[Gordis]

Inziladun, I will open a new thread to discuss nazgul clothing.

Originally Posted by Inziladun

Elves? It doesn't seem they were allowed to be ghosts hanging about in the ether. The spirits of all Elves went to the Halls of Mandos after the destruction of their physical bodies.

They were supposed to go there, they were summoned, but they could refuse the summons and stay as disembodied ghosts in ME. It was against the Design of Eru, so such Elves became easy prey to Morgoth and his followers.

Here is what is said about them in Morgoth’s Ring (HoME 10), The Later Quenta Silmarillion, Laws and Customs among the Eldar:

It is therefore a foolish and perilous thing, besides being a wrong deed forbidden justly by the appointed Rulers of Arda, if the Living seek to commune with the Unbodied, though the houseless may desire it, especially the most unworthy among them. For the Unbodied, wandering in the world, are those who at the least have refused the door of life and remain in regret and self-pity. Some are filled with bitterness, grievance, and envy. Some were enslaved by the Dark Lord and do his work still, though he himself is gone. They will not speak truth or wisdom. To call on them is folly. To attempt to master them and to make them servants of one own’s will is wickedness. Such practices are of Morgoth; and the necromancers are of the host of Sauron his servant.

Some say that the Houseless desire bodies, though they are not willing to seek them lawfully by submission to the judgement of Mandos. The wicked among them will take bodies, if they can, unlawfully. The peril of communing with them is, therefore, not only the peril of being deluded by fantasies or lies: there is peril also of destruction. For one of the hungry Houseless, if it is admitted to the friendship of the Living, may seek to eject the fëa from its body; and in the contest for mastery the body may be gravely injured, even if it be not wrested from its rightful habitant. Or the Houseless may plead for shelter, and if it is admitted, then it will seek to enslave its host and use both his will and his body for its own purposes. It is said that Sauron did these things, and taught his followers how to achieve them.

I guess the Witch-King, using necromantic, Morgul magic, helped the Houseless to become housed - not in the living bodies, but in the corpses of the Dunedain

Originally Posted by Inziladun

And something bothers me about that arm. If it was an appendage of a long dead Dúnadan, why was it not skeletal?

The "Last prince of Cardolan" whose barrow it was (see App. A), died in 1409. The Wights entered the Barrow soon after the Plague, in 1636. So the corpses had only about 230 years to rot naturally. If the conditions were good, the air dry etc., in such a short time the bodies could have been quite nicely preserved, especially if embalmed properly. And I guess Dunedain (with their obsession with Death and tombs) did embalm their dead, much like Egyptians.

Originally Posted by Inziladun

No- it must have been part of the wight. Look at what happened when Frodo attacked it. The sword broke just as it would have when striking a Nazgûl (though without the wounding of the sword-arm). The 'shriek' seems to indicate pain, the 'snarling noise', animalistic anger. Would any of that had happened if the arm had been simply a piece of corpse animated by another force?

Well if a spirit inhabits a body, it should feel pain when its body is damaged. After all, it is almost alive, even if it looks like a corpse or a skeleton.
As for the sword breaking, it is quite similar to nazgul case, in fact ("All swords perish that pierce that dreadful King"). Perhaps any blade that strikes some denizen of the Shadow world breaks as a rule.

Originally Posted by Inziladun

My only thought on that is that the ring must have been a factor, though I don't know that the wights actually would have even been aware of its existence. They were, after all, sent there by the Witch-king around 1670 of the Third Age- long after the Ring was taken from Sauron and believed lost forever. Perhaps the Wight sensed the Ring and was confused and alarmed, not understanding what it was, yet still desiring to kill Frodo along with the rest. Maybe the Ring also gave Frodo some measure of ability to resist the Wight's spell.
It's really all conjecture, I think, because there just isn't a lot of textual evidence to go on to make a point, one way or another.

There is some textual evidence. Firstly, we know that the Witch-King had visited the Barrow Wights right before Frodo et al. were trapped in the Barrow.

The Black Captain […] himself visited the Barrow-downs. In notes on the movements of the Black Riders at that time it is said that the Black Captain stayed there for some days, and the Barrow-wights were roused, and all things of evil spirit, hostile to Elves and Men, were on the watch with malice in the Old Forest and on the Barrow-downs.-UT, "Hunt for the Ring"

I believe the Witch-King reminded the Wights that he was their master and explained to them the current goals. They had to know he wanted the One Ring. Strange it is that the Wight hadn't summoned the Witch-King straight away. Instead it started this strange dark ritual involving the three hobbits, but not Frodo. I can't understand the Wight's behaviour…