LotR -- Book 5 - Chapter 02 - The Passing of the Grey Company

[davem]

Baldor the Hapless

Lalwende recently came across this reference to Baldor's fate in Tolkien's essay 'The Rivers & Beacon Hills of Gondor'. It was published in Vinyar Tengwar, but I've just found it on-line
http://216.239.59.104/search?q=cache...rvo/t/vt42.doc

Note 6: The Men of Darkness built temples, some of great size, usually surrounded by dark trees, often in caverns (natural or delved) in secret valleys of mountain-regions; such as the dreadful halls and passages under the Haunted Mountain beyond the Dark Door (Gate of the Dead) in Dunharrow. The special horror of the closed door before which the skeleton of Baldor was found was probably due to the fact that the door was the entrance to an evil temple hall to which Baldor had come, probably without opposition up to that point. But the door was shut in his face, and enemies that had followed him silently came up and broke his legs and left him to die in the darkness, unable to find any way out.

Not sure who these 'enemies' were - men of Rohan, Dunlendings, Wild Men or 'Men of Darkness'. Certainly its a creepy story.