Barrow-wight
Encyclopedia
Barrow-wights are wraith-like creatures in J. R. R. Tolkien
's world of Middle-earth
, based on the Old Norse
Draugr
. Barrow
refers to the burial mounds they inhabited and wight
is a Middle English word for "living being" or "creature", especially "human being". It does not necessarily mean "spirit" or "ghost"; it is cognate
to modern German
"Wicht", meaning small mythical creatures (also "Wichtelmännchen"). Tolkien borrowed this concept from Norse mythology
, see e.g. Waking of Angantyr and Hrómundar saga Gripssonar
. The name Barrow-wight itself was first recorded in 1869 in the Eiríkr Magnússon
and William Morris
translation of Grettis saga
, which features a fight with such a creature.
Evil spirits of some kind (perverted Maiar
or possibly spirits
of Orcs
, fallen Avari
, or evil Men), they were sent to the Barrow-downs by the Witch-king
of Angmar
in order to prevent a resurrection of the destroyed Dúnedain
kingdom of Cardolan.
They animated the dead bones of the Dúnedain buried there, as well as older bones of Edain
from the First Age
which still were buried there.
During the Fellowship of the Ring, Frodo Baggins
and company were trapped in the Barrow-downs, and nearly slain by a barrow-wight. It has been speculated, mentioned in The Lord of the Rings
Appendix A, that Frodo was trapped in the cairn
of the last prince of Cardolan; Merry
's exclamation on waking from his trance suggests this. Frodo sliced off the wight's hand; then, when the wight extinguished the dim light in the cavern where the company was imprisoned, Frodo called upon Tom Bombadil
, who expelled the wight from the barrow.
(see The History of The Lord of the Rings
) Tolkien at first foresaw a link between the wights and the Ringwraiths
, initially describing the Black Riders as horsed wights, but the suggestion that they were the same kind of creatures was dropped in the published work. In the final work there remained a link between them: the wights were now spirits sent by the Witch-king of Angmar
.
Barrow-wights appear in other media:
In Music:
J. R. R. Tolkien
John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, CBE was an English writer, poet, philologist, and university professor, best known as the author of the classic high fantasy works The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and The Silmarillion.Tolkien was Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon at Pembroke College,...
's world of Middle-earth
Middle-earth
Middle-earth is the fictional setting of the majority of author J. R. R. Tolkien's fantasy writings. The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings take place entirely in Middle-earth, as does much of The Silmarillion and Unfinished Tales....
, based on the Old Norse
Old Norse
Old Norse is a North Germanic language that was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and inhabitants of their overseas settlements during the Viking Age, until about 1300....
Draugr
Draugr
A draugr, draug or draugur , or draugen , also known as aptrgangr is an undead creature from Norse mythology...
. Barrow
Tumulus
A tumulus is a mound of earth and stones raised over a grave or graves. Tumuli are also known as barrows, burial mounds, Hügelgrab or kurgans, and can be found throughout much of the world. A tumulus composed largely or entirely of stones is usually referred to as a cairn...
refers to the burial mounds they inhabited and wight
Wight
Wight is a Middle English word, from Old English wiht, and used to describe a creature or living sentient being. It is akin to Old High German wiht, meaning a creature or thing.In its original usage the word wight described a living human being...
is a Middle English word for "living being" or "creature", especially "human being". It does not necessarily mean "spirit" or "ghost"; it is cognate
Cognate
In linguistics, cognates are words that have a common etymological origin. This learned term derives from the Latin cognatus . Cognates within the same language are called doublets. Strictly speaking, loanwords from another language are usually not meant by the term, e.g...
to modern German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
"Wicht", meaning small mythical creatures (also "Wichtelmännchen"). Tolkien borrowed this concept from Norse mythology
Norse mythology
Norse mythology, a subset of Germanic mythology, is the overall term for the myths, legends and beliefs about supernatural beings of Norse pagans. It flourished prior to the Christianization of Scandinavia, during the Early Middle Ages, and passed into Nordic folklore, with some aspects surviving...
, see e.g. Waking of Angantyr and Hrómundar saga Gripssonar
Hrómundar saga Gripssonar
Hrómundar saga Gripssonar or The Saga of Hromund Gripsson is a legendary saga from Iceland. The original version has been lost, but its content has been preserved in the rímur of Hrómundr Gripsson published in Fernir forníslenzkar rímnaflokkar...
