June 30, 2003

Re: Barrow-downs
Colin

Jarrickon, that's a great piece of observation, and I'd like to add my own thoughts to this. In the 'Unfinished Tales' story, The Hunt for the Ring (?), I think Tolkien says that when the Nazgul arrived near The Shire, they split up to widen their search. The Witch-king of Angmar went to the Barrow Downs to awaken evil spirits and the like, as this was the area he'd dominated many centuries previously. (If any of this is factually wrong, it's because I don't have the book at hand right now.) Anyway, I think from now on I'll assume that it's the Witch-king we see in this particular scene, because he's one of my favourite characters, someone I'd like to know so much more about. Unfortunately, available information is distinctly lacking.

However, the 'History of Middle-earth' offers Tolkien's thoughts at an earlier stage of the story's evolution - the WIZARD-king was apparently a renegade Numenorean who had also been at one point a member of the order of Wizards! The Numenorean theme did sort of survive, as I think three of the Nazgul were meant to be Numenoreans. The notion of at least one of them being a fallen Wizard is fascinating, but clearly incompatible with the wider mythology, which is presumably why it was dropped.