The Dead and The Undead

[Zigûr]

Originally Posted by Morthoron

Tolkien also notes the Dead Marshes "owe more to William Morris and his Huns and Romans in The House of the Wolfings and The Root of the Mountains." Now, it's been decades since I read Morris, so I can't recall in what context Tolkien was referencing

Originally Posted by Boromir88

I know nothing about William Morris, so I can't add anything to that piece of information.

I have read (and been published on) both The House of the Wolfings and The Roots of the Mountains and I'm unsure what Tolkien means, unless his syntax is getting mixed up and he's referring to his writings more generally. It's possible that he is saying that the desolation of the marshes is influenced by Morris's depiction of the Romans and the Huns as marauders who laid waste to the natural environment (as opposed to his nature-loving Goths) and left it in ruins for years to come.

And yes the information in Rivers and beacon-hills of Gondor does somewhat spoil the mystery of the death of Baldor. The idea that his legs were broken by the inhabitants of the Dwimorberg suggests that the Men of Dunharrow still hadn't died out 2,500 years after the end of the Second Age, which seems odd.

[Huinesoron]

Originally Posted by Boromir88

I am familiar with the connection Tolkien makes between the Dead Marshes and Northern France. I believe in the letter he briefly writes the plot doesn't represent the World Wars, but perhaps the landscape did.

Which is the interpretation that made the most sense to me, because I think the descriptions of the landscape through the entire story are perhaps the most fascinating. The land has a "character" of its own, influenced by the people (or unknown things) who lived there.

Originally Posted by Zigûr

I have read (and been published on) both The House of the Wolfings and The Roots of the Mountains and I'm unsure what Tolkien means, unless his syntax is getting mixed up and he's referring to his writings more generally. It's possible that he is saying that the desolation of the marshes is influenced by Morris's depiction of the Romans and the Huns as marauders who laid waste to the natural environment (as opposed to his nature-loving Goths) and left it in ruins for years to come.

Interesting! (I own the Morris books but don't remember them, so am very glad of Zigûr's expertise!) It really does sound like Tolkien drew a distinction between the physical appearance of things (Dead Marshes = the Somme), and their character (approach to Mordor = like the worlds of the Huns and Romans) - and that, unlike what would be my first instinct, he viewed the character as the true "inspiration".

That ties in with the way he doesn't seem to much care what his characters look like, assigning them physical traits only when they can sound properly Old English Epic (tall, bright eyes, hair like shadow following). I think he attributed the same kind of distinction to the Noldorin language-masters, who insisted Quenya was more like Primitive Quendian than Telerin was, even though Telerin kept the sounds more faithfully: they considered the nuances of grammar more significant than what it actually looked/sounded like.

Struggling to remember the Morris books... Zigûr, I know there's a wood-sprite type figure in one of them (shades of Goldberry), but is there anything spooky enough to be a thematic source for any of the undead, such as the Marshes?

hS

[Zigûr]

Originally Posted by Huinesoron

is there anything spooky enough to be a thematic source for any of the undead, such as the Marshes?

I'm sadly not familiar with all of the prose romances of Morris; they deserve a topic and then some in themselves. The enormous influence Morris had on Tolkien cannot be understated, and yet is often under-recognised — or, at least, that is my conjecture in some of my academic writings.

That being said, while not 'spooky', one element that does come to mind is the three men, two old, one melancholy, who come to Cleveland, home of the House of the Ravens, in the opening of The Story of the Glittering Plain, seeking the "Land of Living Men" aka "The Acre of the Undying". Morris had concerns with "death and the desire for deathlessness" too, but he believed in the pursuit of a better way of being in this world, not any world to come.

[Mithadan]

Getting a bit far afield from the original topic, but years ago there was a thread arguing that Sauron was misguided (a polite lawyer term) in permitting a pockmarked and cratered field that allowed anyone to hide to exist before his front gate. This thread touched upon the imagery as well and included a debate regarding whether the desolation before the Gates reflected the battlefields of France during WWI.

I don't think that the Dead Marshes were specifically discussed. I would agree that the visions in the Dead Marshes were images and nothing more; not dead or undead. The images likely were placed there for shock and horror value by Sauron to make them even more difficult to traverse.

[Formendacil]

Originally Posted by Zigûr

And yes the information in Rivers and beacon-hills of Gondor does somewhat spoil the mystery of the death of Baldor. The idea that his legs were broken by the inhabitants of the Dwimorberg suggests that the Men of Dunharrow still hadn't died out 2,500 years after the end of the Second Age, which seems odd.

