December 13, 2002

Barrow Wights Explained
Derek Bessette

Barrow-wights are evil spirits--wraiths--much like the Nazgul, who entered the Barrows centuries after the fall of Arnor and centuries before the arrival of the Hobbits to the Barrow Downs. They were sent by the Witch-King, better known as the Lord of the Nazgul.

The Complete Guide to Middle-Earth says of barrow-wights: "Evil spirits from Angmar who infested the Great Barrows after Third Age 1636. The wights tried to entrap people in the barrows and sacrifice them."

The Tolkien Bestiary is a bit more colorful: "West of the Brandywine River beyond the Old Forest were the Barrow-downs, the most ancient burial ground of men in Middle-Earth. There were no trees or water there, but only grass and turf covering dome-shaped hills that were crowned with monoliths and great rings of bone-white stone. These hills were the burial mounds that were made in the First Age of Sun for the Kings of Men. For many ages the Barrow-downs were sacred and revered, until out of the Witch-kingdom of Angmar many terrible and tortured spirits fled across Middle-Earth, desperately searching to hide from the ravening light of the Sun. Demons whose bodies had been destroyed looked for other bodies in which their evil spirits could dwell. And so it was that the Barrow-downs became a haunted and dread place. The demons became the Barrow-wights, the Undead, who animated the bones and jewelled armor of the ancient Kings of Men who had lived in this land in the First Age of Sun. The Barrow-wights were of a substance of darkness that could enter the eye, heart, and mind, or crush the will. They were form-shifters and could move from shape to shape and animate whatever life-form they wished. Most often a Barrow-wight came on the unwary traveller in the guise of a dark phantom whose eyes were luminous and cold. The voice of the figure was at once horrible and hypnotic; its skeletal hand had a touch like ice and a grip like the iron jaws of a trap. Once under the spell of the Undead the victim had no will of his own. In this way the Barrow-wight drew the living into the treasure tombs on the downs. A dismal choir of tortured souls could be heard inside the barrow as, in the green half-light, the Barrow-wight laid his victim on a stone altar and bound him with chains of gold. He draped him in the pale cloth and precious jewellry of the ancient dead, and ended his life with a sacrificial sword. In the darkness these were powerful spirits and they could be held at bay only with the spell of strong incantations. They could be destroyed only by exposure to the light, and it was light that they hated and feared most. The Barrow-wights were lost and tortured spirits and their last chance to remain on earth depended on the dark security of the burial vaults. Once a stone chamber was broken open, light would pour in on the Barrow-wights and they would fade like mist before the sun and be gone for ever."

Other than the material based on FOTR, most of the Tolkien Bestiary text is creative writing and I wouldn't take for strict Tolkien; for that you would have to look through Unfinished or Lost Tales.