The effect of the Great Rings upon Men

[William Cloud Hicklin]

A thought about "binding his unseen sinews to his will"....

Compare the passage, not many pages before, where Tolkien describes the effect of the mere presence of the Nazgul on men, the ultimate psychological weapon:

...letting their weapons fall from nerveless hands while into their minds a blackness came, and they thought no more of war, but only of hiding and of crawling, and of death.

One of my favorite passages, the voice of the Somme veteran who had witnessed shell-shock personally.

But it strikes me now that in an ironic way, the ancient smith of Arnor had managed to turn the tables, giving the Shriekers a taste of their own Black Breath, as it were.