It comes down solely to taste whether or not one likes the Rivers and Beacon Hills story. It is very "late Tolkien" if that makes any sense as an aesthetic judgment. That said, I don't find it immediately implausible that there would be descendants of the Dead still living and active in the White Mountains 2500 years later, because we know there were.

Thing is though, we call them Men of Gondor and refer to the hinterlands south of the Mountains. And the same people still dwelt west of the Gap: the Dunlendings. The idea that there was still some remnant of the White Mountain "Deadlendings" seems very Tolkienesque. And, certainly, with the Dúnedain in Calenardhon being few, it's easy to imagine Gondorians living mostly near the Great Road and either Angrenost or Aglarond--plenty of possibility for remnants of the Mountain people to survive further up, who could have possibly still had some sort of contact with their more-assimilated kin across the White Mountains.

Certainly, we know that the Dunlendings still harbour bitterness at the time of the War of the Ring toward the Rohirrim for usurping "their" land. While this could have specific reference to areas closer to Dunland (I'm thinking especially of the angle between the Adorn, which is a point of contention in Helm's day), it seems to be Calenardhon in general, and it seems more plausible to me that they'd resent the Rohirrim specifically, who are latecomers, if they still had some sort of presence in the White Mountains.

I suppose they needn't be LITERAL descendants (i.e. father to son to son) of the Deadlendings. Perhaps the Curséd Ones literally died out, but whatever lands or homes they had, I doubt they were abandoned completely, and we know Gondor never occupied the area in great numbers, which to me implies a native population. We know that the Dunlendings were willing to live under Gondorian rule as a mixed population retaining some of their culture (c.f. the state of Isengard just before Saruman is given its care--is that part of the "Cirion and Eorl" section of UT?), and a better-integrated version of the same happened south of the White Mountains as Gondor reinforced itself with the men of the Mountains--i.e. cultural kin of the Dunlendings and the Deadlendings.

So I can easily imagine that the Calenardhon-side of the White Mountains was (probably lightly) settled by a folk akin to the Dunlendings and Gondorian hinterlands, and these probably dwindled and thinned even as the Dúnedain did: probably never a great population there, and exposed to dangers like the Wainriders and Balchoth. When Cirion gave away that land to the Rohirrim, there were probably few enough left to think of it as "none," but the idea that there might have been a small sect that, instead of fleeing to Gondor or Isengard or Dunland holed up behind Dunharrow, seems possible.

If so, maybe there was a long chain of hidden continuity with the Dead, but there needn't have been: the Paths of the Dead wouldn't have had any terror if the Dead couldn't influence the living, and the idea that the Dead might have corrupted or used some embittered near-Dunlendings driven to anger at the loss of THEIR land in the service of, as they'd see it, their own kin, to maim and kill Bregor as a sort of dark revenge ritual... well, I'm enjoying the idea.

[Huinesoron]

Originally Posted by Mithadan

I don't think that the Dead Marshes were specifically discussed. I would agree that the visions in the Dead Marshes were images and nothing more; not dead or undead. The images likely were placed there for shock and horror value by Sauron to make them even more difficult to traverse.

I suppose we do know that Sauron had the power to create "phantoms devised by wizardry", but it seems a bit of an odd plan - my understanding is that the Marshes lie between the Emyn Muil and the Morannon, so you wouldn't bring an army through them anyway. (The Two Towers points out that there's a road directly to the north!)

At least not by choice - but it's a great place to drive enemies into if they attack. Apparently both Amdir of Lorien and Ondoher of Gondor saw their soldiers driven into the marshes, as did the Wainriders.

So could it be less a roadblock and more of a trap? Drive the enemy in there, and make them so spooked that they can't fight any more? And if you happen to be, I dunno, a Necromancer, you could put a spell on the entire marsh to capture some essence of the fallen to add to the trap.

Originally Posted by Morthoron

"Silver hair" would indicate Telerin, or more precisely Sindarin Elves. One would assume that the fëar of these Elves would have been called to the Halls of Mandos after they died in battle. I'm not sure how they would become dispossessed spirits enthralled by Sauron when these Elves died during the War of the Last Alliance, in which Sauron himself was defeated. The Dead Marshes came to claim the graves of the fallen warriors over time -- hundreds or thousands of years?

So, when did this "fell light" consume these fallen warriors and reveal their visages after so many centuries? Tolkien never explained.

