Haudh-en-Nirnaeth

We have very little detail about the location of Haudh-en-Nirnaeth, except that it was in the midst of the desert of Anfauglith, and that it lay somewhere eastward of Hithlum. That description could conceivably cover a very large area indeed, so the location shown on this map is necessarily somewhat speculative.

Of the raising of Haudh-en-Nirnaeth, the published Silmarillion says that Morgoth's Orcs '...gathered all the bodies of those who had fallen in the great battle...' (Quenta Silmarillion 20, Of the Fifth Battle: Nirnaeth Arnoediad). This seems to imply that the the mound contained all the fallen of the battle, including Morgoth's forces. Numerous other sources, however, are more specific that the mound held only the bodies of Elves and Men, but not those of Orcs. For example, in a passage that seems to form the basis of the Silmarillion text, the Grey Annals (in volume XI of The History of Middle-earth), says that the Orcs '...gathered with great labour all the bodies of their enemies...', and, '...piled them, Elves and Men, in a great hill'.

This is not necessarily a discrepancy; the Silmarillion account is briefer and more general than in the other sources. There is no doubt that the idea that Haudh-en-Nirnaeth held only the bodies of Elves and Men is prevalent in the source texts, and stretches back to the very early Lost Tales. So, the fact that this detail is not specifically mentioned in the Silmarillion seems to have been an editorial decision, rather than a revision intended by Tolkien himself.