. The name Barrow-wight itself was first recorded in 1869 in the Eiríkr Magnússon
Eiríkr Magnússon
Eiríkr or Eiríkur Magnússon was an Icelandic scholar who was Librarian at the University of Cambridge, taught Old Norse to William Morris, translated numerous Icelandic sagas into English in collaboration with him, and played an important role in the movement to study the history and literature of...
and William Morris
William Morris
William Morris 24 March 18343 October 1896 was an English textile designer, artist, writer, and socialist associated with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and the English Arts and Crafts Movement...
translation of Grettis saga
Grettis saga
Grettis saga is one of the Icelanders' sagas. It details the life of Grettir Ásmundarson, a bellicose Icelandic outlaw.- Overview :...
, which features a fight with such a creature.
Evil spirits of some kind (perverted Maiar
Maia (Middle-earth)
The Maiar are beings from J. R. R. Tolkien's high fantasy legendarium. They are lesser Ainur who entered Eä in the beginning of time. Tolkien uses the term Valar to refer both to all the Ainur who entered Eä, and specifically to the greatest among them, the fourteen Lords and Queens of the Valar...
or possibly spirits
Fëa and hröa
In J. R. R. Tolkien's legendarium, fëa and hröa are words for "soul" and "body". The plural form of fëa is fëar and the plural form of hröa is hröar...
of Orcs
Orc (Middle-earth)
In J. R. R. Tolkien's fantasy writings, Orcs or Orks are a race of creatures who are used as soldiers and henchmen by both the greater and lesser villains of The Silmarillion and The Lord of the Rings — Morgoth, Sauron and Saruman...
, fallen Avari
Avari (Middle-earth)
In the fictional works of J. R. R. Tolkien, the Avari are an ethnic group of the Elves.- History of the Avari:Avari is a Quenya word meaning 'Refusers' or 'Recusants'. When the vala Oromë found the Elves who had awakened in Cuiviénen , he asked them to come with him to Valinor...
, or evil Men), they were sent to the Barrow-downs by the Witch-king
Witch-king of Angmar
The Witch-king of Angmar, also known as the Lord of the Nazgûl and the Black Captain among other names, is a fictional character and a major antagonist in J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth fantasy writings. In Tolkien's novel The Lord of the Rings, he is the chief of the Nazgûl , the chief servants...
of Angmar
Angmar
Angmar is a fictional kingdom in J. R. R. Tolkien's continent of Middle-earth.-Synopsis:Angmar was founded in in the far north of the Misty Mountains by the evil Lord of the Ringwraiths, who became known as the "Witch-king of Angmar"...
in order to prevent a resurrection of the destroyed Dúnedain
Dúnedain
In J. R. R. Tolkien's legendarium, the Dúnedain were a race of Men descended from the Númenóreans who survived the sinking of their island kingdom and came to Eriador in Middle-earth, led by Elendil and his sons, Isildur and Anárion...
kingdom of Cardolan.
They animated the dead bones of the Dúnedain buried there, as well as older bones of Edain
Edain
In the fiction of J. R. R. Tolkien, the Edain were men who made their way into Beleriand in the First Age, and were friendly to the Elves....
from the First Age
First Age
In the fiction of J. R. R. Tolkien, the First Age, or First Age of the Children of Ilúvatar is the heroic period in which most of Tolkien's early legends are set...
which still were buried there.
During the Fellowship of the Ring, Frodo Baggins
Frodo Baggins
Frodo Baggins is a fictional character in J. R. R. Tolkien's legendarium.He is the main protagonist of Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. He was a hobbit of the Shire who inherited Sauron's Ring from Bilbo Baggins and undertook the quest to destroy it in the fires of Mount Doom...
and company were trapped in the Barrow-downs, and nearly slain by a barrow-wight. It has been speculated, mentioned in The Lord of the Rings
The Lord of the Rings
The Lord of the Rings is a high fantasy epic written by English philologist and University of Oxford professor J. R. R. Tolkien. The story began as a sequel to Tolkien's earlier, less complex children's fantasy novel The Hobbit , but eventually developed into a much larger work. It was written in...