I think silver hair is more specific to Thingol's relatives than to the Sindar as a whole, but Tolkien may not have 'known' that at the time of writing. Unfinished Tales tells us they were more likely Silvan: "Malgalad [of Lorien] and more than half his following perished in the great battle of the Dagorlad, being cut off from the main host and driven into the Dead Marshes."

Accepting that this is a late source, it implies that the Dead Marshes were already marshes, and possibly already cursed. Perhaps each elf that fell seemed to open their eyes again as they sank into the water, cupping a dancing light in their hands. It would work very nicely with my 'trap' theory.

The Two Towers says that "They fought on the plain for days and months at the Black Gates. But the Marshes have grown since then, swallowed up the graves; always creeping, creeping," but that doesn't mean the first Dead didn't appear during the battle itself. It just means that Sauron has somehow cursed the very water of the marsh - which is exactly what he's done to the Morgulduin. He probably gets a kick out of corrupting Ulmo's domain.

Originally Posted by Formendacil

It comes down solely to taste whether or not one likes the Rivers and Beacon Hills story. It is very "late Tolkien" if that makes any sense as an aesthetic judgment.

It does, actually. Coupled with Myths Transformed, 'Late Tolkien' is (partly) the era of demysticisation. Previously mysterious things had to have a logical explanation, even if the explanation made the story less powerful.

Which I can totally accept, and even find useful - but I think I'm always going to aesthetically prefer the 'myths'.

Originally Posted by Formendacil

So I can easily imagine that the Calenardhon-side of the White Mountains was (probably lightly) settled by a folk akin to the Dunlendings and Gondorian hinterlands, and these probably dwindled and thinned even as the Dúnedain did: probably never a great population there, and exposed to dangers like the Wainriders and Balchoth. When Cirion gave away that land to the Rohirrim, there were probably few enough left to think of it as "none," but the idea that there might have been a small sect that, instead of fleeing to Gondor or Isengard or Dunland holed up behind Dunharrow, seems possible.

If so, maybe there was a long chain of hidden continuity with the Dead, but there needn't have been: the Paths of the Dead wouldn't have had any terror if the Dead couldn't influence the living, and the idea that the Dead might have corrupted or used some embittered near-Dunlendings driven to anger at the loss of THEIR land in the service of, as they'd see it, their own kin, to maim and kill Bregor as a sort of dark revenge ritual... well, I'm enjoying the idea.

This makes a lot of sense! Like you say, the Dunlendings would have had the land if they could, and we know the Rohirrim hated them and drove them out. It would tie Baldor's death to the Wulf coup; and it's notable that Aldor, Baldor's brother, seems to have devoted his time to persecuting the Dunlendings. Makes sense, if their kin killed his brother!

That said, it all fits very badly with "The way is shut... the Dead keep it". Whether the Old Man was a Dunlending, a Wose, or an animated corpse, if there's a whole colony still alive in the mountains, he's more than a bit of a liar.

hS

[Galin]

Originally Posted by Huinesoron

[ . . . ] Coupled with Myths Transformed, 'Late Tolkien' is (partly) the era of demysticisation. Previously mysterious things had to have a logical explanation, even if the explanation made the story less powerful.

I wonder if anyone has taken an "in-depth" look at this matter. In my opinion, "very late Tolkien" accepts/includes the OFW* idea and the Tree-origins of the Sun and Moon, as long as they are presented in the legendarium as hailing from Mannish or Mixed tales and sources.

I have a very vague memory of Tom Shippey talking about Tolkien being arguably "too something" in his later years, but can't recall what it was!



_____________

*Once Flat World

[Galadriel55]

This is a bit of an alternate storyline question, but it occurred to me that both the dead and undead often scare the living through means that may not be scary for themselves. What would happen if the Dead of Dunharrow were to face the Nazgul? If, for instance, Aragorn's timeline and Sauron's military plan were different and the dead army met a Nazgul on its way. Dead people aren't afraid of death. Would the Nazgul therefore have less power over them, unable to inflict the same dread as they do to the living? Or more power, if they can interact more directly in the "Unseen" world?

[A Little Green]

Originally Posted by Form

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.

*raises hand* PhD researcher is sociology of religion here, do I count? I feel like, in general, there are two conversations to be had here; the conversation about cause (the mechanics and classification of different "types" of dead or undead) and the conversation about effect (the role the dead play in the story, what they do). I have very little to contribute to the first conversation, but I'll try to unpick something of the latter.

For me, all of these examples - the Dead Marshes, the Men of Dunharrow, the Barrow-Wights, and so on - are essentially making the same point, if in different ways. It has to do with what Boro so beautifully described here:

Originally Posted by Boro

I am familiar with the connection Tolkien makes between the Dead Marshes and Northern France. I believe in the letter he briefly writes the plot doesn't represent the World Wars, but perhaps the landscape did.

