109-557: The Nazgûl (from Black Speech nazg , "ring", and gûl , "wraith, spirit"), introduced as Black Riders and also called Ringwraiths , Dark Riders , the Nine Riders , or simply the Nine , are fictional characters in J. R. R. Tolkien 's Middle-earth . They were nine Men who had succumbed to Sauron 's power through wearing Rings of Power , which gave them immortality but reduced them to invisible wraiths , servants bound to
218-588: A battering-ram engraved with evil spells, to break the gates of Minas Tirith. He is faced by a single warrior, Dernhelm, actually a disguised Éowyn , a noblewoman of Rohan ; and not far away, Merry , a hobbit of the Fellowship. Éowyn boldly calls the Nazgûl a "dwimmerlaik", telling him to go if he was not deathless. He casts back his hood to reveal a crown, but the head that wears it is invisible. Merry's surreptitious stroke with an enchanted Barrow-blade brings
327-527: A "a human king whose lust for power got the better of his good judgment." She wonders what he might have been like before he accepted a Ring of Power from Sauron, noting that he was seemingly filled with "possessiveness, greed, lust, and a desire for dominance", all markers of evil in Tolkien's scheme of things. In rode the Lord of the Nazgûl. A great black shape against the fires beyond he loomed up, grown to
436-487: A "gradual incarnation of bodiless presence". Little by little, in his view, Tolkien increases the reader's insight into their nature, starting with Black Riders who are "spies more human than diabolical", rather than developing their character. Walker sees this as appropriate: the Nazgûl's main weapons are psychological, namely fear and despair. He writes that the progressive revelation of their capabilities, and their "escalation of steeds" from horses to fell beasts, builds up in
545-539: A ' pterodactyl '", while acknowledging "obviously it is pterodactylic " and owed much to the "new ... mythology" [of the "Prehistoric"], and might even be "a last survivor of older geological eras." The medievalist Marjorie Burns compares the fell beast to the Poetic Edda ' s flying steed Sleipnir , "Odin's eight-legged otherworldly horse". She writes that whereas Gandalf's horse Shadowfax resembles Sleipnir in his miraculous speed and in almost seeming to fly,
654-591: A band, a thing wound around something, and indeed a ring. Another cognate is Old Saxon wred , meaning cruel; Fisher comments that all of these stem from Indo-European *wreit , to turn, bend, or wind. "Nazgûl" has the Black Speech roots nazg , ring, and gûl , wraith. Fisher writes that the former may well be connected, unconsciously on Tolkien's part, to Gaelic nasc , a ring. Gûl has the meaning "magic" in Tolkien's invented language of Sindarin . Fisher comments that this has an English homophone in " ghoul ",
763-583: A blackness came, and they thought no more of war, but only of hiding and of crawling, and of death. The Return of the King , "The Siege of Gondor" The Nazgûl reappear mounted on hideous flying beasts. During the Battle of the Pelennor Fields , the Lord of the Nazgûl uses magic , including Grond, a battering-ram engraved with evil spells, to break the gates of Minas Tirith. He is faced by Éowyn ,
872-461: A device of Sauron before his complete corruption. It was evidently an agglutinative language . ... I have tried to play fair linguistically, and it is meant to have a meaning not be a mere casual group of nasty noises, though an accurate transcription would even nowadays only be printable in the higher and artistically more advanced form of literature. According to my taste such things are best left to Orcs, ancient and modern. Tolkien's attitude to
981-520: A group of Nazgûl galloping through a snowy pine forest; they wear black cloaks, with glimpses of red equipment. In The Lord of the Rings film trilogy (2001–2003) by Peter Jackson , the Nazgûl are almost always concealed by cloaks; they attack the inn at Bree themselves. During the siege of Minas Tirith, the Witch-king wears a distinctive helmet over his hood resembling a mask and a crown, rather than
1090-528: A king's crown on his invisible head. Yvette Kisor, a scholar of literature, writes that while the Ringwraiths and others (like Frodo) who wear Rings of Power become invisible, they do not lose any of their corporeality, being present as physical bodies. They require, she writes, physical steeds to carry them about, and they can wield swords. She notes that only a person in a body can wield the One Ring, so
1199-464: A mortal Man, corrupted by a Ring of Power given to him by Sauron. Commentators have written that the Lord of the Nazgûl functions at the level of myth when, his own name forgotten, he calls himself Death and bursts the gates of Minas Tirith with magical spells . At a theological level, he embodies a vision of evil similar to Karl Barth 's description of evil as das Nichtige , an active and powerful force that turns out to be empty. The prophecy that
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#17327980329941308-491: A noblewoman of Rohan ; and not far away, Merry , a hobbit of the Company. Éowyn boldly calls the Nazgûl a "dwimmerlaik", telling him to go if he is not deathless. He casts back his hood to reveal a crown, but the head that wears it is invisible. Merry's surreptitious stroke with an enchanted Barrow-blade brings the Nazgûl to his knees, allowing Éowyn, the niece of Théoden , to drive her sword between his crown and mantle. Thus
1417-553: A picture of the "unexistence of evil", based on the Boethian philosophy that God is all-powerful, so evil is not the equal and opposite of good, but simply its absence: he forms "a huge shadow". The theologian George Hunsinger compares Tolkien's depiction of the Witch-king to the theologian Karl Barth 's analysis of evil. Barth's conception is embodied in his term das Nichtige , "nothingness", which Hunsinger glosses as "something dynamic and sinister ... an active cosmic power,
