well-nigh
unliving statues of stone designed by Sauron to keep out enemies.
He has given them,
however, radarlike senses that detect Frodo and Sam, and powerful wills that
the hobbits are able to break only by prayer to Elbereth before they can
escape.
Still different is
the great spider Shelob, who cares nothing about either party in the War of the
Ring but only about getting enough food for her insatiable paunch, whether it
consist of elves, men, ores, hobbits, or her own innumerable brood. Grossly
physical though she is, "alone, swollen till the mountains could no longer
hold her up and the darkness could not contain her" she is more "an
evil thing in spider form" than a mere spider. She hungers to devour the
minds as well as the bodies of her prey. Gollum's worship she has accepted long
ago and "the darkness of her evil will" accompanies him on all his
journeys thereafter, "cutting him off from light and from regret."
Tolkien's language about her often takes on a symbolic tone: ". . .
weaving webs of shadow, for all living things were her food, and her vomit
darkness." Though Shelob is a solitary hunter, her lust to feed on the
whole world differs from Sauron's only in the manner of its accomplishment. So,
like the other monsters of the tale, in her particular form of unchecked
appetite she is one of the many variations on the theme of evil of which Sauron
is the generic type.
Finally there are
the barrow-wights. These are the spirits of dead men, unable to rest, who haunt
the burial mounds of the kings and queens of the old North Kingdom. They entrap
passersby and kill them. The reader may. be excused for assuming that they are
the ghosts of the people whose graves they trouble, but the evidence in the
text is otherwise. While Merry lies senseless on the burial slab decked out in
the clothes and jewels of the king entombed there, he dreams that he is that
king, who was slain by "the men of Carn Dûm" in a night attack.
Bombadil reveals after his rescue of the hobbits that this attack was led by
"the evil king of Carn Dûm in the Land of Angmar"—that is, by the
chief of the ring-wraiths. Tom also takes for Goldberry a brooch belonging to
the fair and good queen buried there whom he knew ages ago in life.
Accordingly, the dead are innocent victims of treachery and are not the right
ones to be barred from a place of rest or to do harm to chance travelers on the
Downs. No, the wights must be the ghosts of the evil attackers from Carn
Dûm—not Angmar himself, who is still alive and busy elsewhere as a ringwraith,
but his followers. Their resemblance is to the dead oath-breakers whose spirits
Aragorn summons at the stone of Erech to keep their broken promise of aid to
Isildur and his heirs. In the latter case Tolkien is relying on the Norse
warrior code, which branded an oath-breaker as the worst of criminals,
foredoomed to wander after death. In the case of the barrow-wights Tolkien
seems to be invoking the same punishment upon treachery under the same code.
Their connection
with Sauron is hinted at first in Tom's description of their coming: "A
shadow came out of dark places far away, and the bones were stirred in the
mounds. Barrow-wights walked in the hollow places with a clink of rings on cold
fingers . . ." among the hills. This shadow is Sauron sending the
barrow-wights. The incantation chanted by the wight who is about to kill the
hobbits specifically condemns them to death "till the dark lord lifts his
hand/over dead sea and withered land," after the sun fails and the moon
dies. Here a servant of Sauron (and maybe Sauron himself) is looking forward to
a Black Resurrection at the end of the world, when the dead arise to face
judgment not by Christ but by a triumphant Dark Lord who has taken His place.
It is all nonsense, of course. Tom exorcizes the wight to a prison "darker
than the darkness,/Where gates stand for ever shut, till the world is
mended." This mending of the world seems to refer to a Resurrection
unliving statues of stone designed by Sauron to keep out enemies.
He has given them,
however, radarlike senses that detect Frodo and Sam, and powerful wills that
the hobbits are able to break only by prayer to Elbereth before they can
escape.
Still different is
the great spider Shelob, who cares nothing about either party in the War of the
Ring but only about getting enough food for her insatiable paunch, whether it
consist of elves, men, ores, hobbits, or her own innumerable brood. Grossly
physical though she is, "alone, swollen till the mountains could no longer
hold her up and the darkness could not contain her" she is more "an
evil thing in spider form" than a mere spider. She hungers to devour the
minds as well as the bodies of her prey. Gollum's worship she has accepted long
ago and "the darkness of her evil will" accompanies him on all his
journeys thereafter, "cutting him off from light and from regret."
Tolkien's language about her often takes on a symbolic tone: ". . .
weaving webs of shadow, for all living things were her food, and her vomit
darkness." Though Shelob is a solitary hunter, her lust to feed on the
whole world differs from Sauron's only in the manner of its accomplishment. So,
like the other monsters of the tale, in her particular form of unchecked
appetite she is one of the many variations on the theme of evil of which Sauron
is the generic type.
Finally there are
the barrow-wights. These are the spirits of dead men, unable to rest, who haunt
the burial mounds of the kings and queens of the old North Kingdom. They entrap
passersby and kill them. The reader may. be excused for assuming that they are
the ghosts of the people whose graves they trouble, but the evidence in the
text is otherwise. While Merry lies senseless on the burial slab decked out in
the clothes and jewels of the king entombed there, he dreams that he is that
king, who was slain by "the men of Carn Dûm" in a night attack.
Bombadil reveals after his rescue of the hobbits that this attack was led by
"the evil king of Carn Dûm in the Land of Angmar"—that is, by the
chief of the ring-wraiths. Tom also takes for Goldberry a brooch belonging to
the fair and good queen buried there whom he knew ages ago in life.
Accordingly, the dead are innocent victims of treachery and are not the right
ones to be barred from a place of rest or to do harm to chance travelers on the
Downs. No, the wights must be the ghosts of the evil attackers from Carn
Dûm—not Angmar himself, who is still alive and busy elsewhere as a ringwraith,
but his followers. Their resemblance is to the dead oath-breakers whose spirits
Aragorn summons at the stone of Erech to keep their broken promise of aid to
Isildur and his heirs. In the latter case Tolkien is relying on the Norse
warrior code, which branded an oath-breaker as the worst of criminals,
foredoomed to wander after death. In the case of the barrow-wights Tolkien
seems to be invoking the same punishment upon treachery under the same code.
Their connection
with Sauron is hinted at first in Tom's description of their coming: "A
shadow came out of dark places far away, and the bones were stirred in the
mounds. Barrow-wights walked in the hollow places with a clink of rings on cold
fingers . . ." among the hills. This shadow is Sauron sending the
barrow-wights. The incantation chanted by the wight who is about to kill the
hobbits specifically condemns them to death "till the dark lord lifts his
hand/over dead sea and withered land," after the sun fails and the moon
dies. Here a servant of Sauron (and maybe Sauron himself) is looking forward to
a Black Resurrection at the end of the world, when the dead arise to face
judgment not by Christ but by a triumphant Dark Lord who has taken His place.
It is all nonsense, of course. Tom exorcizes the wight to a prison "darker
than the darkness,/Where gates stand for ever shut, till the world is
mended." This mending of the world seems to refer to a Resurrection
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