The Dead and The Undead

[Boromir88]

Originally Posted by Formendacil

We don't know much (really, do we know anything?) about the worship of Sauron in Middle-earth beyond that he WAS worshipped, but I think that some comparative "religious studies" to what we know of the Melkor-worship he introduced in Númenor would, in fact, suggest that Sauron-worship in Middle-earth was heavily tied to Death and the fear of death, which, ironically, seems to have involved deaths and accelerated dying.

Originally Posted by Zigûr

Incidentally, I believe the door that Baldor was found trying to open was the entrance to a temple to Sauron, or the Shadow more generally, beneath the Haunted Mountain.

Interesting about the door Baldor finds, and it may give some clues as to the Sauron-worship by the Men of Dunharrow:

...Brego and his son Baldor climbed the Stair of the Hold and so came before the Door. On the threshold sat an old man, aged beyond the guess of years; tall and kingly he had been, but now he was withered as an old stone. Indeed for stone they took him, for he moved not, and he said no word, until they sought to pass him by and enter. And then a voice came out of him, as it were out of the ground, and to their amaze it spoke in the western tongue: The way is shut.

'Then they halted and looked at him and saw that he lived still; but he did not look at them. The way is shut, his voice said again. It was made by those who are Dead, and the Dead keep it, until the time comes. The way is shut.'

'And when will that time be? said Baldor. But no answer did he ever get. For the old man died in that hour and fell upon his face; and no other tidings of the ancient dwellers in the mountains have our folk ever learned. Yet maybe at last the time foretold has come, and Aragorn may pass.'~The Muster of Rohan

This is Theoden's account and I like the feel that it's an urban legend telling of what's been passed down through the Kings of Rohan. It leaves me to wonder that the old man outside the door was already dead, re-animated by one of the cursed spirits because it spoke "as it were out of the ground." The spirit exits and "the old man died in that hour and fell upon his face." Creepy, necromancy Sauron-worship!

[Huinesoron]

Originally Posted by Boromir88

This is Theoden's account and I like the feel that it's an urban legend telling of what's been passed down through the Kings of Rohan. It leaves me to wonder that the old man outside the door was already dead, re-animated by one of the cursed spirits because it spoke "as it were out of the ground." The spirit exits and "the old man died in that hour and fell upon his face." Creepy, necromancy Sauron-worship!

See, now I'd always taken this story entirely at face value, but now you've got me thinking about it... could the 'old man' be a Drúedain watch-stone? We know the Púkel-men were considered to be carved by them, and the repeated references to stone suggest it - as does the fact that Tolkien bothered to write "The Faithful Stone" at all. There's no other stories which link them to animated statues, right? The idea of the 'old man' as an ancient watch-stone expending its last drop of energy does seem to hold up.

If so, this would mean there were four players in the drama of The Broken Oath: the men of the mountains, Sauron who had corrupted them, Isildur who wanted their alliegance - and the Woses, ignored by everyone else, who carefully set their watch-stones to guard the cursed caverns which the Oathbreakers still haunted.

hS