Appendix A, that Frodo was trapped in the cairn
Cairn
Cairn is a term used mainly in the English-speaking world for a man-made pile of stones. It comes from the or . Cairns are found all over the world in uplands, on moorland, on mountaintops, near waterways and on sea cliffs, and also in barren desert and tundra areas...
of the last prince of Cardolan; Merry
Meriadoc Brandybuck
Meriadoc Brandybuck, usually referred to as Merry, is a fictional character from J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth legendarium, featured throughout his most famous work, The Lord of the Rings....
's exclamation on waking from his trance suggests this. Frodo sliced off the wight's hand; then, when the wight extinguished the dim light in the cavern where the company was imprisoned, Frodo called upon Tom Bombadil
Tom Bombadil
Tom Bombadil is a supporting character in J. R. R. Tolkien's legendarium. He appears in Tolkien's high fantasy epic The Lord of the Rings, published in 1954 and 1955. In the first volume, The Fellowship of the Ring, Frodo Baggins and company meet Bombadil in the Old Forest...
, who expelled the wight from the barrow.
Other versions of the legendarium
Due to his inspiration from Hrómundar saga Gripssonar, during the writing of The Lord of the RingsThe Lord of the Rings
The Lord of the Rings is a high fantasy epic written by English philologist and University of Oxford professor J. R. R. Tolkien. The story began as a sequel to Tolkien's earlier, less complex children's fantasy novel The Hobbit , but eventually developed into a much larger work. It was written in...
(see The History of The Lord of the Rings
The History of The Lord of the Rings
The History of The Lord of the Rings is a 4-volume work by Christopher Tolkien that documents the process of J. R. R. Tolkien's writing of The Lord of the Rings. The History is also numbered as volumes 6 to 9 of The History of Middle-earth...
) Tolkien at first foresaw a link between the wights and the Ringwraiths
Nazgûl
The Nazgûl are fictional characters in J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth legendarium...
, initially describing the Black Riders as horsed wights, but the suggestion that they were the same kind of creatures was dropped in the published work. In the final work there remained a link between them: the wights were now spirits sent by the Witch-king of Angmar
Witch-king of Angmar
The Witch-king of Angmar, also known as the Lord of the Nazgûl and the Black Captain among other names, is a fictional character and a major antagonist in J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth fantasy writings. In Tolkien's novel The Lord of the Rings, he is the chief of the Nazgûl , the chief servants...
.
In other media
Barrow-wights have appeared in several games based on Tolkien's writings:- In a mission of the Evil campaign in The Lord of the Rings: War of the RingThe Lord of the Rings: War of the RingThe Lord of the Rings: War of the Ring is a 2003 real-time strategy game developed by Liquid Entertainment, the makers of the previous Battle Realms and its expansion, Winter of the Wolf, and published by Sierra Entertainment. Set in J. R. R...
, a real-time strategy game based on the book instead of the Peter Jackson films, Saruman merges barrow-wights with Orcs to create the Uruk-hai - In The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-earth IIThe Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-earth IIThe Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-earth II, abbreviated BFMEII, is a real-time strategy video game developed and published by Electronic Arts. It is based on the fantasy novels The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien and its live-action film trilogy adaptation...
, a real-time strategy game based on the Peter Jackson films as well as the book, barrow-wights appear as ghost-like creatures on skirmish maps; they are also created when a Nazgûl kills a unit with its Morgul BladeWeapons of Middle-earthWeapons and armour of Middle-earth are found in J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth fantasy writings, such as The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion. Wars and battles are featured in much of Tolkien's writings, and weapons and armour are often given special attention.Tolkien modelled...
ability - The idea of spirits possessing dead men's bones was used in The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the KingThe Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (video game)The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King is a 2003 cross-platform third-person hack and slash video game based on Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers and The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. The game was published by EA Games and developed by EA Redwood Shores and...
video game, with the spirits of the Dead Men of DunharrowDead Men of DunharrowThe Dead Men of Dunharrow are fictional characters in J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth legendarium...
possessing their old skeletons and attacking AragornAragornAragorn II is a fictional character from J. R. R. Tolkien's legendarium, one of the main protagonists of The Lord of the Rings. He is first introduced by the name Strider, which the hobbits continue to call him...