1526-466: A piece of it in the Hobbit 's flesh. Frodo is able to see that the Witch-king is taller than the other Nazgûl, with "long and gleaming" hair and a crown on his helmet. He is swept away by the waters of the river Bruinen and his horse is drowned. He returns to Mordor. He reappears mounted on a hideous flying beast. During the Battle of the Pelennor Fields , the Witch-king uses magic, including Grond,
1635-572: A power of destruction, a power of chaos, negation, and ruin." The power of das Nichtige is both "outwardly repulsive" and in Barth's words "intrinsically evil"; it can be described but not explained, and is defeated by God; it is wholly evil and serves no good purpose. It is both fearful and empty. Hunsinger states that Tolkien's account of the Witch-king as he confronts Gandalf at the gate of Minas Tirith "captures something of Barth's notion of das Nichtige ." He finds it especially relevant that
1744-465: A strong similarity to the extinct Hurrian language of northern Mesopotamia , which had recently been partially deciphered at the time of the writing of The Lord of the Rings , E. A. Speiser 's Introduction to Hurrian appearing in 1941. Fauskanger corresponded with Nemirovski, and notes that Nemirovski argued that Tolkien designed Black Speech "after some acquaintance with Hurrian-Urartian language(s)." The evidence that Nemirovski presented for this
1853-498: A sudden stabbing pain", to derive multiple attributes of the Nazgûl. He states that Tolkien certainly knew the charm. In Henry Sweet 's translation: They were loud, lo, loud, when they rode over the hill, They were resolute when they rode over the land. ... If a piece of iron is in here. The work of a witch, heat shall melt it! ... If it were shot of gods, or if it were shot of elves, Or if it were shot of witch, now I will help you. Pettit writes that Tolkien may have used
1962-531: A team, all continuing to function as communities. Little adds that the Company functions as a true team, every member being essential to the success of its mission. The Christian commentator Ralph C. Wood writes that "the greatness of the Nine Walkers lies in the modesty of both their abilities and accomplishments. Their strength lies in their weakness, in their solidarity as a company unwilling to wield controlling power over others." Rebecca Munro notes that in
2071-573: A vast menace of despair. In rode the Lord of the Nazgûl, under the archway that no enemy ever yet had passed, and all fled before his face. All save one. There waiting, silent, and still in the space before the Gate, sat Gandalf upon Shadowfax: Shadowfax who alone among the free horses of the earth endured the terror, unmoving, steadfast as a graven image in Rath Dínen. "You cannot enter here", said Gandalf, and
2180-564: A wraith, which derives from Arabic غُول ḡūl , a demon that feeds on corpses. The Sindarin word is related to ñgol , wise, wisdom, and to Noldor , Fëanor 's elves who became in Fisher's words "bent and twisted" by the desire for the Silmarils . The only one of the nine Ringwraiths to be named is Khamûl. Fisher suggests a link to Welsh kam , crooked, and kamy , to bend. "Kam" made its way into English usage, including by Shakespeare , as
2289-463: A wraith. Much later, in his final battle, the Lord of the Nazgûl attacks Éowyn with a mace . The Hobbit Merry Brandybuck stabs him with an ancient enchanted Númenórean blade, allowing Éowyn to kill him with her sword. In early drafts, Tolkien had called him the "Wizard King", and considered making him either a renegade member of the Istari , or an immortal Maia , before settling on having him as
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#17327980329942398-553: Is "the commonest 'mystic' number in Germanic lore". He quotes the " Nine Herbs Charm " from the Lacnunga , an Old English book of spells: against venom and vile things and all the loathly ones, that through the land rove, ... against nine fugitives from glory, against nine poisons and against nine flying diseases. Pettit further proposes that Tolkien may have made multiple uses of another Lacnunga charm, "Against
2507-644: Is able to tell Pippin as they wait for the attack on Gondor that "In him I am not overmatched", and that the Wizard King's main power is to inspire fear at a distance (with the Black Breath ). At some stage, too, he renames the enemy the Witch-king; Fontenot suggests this was to distinguish more clearly between him and the Wizards like Gandalf and Saruman. Tolkien had thus explored making him a wizard (Istari or otherwise) or an immortal Maia, before settling on
2616-404: Is described as: a winged creature: if bird, then greater than all other birds, and it was naked, and neither quill nor feather did it bear, and its vast pinions were as webs of hide between horned fingers; and it stank. A creature of an older world maybe it was ... It is said to attack with "beak and claw". Tolkien wrote that he "did not intend the steed of the Witch-king to be what is now called
2725-429: Is entirely linguistic, based on similarities of the elements of the agglutinative forms of Black Speech; Hurrian was similarly agglutinative. Ashford writes that the Black Speech is at once agglutinative and ergative , "something of a rarity even now". Further, in the 1940s ergativity was a recent linguistic discovery, so that Tolkien was making use of the newest research in his favourite field. In Ashford's view, given
2834-596: Is in The Two Towers , where a "yellow-fanged" Mordor Orc curses the Isengard Uruk Uglúk: In The Peoples of Middle-earth , Christopher Tolkien gives the translation: "Uglúk to the cesspool, sha! the dungfilth; the great Saruman -fool, skai!". However, in a note published in the journal Vinyar Tengwar , it is translated: "Uglúk to the dung-pit with stinking Saruman-filth, pig-guts, gah!" For Peter Jackson's The Lord of
2943-400: Is left" in the empty mantle and hauberk. The Episcopal priest and theologian Fleming Rutledge writes that whereas the "pale king", the invisible Witch-king of Angmar, is striving to kill Frodo, the real king, Aragorn , who has been out of sight, in disguise as a Ranger , is doing all he can to heal him: the two kings are opposites. She writes also that while the enemy visible to Gondor is
