Crack of Doom

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Image:Crack doom.png The phrase at the crack of doom, meaning "at the striking of the fateful hour", appears in Macbeth by William Shakespeare and has entered common usage. On the heath the Weird Sisters show Macbeth the line of kings that will issue from Banquo:

'Why do you show me this? A fourth! Start, eyes!

What, will the line stretch out to the crack of doom?

Another yet! A seventh! I'll see no more:'

In the context of the play, "to the crack of doom" is thought by some to mean "until the Day of Judgement", meaning that Banquo's line will endure until the end of time; surely considerable flattery for King James I, who claimed descent from Banquo and whom Macbeth is thought by some to have been written for specifically.

In J.R.R. Tolkien's fantasy world of Middle-earth, Tolkien plays upon Shakespeare's familiar phrase, to provide the literal Cracks of Doom (or Crack of Doom), physical cracks— fissures within the great volcano Mount Doom— the very place where the Dark Lord Sauron created the One Ring. They also are the place that the One Ring must be cast into in order to be destroyed, rendering Sauron powerless. This place was known more properly as the Sammath Naur.