Which is the interpretation that made the most sense to me, because I think the descriptions of the landscape through the entire story are perhaps the most fascinating. The land has a "character" of its own, influenced by the people (or unknown things) who lived there.

What I always found so evocative about Tolkien's writing is a sense of the land having layers and layers of history that are not entirely over and done with. The scene in Hollin, and something like the Dead Marshes, may differ in terms of the internal logic of the fictional world (what the actual "mechanism" behind, or function of, the phenomenon is), but I'd argue that their effect is similar: both create this haunting sense of others having been there before, and left their imprint on the land. The sense I get from Middle Earth in general is of a place that retains remnants of past glory; the presence of the dead (or undead) from these more glorious days is a part of this theme. Additionally, all of these - and I'd include the Ringwraiths and even Gollum/Bilbo here, too - speak to a more general theme of death, fading and the passing of time that is integral to the story. In a way, they then complement story motifs like the elves going West, the gradual decline of Gondor, and so on.

Moreover, if we look at it through this kind of lens, the lack of a neat classification of the dead actually enhances their effect. I mean, imagine if the Barrow-Wights, the Men of Dunharrow, and the spirits in the Dead Marshes all appeared and functioned in the same way, and were instantly recognisable to the reader as essentially the same thing. I'd argue that they'd lose a great deal of the sense of mystery if there was an explicit logic to what they are and how they came to be there. Morthoron mentioned ghost stories, and I think that's relevant here, too. If a lot of these elements were influenced by folk tales of ghosts and spirits, then maybe they can be better understood as such, rather than phenomena to be conclusively explained?

[William Cloud Hicklin]

I myself am not convinced that there are "spirits" in the Dead Marshes, meaning some sort of sentience or even "life" albeit on a different plane. I think they are mere illusions, phantasms created by Sauron or simply as an effect of the evil miasma of the place.

[Formendacil]

Originally Posted by A Little Green

For me, all of these examples - the Dead Marshes, the Men of Dunharrow, the Barrow-Wights, and so on - are essentially making the same point, if in different ways.

....

What I always found so evocative about Tolkien's writing is a sense of the land having layers and layers of history that are not entirely over and done with. The scene in Hollin, and something like the Dead Marshes, may differ in terms of the internal logic of the fictional world (what the actual "mechanism" behind, or function of, the phenomenon is), but I'd argue that their effect is similar: both create this haunting sense of others having been there before, and left their imprint on the land. The sense I get from Middle Earth in general is of a place that retains remnants of past glory; the presence of the dead (or undead) from these more glorious days is a part of this theme. Additionally, all of these - and I'd include the Ringwraiths and even Gollum/Bilbo here, too - speak to a more general theme of death, fading and the passing of time that is integral to the story. In a way, they then complement story motifs like the elves going West, the gradual decline of Gondor, and so on.

Moreover, if we look at it through this kind of lens, the lack of a neat classification of the dead actually enhances their effect. I mean, imagine if the Barrow-Wights, the Men of Dunharrow, and the spirits in the Dead Marshes all appeared and functioned in the same way, and were instantly recognisable to the reader as essentially the same thing. I'd argue that they'd lose a great deal of the sense of mystery if there was an explicit logic to what they are and how they came to be there. Morthoron mentioned ghost stories, and I think that's relevant here, too. If a lot of these elements were influenced by folk tales of ghosts and spirits, then maybe they can be better understood as such, rather than phenomena to be conclusively explained?

This is an excellent post, such that I really don't have anything to do but adorn it with another related thought or two. Tolkien insisted, a few times, that if the The Lord of the Rings was "about" anything (the implication always being that that was too simplistic anyway), it was about death and the desire for deathlessness.

Therefore, I think you've hit the nail squarely on the head: these are all parts of the literary theme. Their importance isn't in their relations to each other, but in how they each affect mortals and their fear of death.

Mind you, that said, I think this does implicitly give us an answer: since the power of the Dead and Undead is each in relation to the fear of the Living, their "power" such as it is (and I think we can read Aragorn's death as a proof that fear of the dead is only real insofar as the Living cede it to them) is only over the Living: it's not as if the Nazgûl should fear death--if anything, being so stretched as they are (like Bilbo, only their pat of butter has been scraped over loaves and loaves of bread), they should welcome it: a release from torment and from Sauron. And what can the Nazgûl do to the Dead?