3052-459: Is my hour. Do you not know Death when you see it? Die now and curse in vain!" And with that he lifted high his sword and flames ran down the blade... "The Siege of Gondor" The Tolkien scholar Tom Shippey writes that the Lord of the Nazgûl hovers close to being an abstraction, "a vast menace of despair ... a huge shadow", actually calling himself Death: "Old fool! This is my hour. Do you not know Death when you see it?" The scene forms, too,
3161-730: Is recorded in Samuel Johnson 's 1755 A Dictionary of the English Language . Fisher writes that this may have come to Tolkien by way of his time with the Lancashire Fusiliers in the First World War , with Lancashire dialect words like caimt , crooked or bad-tempered. In short, Tolkien may have felt many philological associations between his "Nazgûl" and "Ringwraith" with the meanings of being bent and twisted as well as ghoulish. Shippey writes that
3270-464: Is similar to speech affected by aggressive emotions, which has a higher proportion of consonants (especially plosives ) to vowels. She concludes that Tolkien's constructed languages were certainly individual to him, but that their "linguistic patterns resulted from his keen sense of phonetic metaphor", so that the languages subtly contribute to the " aesthetic and axiological aspects of his mythology". The Russian historian Alexandre Nemirovski claimed
3379-497: Is terror, though in their pursuit of the Ring-bearer Frodo Baggins , their leader uses a Morgul-knife which would reduce its victim to a wraith, and they carry ordinary swords. In his final battle, the Lord of the Nazgûl attacks Éowyn with a mace . The hobbit Merry Brandybuck stabs him with an ancient enchanted Númenórean blade, allowing Éowyn to kill him with her sword. Commentators have written that
Nazgûl - Misplaced Pages Continue
3488-580: Is the inscription upon the One Ring . It is written in the Elvish Tengwar script, with flourishes: Ash nazg durbatulûk, ash nazg gimbatul, ash nazg thrakatulûk agh burzum-ishi krimpatul. ( Pronunciation ) One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them, One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them. The couplet is from the Rhyme of the Rings , a verse describing
3597-567: Is the Witch-king destroyed by a woman and a Hobbit, fulfilling Glorfindel's prophecy. Both weapons that pierced him disintegrate, and both assailants are stricken with the Black Breath. After the fall of the Lord of the Nazgûl, command of Mordor's army in the field falls to Gothmog, the "lieutenant of Morgul", of unspecified race. The remaining eight Ringwraiths attack the Army of the West during
3706-439: Is unable to counter him unaided. In early drafts of " The Council of Elrond ", Gandalf explains that his enemy was "of old the greatest of all the wizards of Men". In a later draft, Tolkien adds that the Wizard King was also "a great king of old" and the "fell captain of the Nine [Riders]"; Fontenot glosses "fell" as implying "ravenous cruelty" and "ruthless ... savagery". Later, in a draft of "The Siege of Gondor", Tolkien makes
3815-599: The Tolkien Journal in 1965, wrote that -ishi is "a postposition of location, or (to borrow a term from Finnish grammar ) an inessive suffix." Witch-king of Angmar The Lord of the Nazgûl , also called the Witch-king of Angmar , the Pale King , or Black Captain , is a fictional character in J. R. R. Tolkien 's fantasy novel The Lord of the Rings . He was one of the Nine among Men that
3924-795: The Battle of the Morannon . When Frodo claims the Ring for his own in Mount Doom , Sauron, finally realizing his peril, orders the remaining eight Nazgûl to fly to intercept him. They arrive too late: Gollum seizes the Ring and falls into the Cracks of Doom, destroying the Ring. That ends Sauron's power and everything he had brought into being using it, including the Nazgûl. The Nazgûl's flying steeds are given various descriptions but no name. The soldier of Gondor Beregond calls them "Hell Hawks". Tolkien describes them as " fell beasts", though he also applies
4033-638: The Nazgûl appears as the Witch-king of Angmar during the Third Age and is instrumental in the destruction of the Northern kingdom of Arnor . In his notes for translators, Tolkien suggested that the Witch-king of Angmar, ruler of a Northern kingdom with its capital at Carn Dûm, was of Númenórean origin. Nothing is heard of him when Sauron is overthrown by the Last Alliance of Elves and Men late in
4142-462: The Nine Rings became mighty in their day, kings, sorcerers, and warriors of old. They obtained glory and great wealth, yet it turned to their downfall. They had, as it seemed, unending life, yet life became unendurable to them. They could walk, if they would, unseen by all eyes in this world beneath the sun, and they could see things in worlds invisible to mortal men; but too often they beheld only
4251-541: The Rankin-Bass adaptation of The Return of the King , the Nazgûl are robed skeletons with white hair. They ride winged horses, although the Witch-king rides a creature more in line with the book when he confronts Éowyn. The 1981 BBC Radio serial of The Lord of the Rings has the Nazgûl chant the Ring-inscription in the Black Speech of Mordor. The 1991 Russian television play Khraniteli features
4360-523: The Rings of Power . This corresponds to the following table as explained by Tolkien. The Black Speech was by Tolkien's real intention, and Sauron's fictional one also, a harshly guttural language "with such sounds as sh, gh, zg; indeed," wrote Hostetter, "establishing this effect, as well as the bits of grammar needed to lend the Ring-inscription linguistic verisimilitude, seems to have been about
4469-594: The Witch-king of Angmar during the Third Age, instrumental in the destruction of the North-kingdom of Arnor . In Unfinished Tales , his second-in-command is named as Khamûl , the "Black Easterling" or the "Shadow of the East". Three of the Nazgûl were great Númenórean lords; in his notes for translators, Tolkien speculated that the Witch-king of Angmar, ruler of a northern kingdom with its capital at Carn Dûm,
