"The Necromancer"

[mhagain]

Originally Posted by Legolas

"The Necromancer" was originally just some 'black sorcerer' that Tolkien alluded to in The Hobbit as a device to make the world seem much more vast and dangerous than little ole Bilbo and his hobbit hole. He was simply namedropping. At time of publishing, Tolkien didn't know the Necromancer would be revealed as Sauron or what Sauron would be doing in Bilbo's world.

Actually the Necromancer was always meant to be Sauron, even from the earliest drafts; quoting from History of the Hobbit here:

"Don't be absurd" said the wizard. "That is a job quite beyond the powers of all the dwarves, if they could be all gathered together again from the four corners of the world. And anyway his castle stands no more and he is flown to another darker place - Beren and Tinúviel broke his power, but that is quite another story."

That's a clear reference to the Lay of Leithian and the contemporary Silmarillion material, and leaves it in no doubt that even before LotR was begun Tolkien had this identity for him in mind.

It could of course still be a case of Tolkien lifting the character of Thû the Necromancer from his other writings and dropping him into the Hobbit, but the point remains: the Necromancer = Sauron was something that was intended even before the Hobbit was completed and the common conception that this was a later idea (one that only arose during the writing of LotR) is in fact quite false.

[Inziladun]

Originally Posted by mhagain

It could of course still be a case of Tolkien lifting the character of Thû the Necromancer from his other writings and dropping him into the Hobbit, but the point remains: the Necromancer = Sauron was something that was intended even before the Hobbit was completed and the common conception that this was a later idea (one that only arose during the writing of LotR) is in fact quite false.

There are also several references from Letters to support this. The Necromancer originally was not connected with the Ring, though, and some might confuse that with the Sauron/Necromancer identity.

[skip spence]

The other night I picked up my copy of Home X, Morgoth's Ring, browsed it randomly and started reading from The Later Quenta Silmarillion. And happened to come across a part that hints at why Sauron is called the Necromancer.

Here Tolkien writes about the Elves, their potential re-birth and what happens when they suffer a physical death. He writes that if an Elf is killed, their soul, or fëa, is summoned to the Halls of the Dead in Mandos where it would receive correction, instruction, strengthening and comfort, until it (that individual) was deemed to be fit for a re-birth into a new body.

But the summons of Mandos were sometimes refused, and as he could not, or would not, force the fëa to enter the Halls of the Dead, lots of fëar would remain in Middle earth.

Originally Posted by HoME X

[they would] wander houseless in the world, unwilling to leave it and unwilling to inhabit it, haunting trees or springs or hidden places that once they knew. Not all these where kindly or unstained by the Shadow...

Some are filled with bitterness, grievance, and envy. Some are enslaved by the Dark Lord and do his will still, though he himself is gone...
... 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 hosts 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 ...
... 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

[Inziladun]

Interesting find, skip. I think the Barrow-wights would qualify there. Maybe the Necromancer name was derived from the Elves with that mythology in mind. Not knowing who in truth was the chief of Dol Guldur, they might have assigned him that moniker.

[Galadriel55]

Creepy dark dude in a dark tower in a dark land that spreads dark shadow and feeling of something ghostly or undead or just pure evil. What more ground is needed for his nickname? It's not like they called him Mr. Sunshine. It didn't even have to be Elves who named him. The name could have come from any nation/race/group. Most probably the Elves did, since they're the closest, but the basis behind the name doesn't necessarily reflect that.

[Zigûr]

Originally Posted by skip spence

The other night I picked up my copy of Home X, Morgoth's Ring, browsed it randomly and started reading from The Later Quenta Silmarillion. And happened to come across a part that hints at why Sauron is called the Necromancer.

I noticed this once myself. As Inzil has said it does seem to explain Barrow-wights and so on, doesn't it?

Originally Posted by Galadriel55

Creepy dark dude in a dark tower in a dark land that spreads dark shadow and feeling of something ghostly or undead or just pure evil. What more ground is needed for his nickname? It's not like they called him Mr. Sunshine.

That's true, but Professor Tolkien was hardly one to use names without putting any thought into them, was he? Is it more modern usage that defines 'Necromancer' as just 'Evil Sorcerer'? Because surely the Professor wouldn't have used it if he didn't have the connotations of interacting with the spirits of the dead in mind. I suppose though he might have been thinking of the "nigromancer" Latin (as opposed to Greek) folk etymology for the English word necromancer, which would of course suggest 'black magic practitioner' but that would seem like very sloppy usage from a philologist. Then again, 'Dwarves'...

[Alfirin]

Well, there are things done in ME by the servant's of Shadow that certainly SOUND like straightforward necromancy, if not by Sauron than by the WK (and if the WK can do necromantic sorceries, I very much doubt his master cannot). We've covered the Barrow Wights, and I earlier mentioned the Watchers, which certainly sound like fea placed in statues (either that, or something golem-ish).
There is also the threat the WK makes to Eowyn, assuming it is not idle (i.e. that that he threatens to do to her he or his master is actually capable of.). I would say that destroying a persons body while still leaving their mind/soul trapped in this world to be tortured (which is what I think the WK is threatening) sounds like it fits squarely within the realm of necromancy.

[mhagain]

Thû is referred to as a necromancer as far back as the Lay of Leithian:

Men called him Thû, and as a god
in after days beneath his rod
bewildered bowed to him, and made
his ghastly temples in the shade.
Not yet by men enthralled adored,
now was he Morgoth's mightiest lord,
Master of Wolves, whose shivering howl
for ever echoed in the hills, and foul
enchantments and dark sigaldry
did weave and wield. In glamoury
that necromancer held his hosts
of phantoms and of wandering ghosts...

This is actually the passage in which he emerges almost fully-formed; the only things really missing were the Rings and Númenor (the latter of these also came from pre-LotR texts), and of course all the Third Age stuff, but otherwise we have the concept of his survival beyond the First Age ("in after days"), Lord of Werewolves, Morgoth's second-in-command, his liking for temples, his later worship by Men, etc.

So even then, in a pre-Hobbit work, the concept of Thû as a necromancer who meddled with phantoms and ghosts, was all present and correct.

[skip spence]

Originally Posted by Zigûr

I noticed this once myself. As Inzil has said it does seem to explain Barrow-wights and so on, doesn't it?

Yeah sure and also I think the werewolves, that are associated with Sauron too. A werewolf was, it seems, essentially a wolf inhabited by an evil spirit, like Carcharoth (but less formidable). It was likely werewolves that attached the fellowship near the Misty Mountains.

[Inziladun]

Originally Posted by skip spence

Yeah sure and also I think the werewolves, that are associated with Sauron too. A werewolf was, it seems, essentially a wolf inhabited by an evil spirit, like Carcharoth (but less formidable). It was likely werewolves that attached the fellowship near the Misty Mountains.

Were those Tol-In-Gaurhoth type "werewolves" though? I would think the Wargs were a distinct breed of wolf with increased sentience, based on their descriptions in TH and FOTR. Since Orcs were known to actually ride on them, maybe they were Morgoth/Sauron's versions of the Mearas.