, LegolasLegolasLegolas is a fictional character in J. R. R. Tolkien's legendarium, featured in The Lord of the Rings. He is an Elf of the Woodland Realm and one of nine members of the Fellowship of the Ring.- Literature :...
, and Gimli on the Paths of the DeadPaths of the DeadIn J. R. R. Tolkien's legendarium, the Paths of the Dead were a haunted passage under the White Mountains.The Paths of the Dead started at the Dark Door at the end of the long valley of Harrowdale, beyond the Firienfeld and the forest of Dimholt, wedged in between the mountains Irensaga ,... - In the game Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the RingThe Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (video game)The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring is a 2002 cross-platform video game developed based on the first volume of J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. WXP developed the game for Xbox, while Surreal developed the PC and PlayStation 2 version, and Pocket Studios delevoped the game for...
Frodo faces the barrow-wight as a boss, shown as a full body (although in the XboxXboxThe Xbox is a sixth-generation video game console manufactured by Microsoft. It was released on November 15, 2001 in North America, February 22, 2002 in Japan, and March 14, 2002 in Australia and Europe and is the predecessor to the Xbox 360. It was Microsoft's first foray into the gaming console...
version great hands burst out of the ground and hit Frodo, the PlayStation 2PlayStation 2The PlayStation 2 is a sixth-generation video game console manufactured by Sony as part of the PlayStation series. Its development was announced in March 1999 and it was first released on March 4, 2000, in Japan...
version has ghost-like creatures emerge from the ground) - In the online game The Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of AngmarThe Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of AngmarThe Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game for Microsoft Windows set in a fantasy universe based upon J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth writings...
barrow-wights are portrayed as animated skeletons or zombies and are located in the Barrow-downs and many other locations in the game
Barrow-wights appear in other media:
- In an episode of The Real GhostbustersThe Real GhostbustersThe Real Ghostbusters is an American animated television series based on the 1984 film Ghostbusters. The series ran from 1986 to 1991, and was produced by Columbia Pictures Television, DiC Enterprises, and Coca-Cola Telecommunications. "The Real" was added to the title after a dispute with...
, Egon SpenglerEgon SpenglerEgon Spengler is a fictional character appearing in the films Ghostbusters and Ghostbusters II, and in the animated television series The Real Ghostbusters and later Extreme Ghostbusters. He is a member of the Ghostbusters, and one of the three doctors of parapsychology on the team...
describes the barrow-wights as troll-like creatures which live underground in nests, and like vampires they can't enter a place unless invited - The InfocomInfocomInfocom was a software company, based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, that produced numerous works of interactive fiction. They also produced one notable business application, a relational database called Cornerstone....
interactive fictionInteractive fictionInteractive fiction, often abbreviated IF, describes software simulating environments in which players use text commands to control characters and influence the environment. Works in this form can be understood as literary narratives and as video games. In common usage, the term refers to text...
game Trinity includes a few references to barrow-wights (one is uttered by a magpieMagpieMagpies are passerine birds of the crow family, Corvidae.In Europe, "magpie" is often used by English speakers as a synonym for the European Magpie, as there are no other magpies in Europe outside Iberia...
in certain conditions) - In the game Castle of the WindsCastle of the WindsCastle of the Winds is a tile-based roguelike computer game for Windows 3.x. It was developed by SaadaSoft and published by Epic MegaGames in 1989.-Release history:...
barrow wights (as well as variants tunnel wights and castle wights) appear as enemies. In ingame materials, they are described as spirits risen from improperly consecrated burials who are similar to zombies except for the intelligence and hunger in their eyes. - In the MMORPG RuneScapeRuneScapeRuneScape is a fantasy massively multiplayer online role-playing game released in January 2001 by Andrew and Paul Gower, and developed and published by Jagex Games Studio. It is a graphical browser game implemented on the client-side in Java, and incorporates 3D rendering...
, the Barrows brothers (who have been referred to as wights) are vengeful spirits who serve a powerful lich mage known as Sliske. They inhabit six barrows, which also serve as their tombs.
In Music:
- Owen PallettOwen PallettMichael James Owen Pallett is a Canadian composer, violinist, keyboardist, and vocalist from Toronto, Ontario. He won the 2006 Polaris Music Prize for the album He Poos Clouds....
's song, "Oh Heartland, Up Yours!" features the line "From the wight lying in the barrow"