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4578-516: The lámatyáve , a Quenya term for "phonetic fitness", of Tolkien's constructed languages. She analyses them in light of Iván Fónagy [ hu ] 's theory of symbolic vocal gestures that convey emotions. She notes that Tolkien's inspiration was "primarily linguistic"; and that he had invented the stories "to provide a world for the languages", which in turn were "agreeable to [his] personal aesthetic". She compares two samples of Elvish (one Sindarin, one Quenya) and one of Black Speech, tabulating
4687-461: The "Nine Riders". The Nazgûl came again ... like vultures that expect their fill of doomed men's flesh. Out of sight and shot they flew, and yet were ever present, and their deadly voices rent the air. More unbearable they became, not less, at each new cry. At length even the stout-hearted would fling themselves to the ground as the hidden menace passed over them, or they would stand, letting their weapons fall from nerveless hands while into their minds
4796-607: The "loud" riders to come up with the "thundering hooves" and "piercing cry" of the Nine Riders. The supernatural beings mentioned in the charm – gods, elves, witches – may naturally have suggested the Nazgûl's magical power; in particular, the "work of a witch" may have resulted in the Witch-King of Angmar. Finally, the Morgul-knife that breaks off in the victim's body, and which Elrond has to destroy by melting, matches
4905-574: The "piece of iron ... in here... heat shall melt it!" Tolkien was a philologist . Jason Fisher , writing that "all stories begin with words", takes up Edmund Wilson 's "denigrating dismissal" of The Lord of the Rings as "a philological curiosity", replying that to him this is "precisely one of its greatest strengths". Fisher explores in detail the connotations of Tolkien's use of "Ringwraith" and its Black Speech translation "Nazgûl", both in languages that Tolkien knew and those that he invented . "Wraith" in modern English means 'spectre'. Fisher notes that
5014-471: The "striking parallels" in both syntax and morphology, the "mysterious history", and the "topical interest" of Hurrian at that time, the case for a Hurrian connection is persuasive. Tolkien stated that when coining the Black Speech word nazg , he might have been influenced by the Irish word nasc ("ring, fastening, tie"). He denied that nazg had any connection to Old English . Mark Mandel, writing in
5123-550: The Black Breath, contracted by "excessive proximity" to a Nazgûl, seems to be a "spiritual malady" combined with "fear, confusion, reduced levels of consciousness, hypothermia, weakness and death." Faramir, on the other hand, who was thought to be suffering from the Black Breath, she diagnoses as most likely exhaustion with heat stroke , combined with "psychological distress" and pain, as his symptoms were quite different. Judy Ann Ford and Robin Anne Reid note that Aragorn 's use of
5232-505: The Black Speech "in a perverse antiparallel of Aulë's creation of Khuzdul for the Dwarves". Sauron attempted to impose Black Speech as the official language of the lands he dominated and all his servants, but in this he was only partially successful. Black Speech influenced the Orcs ' vocabulary, but soon developed into many Orkish dialects, which were not mutually intelligible. By the end of
5341-614: The Black Speech as "Sauron's Newspeak " by analogy with George Orwell 's dystopian language, noted that it was "doubly artificial": where the Elvish languages were Tolkien's invention, the Black Speech was also a constructed language in his invented Middle-earth, since it had been created by the Dark Lord Sauron as an "evil Esperanto " for his slaves. He stated that as the only language of this type in Middle-earth, this made
5450-491: The Black Speech is revealed in one of his letters. From a fan, Tolkien received a goblet with the Ring inscription on it in Black Speech. Because the Black Speech in general is an accursed language, and the Ring inscription in particular is a vile spell, Tolkien never drank out of the goblet, and used it only as an ashtray. The linguist and Tolkien scholar Carl F. Hostetter wrote that the Dark Lord Sauron created
5559-548: The Black Speech more important than it would appear from the few words Tolkien defined for it. Further, Tolkien wrote that it was made in mockery of Quenya, in other words that it was an evil language shadowing "the linguistic embodiment of good", and indeed, Meile wrote, it had many correspondences with Quenya. For instance, the word for Orcs , the monsters made in mockery of the Elves, is Quenya "urco, orco", which becomes Black Speech "Uruk". The linguist Joanna Podhorodecka examines
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#17327980329945668-417: The Company as they travel together; Little notes that Frodo says that "Strider" (Aragorn), viewed initially with suspicion, is "dear to me". He comments that "the deep affection of the Fellowship breaks down racial and cultural barriers" as all its members drop their initial reserve and come to an "appreciation for the cultural distinctiveness" of their companions. A case in point is the strong friendship between
5777-469: The Company, "no one acts alone without dependence on the deeds of others". The Nazgûl are featured in adaptations of The Lord of the Rings on radio, film, and stage. In Ralph Bakshi 's 1978 animated film version of The Lord of the Rings , the Nazgûl "shamble and limp like zombies". They hack and slash the Hobbits' beds at The Prancing Pony inn, whereas Tolkien does not identify the assailants. In
5886-642: The Dwarf Gimli and the Elf Legolas, members of two races with radically dissimilar cultures, and which had often clashed in the past; Little notes that even the other members of the Company, in Tolkien's words, "wonder ... at this change". He writes that even when the Company splits up into smaller groups, it is not destroyed: far from it, Frodo and Sam sustain each other through their arduous journey, their friendship deepening with time; Merry and Pippin supporting each other; Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli acting as
