and forcing them into the dark journey through Moria from which Gandalf will not return alive.