I thought the horses were enchanted somehow–and I remember reading (about the making of the films) that the make-up people had to make the horses look like they were on their last legs–like the Undead, in a way. I believe that the horses died in the river (and wasn’t that beautiful imagery in the film!?), so that the Nazgul had to use the fell beasts.
If they weren’t playing bush league, I’m sure they were up to mayhem and Bad Things in the interim…
This gives me the distressing image of the Witch King riding one of his fellow wraiths. :eek:
::goes off to scrub brain::
Not much to add except some useless pedantry: one of the few examples of Black Speech is the ring inscription, which starts “ash nazg durbataluk” – one ring to rule them all. Nazg = ring. nazgul = ringwraith.
Just pointing out the obvious: that the Professor was remarkably thorough and consistent.
I know I’ve read that TSR took the idea of wyverns having a poisonous sting from folklore, but I can’t remember where.
IMO No sting (and no Sting jokes, please. No jokes about the sword. No jokes about the musician. No jokes about the two conman films), it’s not a wyvern. Then again, it’s possible that Tolkien came across wyverns in his research, and the fell beasts actually are based on wyvern.
Re The Witch King
When I was young, I watched the animated ROTK and thought Eowen killed him. Then, I read the book and we have a hobbit stabbing him with what is IIRC a special antiNazgul sword forged by Gondor that somehow made it to a barrow in Bombadil’s woods. So was it Eowen or the hobbit (I admit it. I can never remember if Pippin stays with the Rohirim or whether that’s Merry)? Do hobbits not technically qualify as men under ancient spells/prophecies?
Merry’s sword was specially crafted for the war against the Witch King of Angmar. Whatever enchantment it carried was designed specifically to work against him, not Nazgul in general. If Merry, being a Hobbit, was, like Eowyn, “no man”, then I don’t see why the professor would have felt the need to provide him with an enchanted weapon.
Then again, what is the exact nature of the Witch King’s “no man can kill me” claim? Is it an actual spell, a boast, or a prophecy? After all, Eowyn’s claim not to be “a man” comes down to a matter of semantics. In one way of speaking, she is not a man because she is a woman. But in a broader sense, she belongs to the family of mankind, homo sapiens, and may be fairly described as “man.”
Here’s a suggestion. Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that the Witch King carries with him a magical force shield that makes him impervious to any human attack. Perhaps Merry’s sword, in striking the Witch King’s leg, broke the enchantment, thereby rendering him vulnerable.
I’m sure that those more learned in Tolkien lore will have some insight on this.
There is, in fact, some language about Merry’s sword severing the sinews that held the Witch King. I can’t post the exact quote now, but I think that what you mean, Kizarvexius.
Indeed, JRRT later wrote that he regretted writing enchantment into the weapon from Arnor. He felt that men really shouldn’t be ‘magic’ workers. He had initially felt that descendants of Numenor could get away with it, since some of them had both elven and Maiar ancestry. But it was a bit too late to re-write when he changed his mind, since LOTR had already been published.
The prophecy is spoken by Glorfindel to Earnur. “Far off yet is his doom, and not by the hand of man will he fall.”
Appendix A: “Gondor and the Heirs of Anarion,” p. 332
JRRT didn’t write much else on the subject. We can conjecture that Glorfindel had some inside knowledge of the matter thanks to his sojourn in Mandos after falling to the Balrog outside Gondolin.
Nah. I ain’t going there.
I hope they do!
I thought that was another Glorfindel. JRR had made it pretty clear that only two beings ever returned to Middle Earth from the Halls of Mandos, Beren and Luthien. I know he was rather fuzzy about whether elves remained in the Halls of Waiting or were resubstantiated somehow, but I didn’t think they were ever allowed to return eastward from Valinor. Have I missed something?
Yep. JRRT’s manuscripts make it pretty clear that the Glorfindel who met our heroes on the road in the 3rd age was the one and the same as the Glorfindel who died at Gondolin.
Per JRRT’s (somewhat shifting) canon, all men and elves whose bodies were slain had their spirits go to Mandos. In Mandos, the elves stayed, awaiting the time when they could take on new adult bodies. (JRRT once proposed the elves were reborn as infants among their kin and only regained their full memories as they approached adulthood, but later abandoned that idea as too bizarre.) Once they took on bodies, they were free to hang out in Valinor, and even perhaps go to the easternmost of the undying lands, Tol Eressëa (Avalonnë). But somehow Glorfindel got an exemption, and ended up back in ME at his special petition. Perhap because the hope of the Eldar and Edain (Earendil) would not have survived the fall of Gondolin and the Balrog without his intervention.
Meanwhile, mortal spirits tarried in Mandos for only a bit. Then they hied out to parts unknown, even to the Valar (save perhaps Manwë and Namo). What was remarkable about Beren and Luthien was that they were the only two mortals to return from Mandos. Luthien chose to embrace mortality to be with Beren.
I don’t have the book in front of me, but it seems that Merry’s sword in particular was important in beating the witch-king. No other blade would have done the damage, broken the spells that held his unseen sinews to his will. Once Merry stabbed him, Eowyn was able to finish him off. Thus Glorfindel’s prophecy was correct. No “man” killed him.