5995-567: The Lord of the Nazgûl to suppose that he would die at the hands of a woman and a hobbit. Shippey states that the prophecy, and the Witch-king's surprise at finding Dernhelm to be a woman, parallel the witches' statement to Macbeth in Shakespeare 's play of that name that he may "laugh to scorn / The power of man, for none of woman born / Shall harm Macbeth" (Act 4, scene 1), and Macbeth's shock at learning that Macduff "was from his mother's womb / Untimely ripp'd" (Act 5, scene 8), as Macduff
6104-569: The Lord of the Nazgûl would not die by the hand of Man echoes that made of the title character in William Shakespeare 's Macbeth . The Witch-king first appears in the Second Age of Middle-earth . The Dark Lord Sauron gave Rings of Power to powerful Men, including kings of countries in Middle-earth. These confer magical power , but also enslave their wearers to the owner of the One Ring , Sauron himself. The Lord of
6213-721: The Men of Harad and the Easterlings , the real enemy is personified by the Witch-king. Julaire Andelin, in The J. R. R. Tolkien Encyclopedia , writes that prophecy in Middle-earth depended on characters' understanding of the Music of the Ainur , the divine plan for Arda , and was often ambiguous. Thus, Glorfindel's prophecy "not by the hand of Man will [the Lord of the Nazgûl] fall" did not lead
6322-465: The Nazgûl function at different stylistic levels or modes (as categorised by Northrop Frye in his Anatomy of Criticism ) in the story. At one level, they serve simply as story elements, dangerous opponents. But, Shippey notes, the level rises from the romantic, with heroes taking on the Black Riders, to the mythic, giving as example the assault of Minas Tirith. The leader of the Nazgûl directs
6431-614: The Nazgûl serve on the ordinary level of story as dangerous opponents of the Company of the Ring ; at the romantic level as the enemies of the heroic protagonists; and finally at the mythic level. Tolkien knew the Lacnunga , the Old English book of spells; it may have suggested multiple features of the Nazgûl, the Witch-King, and the Morgul-knife. The Nazgûl appear in numerous adaptations of Tolkien's writings, including animated and live-action films and computer games. Those who used
6540-516: The Nazgûl to his knees, allowing Éowyn, the niece of Théoden , to drive her sword between his crown and mantle. Thus the Witch-king is destroyed by a woman and a Hobbit, fulfilling Glorfindel's prophecy. Both weapons that pierced him disintegrate, and both assailants are stricken by the Black Breath, which causes a cold paralysis, terror, and often death. Megan N. Fontenot, on Tor.com , writes that in early drafts, Tolkien names him "the Wizard King", so powerful in wizardry that his opponent Gandalf
6649-474: The Nazgûl were contaminated and enslaved by a monstrous form of radioactivity which transformed "the very cells of their protoplasm". They thereby became radioactive and "immune to radiation poisoning, as is shown by their dwelling in the blasted tower of Minas Ithil [which glowed in the dark]." Further, Bradley writes, the Nazgûl gave off "radioactive contamination", causing the Black Breath. The Inklings scholar Ariel Little writes that Tolkien explicitly opposes
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#17327980329946758-437: The Nazgûl's mount actually flies but is a "negative image" of Odin's steed; and, she notes, both Odin and the Nazgûl can cause blindness. Tolkien began writing The Lord of the Rings with no conception of Black Riders at all. The horseman in dark clothes in the early chapter "Three is Company" was originally Gandalf; in 1938, Tolkien called the figure's transformation into a Black Rider "an unpremeditated turn". Frodo's ring, too,
6867-455: The Nazgûl's stronghold, and the valley is known as Morgul Vale ( Imlad Morgul ). Sauron returns from Dol Guldur to Mordor and declares himself openly. He sent two or three of the Nazgûl, led by Khamul, to garrison Dol Guldur. Sauron learns from Gollum that a hobbit , Bilbo Baggins of the Shire , has acquired the One Ring. Sauron entrusts its recovery to the Nazgûl. They reappear "west of
6976-460: The Orcs, lack of harmony, and "hate-filled discord", forming an "anti-community". Little contrasts this disharmony with the Company of the Ring, which is "diverse, bound by friendship, relying on each other's strengths". The Company is joined by its common purpose, and by "devoted love". There are strong bonds of friendship, seen initially between all the Hobbits. Further friendships develop throughout
7085-596: The Past " as "Mortal Men, proud and great [who] fell under the dominion of the One, and they became Ringwraiths, shadows under his great Shadow, his most terrible servants". They had thus, Little writes, lost their identities as humans, even losing their substance and becoming what Tolkien calls "nothingness" under their black clothing. He adds that the evil characters in The Lord of the Rings are characterised by infighting, as among
7194-631: The Riders with the Elf Gildor, later in the same chapter. Over the next three years, Tolkien gradually developed the connections between the Nazgûl, the One Ring, Sauron, and all the other Rings of Power. The pieces finally all came together when Tolkien wrote "The Mirror of Galadriel", some hundreds of pages later, around the autumn of 1941. The number of the Nazgûl, nine, may be derived from medieval folklore. Edward Pettit, in Mallorn , states that nine
7303-504: The Rings film trilogy , the linguist David Salo used what little is known of the Black Speech to invent two phrases: The word burzum-ishi ('in darkness') is taken from the Ring Verse, and three other abstract nouns are invented with the same ending –um . The word ashi , meaning 'only', is taken from ash ('one') in the Ring Verse. The other words were made up by Salo. The Swedish linguist Nils-Lennart Johannesson compared
7412-684: The Rings" especially interesting for its rendering of two of the Dark Lord Sauron 's epithets, Thû meaning "horrible darkness, black mist" and Gorthu meaning "mist of fear". Garth comments that these names "anchor him in the primal night" of Tolkien's giant spiders , the Black Breath, the fog on the Barrow-downs , and the terror of the Paths of the Dead . He adds that this fog of terror may ultimately derive from Tolkien's First World War experience "of smoke barrages, gas attacks and 'animal horror' on
