[Legate of Amon Lanc]

Originally Posted by CSteefel

I am not sure that a Morgul blade in the hands of an Orc would have an identical effect as it would wielded by one of the Nazgul.

Well, of course I did not even expect that something as rare and powerful as the Morgul-blades would be given to the hands of an Orc, that would be like giving a Ring of Power to an Orc, which is a nonsense (from Sauron's point of view I believe with no doubt). But what you said is interesting - so you think that the Morgul blade did not have the powers of its own, but that it depended also on who the wielder was, like for example with the One Ring (where it gave the bearer power according to his own)?

Originally Posted by CSteefel

It seems the suggestion is that it was the work of the Nazgul, since Tolkien in Appendix A says:

although this does not rule out Orcs issuing from the tower.

Especially when there were the knights, I would suspect an ambush there, and it's not necessary to think that they were ambushed by Nazgul there (although if they wanted to scare Eärnur's men to death, it could be maybe more interesting than simple regiment of Orcs). But I think not, and where we don't have definite statement, it's better to try to look for a similar situation and how Sauron acted. And Sauron, that "base master of treachery", is quite capable to invite you somewhere and then send a few dozen Orcs at you. The WK or other Nazgul could have "supervised" all the action, mainly when someone as important as Eärnur was concerned, but what is pretty clear also from the second quote you provided, Eärnur was most likely not beaten in a "fair fight", and while he came to the land of the enemy, where there were hundreds of Orcs all around him, I don't think the WK would necessarily need to bother with him personally. Although it is possible, for he was certainly convinced that "no living man could kill him" (as we know from his speech at Pelennor), so he will not have any problem with going to face Eärnur.

Originally Posted by CSteefel

But to me, the strongest indication that wraiths are likely to be out there is that Gandalf says that the Nazgul withdrew expecting the Morgul Blade to do its work and turn Frodo in to a wraith. This suggests some previous experience with this... But then, the Hobbit did not fade nearly as fast as the men who had experienced the same wound...

Again, if you take just the plain facta, it is not necessary that they had the personal experience - they could have just known how the blade works, theoretically (as when you buy some apparatus and you never used it, but you know what it's supposed to do). Gandalf also knew what the blade is supposed to do and we can say that he definitely did not use the blade before. (This of course implies that he probably knew that such a thing exists and how it works, either through studying some "knowledge of the Enemy" - so more probably he heard of that from Saruman - or through hearing about, or experiencing some case when another person was hurt. But then, it won't be Eärnur, as no one knew of his fate.) In any case, it is only a theory that the Nazgul have used the blade before, and it is only a theory that if they did, one of the uses could have been Eärnur. The tale is not saying "no", but it is not even saying "yes".