I assume the Rangers were simply wandering all over the former Arnor, and I see no reason to change this idea. Anyway, the thing about Fornost seems to me that it is something different. I mean: there is nobody to protect
there, but it's the place of "pilgrimage" to remember the forgotten times when Arnor was still a powerful kingdom. Just like Weathertop. The Rangers also go there, as Aragorn says, and he has this half-sighing tone of "it
used to be a mighty tower, now it's a pile of rock".
And as for Fornost, the way Gandalf says it:
Quote:
"Up away by Deadmen's Dike?" said Butterbur, looking even more dubious. "That's haunted land, they say. None but a robber would go there."
"The Rangers go there," said Gandalf. "Deadmen's Dike, you say. So it has been called for long years; but its right name, Barliman, is Fornost Erain, Norbury of the Kings."
|
It always seemed to me that the meaning is, in other words: "You are a superstitious simpleton, Butterbur, you know nothing about the noble history, there is nothing scary about Fornost, it is a "holy place" of the Dúnedain, because their King had once dwelt there, and only because it's been destroyed by the Witch-King and has been deserted for a long time, it has the reputation of an "old haunted house" in your eyes."