7521-412: The Ringwraiths have done, living "in another mode of reality". She writes, too, that Merry's sword, with the special power to sever the Witch-king's "undead flesh" and in particular to overcome the "spell that knit his unseen sinews to his will", has in fact to cut through real, but invisible, sinews and flesh. Steve Walker, a Tolkien scholar, writes that the story gives the Ringwraiths credibility through
7630-519: The Ringwraiths, the Úlairi, the Enemy's most terrible servants; darkness went with them, and they cried with the voices of death. The Silmarillion , "Of the Rings of Power and the Third Age" The Nazgûl or Ringwraiths ( Quenya plural: Úlairi ) first appeared in the Second Age . The Dark Lord Sauron gave nine Rings of Power to powerful mortal men, including three lords of the once-powerful island realm of Númenor , along with kings of countries in Middle-earth. The rings enslaved their bearers to
7739-400: The Ringwraiths. Five of the Nazgûl corner Frodo and his company at Weathertop, where the Witch-king stabs Frodo in the shoulder with the Morgul-knife, breaking off a piece of it in the Hobbit 's flesh. During their assault, they mentally command Frodo to put on the One Ring; while wearing it, he sees them as pale figures robed in white, with "haggard hands", helmets and swords. The Witch-king
7848-627: The River", riding black horses that were bred or trained in Mordor to endure their terror. They learn that the Ring has passed to Bilbo's heir, Frodo , and hunt him and his companions across the Shire; the hobbits hear snuffling, and sometimes see them crawling. The hobbits escape, via Tom Bombadil 's realm where they are not pursued, to Bree . A Ranger of the North , Aragorn , arrives ahead of them and for some days leads them on paths not closely followed by
7957-602: The Second Age, but his survival is assured by the power of the One Ring. Over a thousand years later in the Third Age, the Lord of the Nazgûl leads Sauron's forces against the successor kingdoms of Arnor: Rhudaur, Cardolan, and Arthedain. He destroys all of these, but is eventually defeated by the Elf-lord Glorfindel , who puts him to flight, and makes the prophecy that "not by the hand of Man will he fall". He escapes, and returns to Mordor . There, he gathers
8066-583: The Somme." Earlier, in his 2003 book Tolkien and the Great War , on the other hand, Garth merely notes the "Black Breath of despair that brings down even the bravest" as one of several elements of The Lord of the Rings which "suggest[s] the influence of 1914–18". In her Tolkienesque 1961 short story "The Jewel of Arwen", the fantasy and science fiction writer Marion Zimmer Bradley provides "Translator's Notes" which assert as part of her frame story that
8175-609: The Third Age, Orcs mostly communicated using a debased Westron . Tolkien described one Orc's utterances as being in "the Common Speech, which he made almost as hideous as his own tongue". The language was used "only in Mordor ", Tolkien stated, and it was "never used willingly by any other people"; for this reason, "even the names of places in Mordor are in English", representing Westron. The only text of "pure" Black Speech
8284-462: The Witch-king is "above all ... actual and yet empty at the same time", and comments that Tolkiens "dead but undead Black Rider is as good a symbol as any ... for Barth's impossible possibility." Similarly, Hunsinger finds Tolkien's description of how Éowyn kills the Witch-king "an image for the paradox of evil as something powerful and yet hollow at the same time." He notes that her sword shatters with her final stroke, but of her defeated foe, "nothing
8393-436: The Wizard King "a renegade of [Gandalf's] own order" from Númenor. In the manuscript of his notes for translators , Tolkien suggested that the Witch-king of Angmar was most likely of Númenórean origin. Fontenot comments that this could make him both a Maia rather than a Man , and originally one of the Istari , or, as she states, "something decidedly other". But Tolkien then reduces the Wizard King's power, so that Gandalf
8502-494: The adjective fell ("fierce, cruel") to other creatures throughout The Lord of the Rings – even at one point to the wizard Gandalf . In a letter, he calls the winged mounts "Nazgûl-birds". In the absence of a proper name, derivative works sometimes press "fellbeast" or "fell-beast" into service. In the Battle of the Pelennor Fields, where the Lord of the Nazgûl rode one of the flying beasts against King Théoden of Rohan, his mount
8611-553: The ancient Hurrian language , which like the Black Speech was agglutinative . The Black Speech is one of the more fragmentary languages in The Lord of the Rings . Unlike his extensive work on the Elvish languages , Tolkien did not write songs or poems in the Black Speech, apart from the One Ring inscription. He stated that: In agglutinative languages like Turkish , the meaning of a word can be understood by breaking it down into
8720-524: The attack on the Great Gate; he bursts the gate using both the battering-ram Grond, written with " spells of ruin ", and with "words of power and terror to rend both heart and stone". Despite his shadowiness and invisibility, Shippey writes, the Nazgûl on the Pelennor Fields also comes as close as he ever does to seeming human, having human form inside his black robes, carrying a sword, and laughing to reveal his power when he throws back his hood, revealing
8829-471: The attempt Linguists including Ashford and Helge Fauskanger comment that this is Tolkien's subjective view, as it is difficult to identify which sounds might have been experienced as hideous. Fauskanger suggests that the Elves did not like the uvular r employed by the Orcs. The Tolkien scholar Tom Shippey writes that the word durbatulûk , "to rule them all", embodied Tolkien's view that sound and meaning went together , commenting that certainly,
8938-430: The base word and its word endings. For example, in the word evlerimizde ev means "house", -ler indicates plurality, -imiz means "our", and -de means "in". Therefore, evlerimizde means "in our houses". Turkish Textbook The Black Speech was not intentionally modelled on any style, but was meant to be self consistent, very different from Elvish, yet organized and expressive, as would be expected of
9047-421: The book. In the film the Witch-king's mount is largely responsible for the death of Théoden and his horse Snowmane, a departure from the book. As confirmed in the films' audio commentary , the design of the monsters was based largely on illustrations by John Howe. Black Speech The Black Speech is one of the fictional languages constructed by J. R. R. Tolkien for his legendarium , where it
9156-690: The crown worn underneath his hood in the book. Their shrieks are distorted recordings of producer and screenwriter Fran Walsh 's scream. Minas Morgul is shown first in The Fellowship of the Ring , when the Nazgûl leave the city and ride towards the Shire to pursue the One Ring. It features again when Frodo and Sam make their way towards Cirith Ungol. These sets were designed by the illustrator John Howe . All nine Nazgûl are shown riding winged monsters. Jackson's monsters explicitly differ from Tolkien's description in that they have teeth instead of beaks. The Nazgûl use them in battle more extensively than in
9265-482: The dark lord Sauron gave Rings of Power , becoming Nazgûl or Ringwraiths. His ring gives him great power, but enslaves him to Sauron and makes him invisible. As a wraith, he had once established himself King of Angmar in the north of Eriador . In the events of the Lord of the Rings, he stabs the bearer of the One Ring , the Hobbit Frodo Baggins , with a Morgul-knife which would reduce its victim to
9374-420: The dragon and his wrath". In Peter Jackson 's 2001–2003 The Lord of the Rings film trilogy , during the siege of Minas Tirith, the Witch-king wears a distinctive helmet over his hood resembling a mask and a crown, rather than the crown worn underneath his hood in the book. The Witch-king's mount is largely responsible for the death of Théoden and his horse Snowmane, a departure from the book. As confirmed in
9483-426: The enslaved Nine Riders with the Nine Walkers, the free Company of the Ring. In " The Council of Elrond ", Elrond announces that "The Company of the Ring shall be Nine; and the Nine Walkers shall be set against the Nine Riders that are evil". Little describes the Nazgûl as "homogeneous, discordant, intensely individualistic", a group bound and trapped by Sauron, noting also Gandalf's description of them in " The Shadow of
9592-592: The extent of Tolkien's work on this language." David Ashford, in the Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts , observes that uniquely among Tolkien's languages, the Black Speech is explicitly a constructed language devised as unpleasant by Sauron for his Orcs, and described by Tolkien as so full of harsh and hideous sounds and vile words that other mouths found it difficult to compass, and few indeed were willing to make
9701-481: The films' audio commentary , the design of the monsters was based largely on illustrations by John Howe. In the first film of Jackson's 2012–2014 The Hobbit film trilogy , the Wizard Radagast briefly encounters the Witch-king while investigating the forest fortress of Dol Guldur . Péter Kristóf Makai, in A Companion to J. R. R. Tolkien , writes that the 1976 board game Middle Earth provided
9810-563: The harsh vowels and jagged consonants and consonant clusters lend themselves to rough and rasping pronunciation, a fitting evocation of the voices of Orcs. A few Black Speech words are given in Appendix F of The Return of the King . These include Lugbúrz , meaning "Dark Tower" ( Barad-dûr ), snaga , "slave", and ghâsh , "fire". The name Nazgûl is a combination of nazg meaning "ring" and gûl meaning "wraith(s)", hence "ringwraith". The only known sample of debased Black Speech/Orkish
9919-444: The herb athelas to heal Faramir and others of the Black Breath, a condition "which harms the spirit more than the body", identifies him to his people as the true King. Michael and Victoria Wodzak discuss how the hobbit Merry Brandybuck can be affected by the Black Breath when the Witch-King has not noticed him, pointing out that Tolkien nowhere says that the Nazgûl breathes on him or on Éowyn. Instead Éowyn "raised her shield against
10028-541: The horror of her enemy's eye", and the Wodzaks comment that the Nazgûl uses his eyes "to overwhelm". In their view, the seeming inconsistency is resolved by identifying the Black Breath with his " pneuma ", his evil spirit, and assuming that it is this which causes the harm all around him. Tolkien's biographer John Garth finds Christopher Gilson's Words, Phrases and Passages in Various Tongues in "The Lord of
10137-455: The huge shadow halted. "Go back to the abyss prepared for you! Go back! Fall into the nothingness that awaits you and your Master. Go!" The Black Rider flung back his hood, and behold! he had a kingly crown; and yet upon no head visible was it set. The red fires shone between it and the mantled shoulders vast and dark. From a mouth unseen there came a deadly laughter. "Old fool!" he said. "Old fool! This
10246-410: The invisibility is just "a trick of sight". When Frodo, wearing the Ring, saw the Nazgûl in the "twilight world", they appeared solid, not shadowy. He also saw Glorfindel in that world, as a figure of white flame; and Gandalf explains later that the Ringwraiths were "dismayed" to see "an Elf-lord revealed in his wrath". Frodo is in danger of "fading" permanently into invisibility and the twilight world, as
10355-402: The other Nazgûl to prepare for Sauron's return. Towards the end of the Third Age, Sauron sends the Witch-king, leading the other Nazgûl, to the Shire to find and recover the One Ring. He is cloaked and hooded in black; his face cannot be seen; he rides a black horse. At Weathertop, the Witch-king stabs Frodo, the bearer of the One Ring, in the shoulder with the Morgul-knife, breaking off
10464-470: The phantoms and delusions of Sauron. And one by one, sooner or later, according to their native strength and to the good or evil of their wills in the beginning, they fell under the thraldom of the ring that they bore and of the domination of the One which was Sauron's. And they became forever invisible save to him that wore the Ruling Ring, and they entered into the realm of shadows. The Nazgûl were they,
10573-458: The phonology and syllable structure of the Black Speech with those of Tolkien's two major Elvish languages , Quenya and Sindarin . He found that there were more sonorant sounds and more open syllables in Elvish than in either English or Black Speech. He stated that these consistent differences were "sufficiently prominent" to make Elvish sound "pleasant and harmonious", whereas Black Speech sounded "harsh and strident". M. G. Meile, labelling
10682-493: The power of Sauron's One Ring , into which he had put much of his own power. The corrupting effect of the Rings greatly extended the bearers' lives. The Nazgûl had a sharp sense of smell. Their sight worked differently, too: "They themselves do not see the world of light as we do, but our shapes cast shadows in their minds, which only the noon sun destroys; and in the dark they perceive many signs and forms that are hidden from us: then they are most to be feared." Their chief weapon
10791-654: The power of the One Ring and completely under Sauron's control. The Lord of the Rings calls them Sauron's "most terrible servants". Their leader, known as the Witch-king of Angmar , the Lord of the Nazgûl, or the Black Captain, was Sauron's chief agent for most of the Third Age. At the end of the Third Age, their main stronghold was the city of Minas Morgul at the entrance to Sauron's realm, Mordor . They dress entirely in black. In their early forays, they ride on black horses; later they ride flying monsters, which Tolkien described as " pterodactylic ". Their main weapon
10900-409: The proportions of vowels and consonants . The Black Speech is 63% consonants, compared to the Elvish samples' 52% and 55%. Among other features, front vowel sounds like /i/ (like the i in machine ) are much rarer in Black Speech than in Elvish, while back vowel sounds like /u/ (like the u in brute ) are much more common. Podhorodecka therefore comments that the phonology of Black Speech
11009-410: The reader's mind an "increasingly infernal vision". The Nazgûl spread terror and despair among their enemies, and discomfit those on their own side. The Black Breath is stated to have afflicted many during the Battle of the Pelennor Fields. Dr Jennifer Urquart, writing in Mallorn , describes its normal course as "progressive loss of consciousness and hypothermia , leading to death". She comments that
11118-554: The successor kingdoms of Arnor: Rhudaur, Cardolan, and Arthedain. He destroys all three but is defeated by the armies of Gondor and the Elf-lord Glorfindel , who prophesies that "not by the hand of man will he fall". He escapes, and returns to Mordor . There, he gathers the other Nazgûl to prepare for the return of Sauron. The Nazgûl besiege Minas Ithil , a Gondorian fortress in the Ephel Duath , capture it, and acquire its palantír for Sauron. The city becomes Minas Morgul ,
11227-462: The word has a history in folktale and fantasy including usage by the Brothers Grimm , William Morris , and George MacDonald . The word "wraith" can be connected, Fisher writes, to English " writhe ", Old English wrīþan , to bend or twist, and in turn to Gothic wraiqs , curved, crooked, or winding, and wraks , a persecutor. There is also English "wreath", from Old English wrida , meaning
11336-413: Was born by Caesarean section . Thus, Shippey notes, despite Tolkien's stated dislike of Shakespeare 's treatment of myth, he read Macbeth closely. The Tolkien scholar Michael Drout identifies a further parallel with Shakespeare, one of several allusions to King Lear in The Lord of the Rings . The Witch-king says "Come not between the Nazgûl and his prey", as the mad Lear says "Come not between
11445-400: Was of Númenórean origin. The Nine soon became Sauron's principal servants. They were dispersed after the first overthrow of Sauron late in the Second Age at the hands of the Last Alliance of Elves and Men, but their survival was assured by the power of the One Ring . The Nazgûl re-emerge over a thousand years later in the Third Age , when the Lord of the Nazgûl leads Sauron's forces against
11554-545: Was simply a magic ring conferring invisibility, both in The Hobbit and early drafts of The Lord of the Rings , with no link to Sauron. However, Tolkien was at the time starting to consider the true nature of the Ring, and the idea that it had been made by the Necromancer, and drew itself or its bearer back to him. The Black Riders became Ringwraiths when the hobbit, at that time called Bingo rather than Frodo, discussed
11663-476: Was spoken in the evil realm of Mordor . In the fiction, Tolkien describes the language as created by Sauron as a constructed language to be the sole language of all the servants of Mordor. Little is known of the Black Speech except the inscription on the One Ring . Scholars note that Tolkien constructed this to be plausible linguistically, and to sound rough and harsh. The scholar Alexandre Nemirovski, on linguistic evidence, has proposed that Tolkien based it on
11772-399: Was taller than the others, with "long and gleaming" hair and a crown on his helmet. When all Nine are swept away by the waters of the river Bruinen , their horses are drowned, and the Ringwraiths are forced to return to Mordor to regroup. The nine members of the Company of the Ring , tasked with the destruction of the Ring, leave Rivendell as the "Nine Walkers", in opposition to the Nazgûl,
11881-401: Was terror; it was so powerful that Sauron faced one disadvantage when using them: they could not easily travel in secret. The terror they spread was greater when they were unclad and invisible; and when they were gathered together. Only two of the Nazgûl are named or identified individually in Tolkien's works. Their chief, also known as the Lord of the Nazgûl and the Black Captain, appears as
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