Nazgûl
Nazgûl | |
---|---|
In-universe information | |
Aliases | The Nine Úlairi (in Quenya) Black Riders Fell Riders Ringwraiths |
Book(s) | The Fellowship of the Ring (1954), The Two Towers (1954), The Return of the King (1955), The Silmarillion (1977), Unfinished Tales (1980) |
The Nazgûl (from
Commentators have written that the Nazgûl serve on the ordinary level of story as dangerous opponents; at the romantic level as the enemies of the heroic protagonists; and finally at the mythic level.
The Nazgûl appear in numerous adaptations of Tolkien's writings, including animated and live-action films and computer games.
Fictional history
Second Age
Those who used the
Nine Ringsbecame 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 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, 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"[T 1]
The Nazgûl or Ringwraiths (
The Silmarillion states in "Of the Rings of Power and the Third Age" that the rings enslaved their bearers to the power of Sauron's Ring, into which he had put much of his own power. The corrupting effect of the rings extended the bearers' earthly lives far beyond their normal lifespans.[T 1][a]
The Nazgûl had a sharp sense of smell.[1] The Lord of the Rings states that 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."[T 6] Their chief weapon was terror; it was so powerful that Sauron faced one disadvantage when using them: they could not easily travel in secret.[T 3] Tolkien added, in Unfinished Tales, that the terror they spread was greater when they were unclad and invisible; and when they were gathered together.[T 7]
Few 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 the
The nine, as Nazgûl, were soon established as Sauron's principal servants.[T 11] 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.[T 11]
Third Age
The appendices to The Lord of the Rings state that the Nazgûl re-emerged over a thousand years later in the
The Nazgûl besieged Minas Ithil, a fortress located in a valley in the
By the time of the main narrative of The Lord of the Rings, Sauron had already learned from
Five of the Nazgûl cornered Frodo and his company at Weathertop, where the Witch-king stabbed Frodo in the shoulder with the Morgul-knife, breaking off a piece of it in the Hobbit's flesh.[T 6] During their assault, they mentally commanded Frodo to put on the One Ring; while wearing it, he saw them as pale figures robed in white, with "haggard hands", helmets and swords. The Witch-king was taller than the others, with "long and gleaming" hair and a crown on his helmet.[T 6]
When all Nine were swept away by the waters of the river
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 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"[T 27]
During the
After the fall of the Lord of the Nazgûl, command of Mordor's army in the field fell to Gothmog, the "lieutenant of Morgul", of unspecified race.[c][T 29]
The remaining eight Ringwraiths attacked the Army of the West during the
Steeds
The Nazgûl's flying steeds are given various descriptions but no name. Beregond calls them "Hell Hawks". Tolkien describes them as "fell beasts", though he also applies 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".[T 32] In the absence of a proper name, derivative works sometimes press "fellbeast" or "fell-beast" into service.[4]
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 is described as:[T 25]
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 ...[T 25]
It is said to attack with "beak and claw".
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, 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.[5]
Significance
Development
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"[T 16] was originally Gandalf; in 1938, Tolkien called the figure's transformation into a Black Rider "an unpremeditated turn".[6][T 33] Frodo's ring, too, 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.[6][T 34] The Black Riders became Ringwraiths when the hobbit, at that time called Bingo rather than Frodo, discussed 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.[6][T 35][T 36]
Literary modes
Shippey writes that the Nazgûl function at different
Etymological connotations
Tolkien was a
"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
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 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.[8]
Invisible, but corporeal
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 a king's crown on his invisible head.[7]
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 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".[T 38][9][10] Frodo is in danger of "fading" permanently into invisibility and the twilight world, as 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",[T 25] has in fact to cut through real, but invisible, sinews and flesh.[9]
Gradual incarnation
Steve Walker, a Tolkien scholar, writes that the story gives the Ringwraiths credibility through 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 in psychological terms: 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 the reader's mind an "increasingly infernal vision".[11]
The Black Breath
The Nazgûl spread terror and despair among their enemies, and discomfited 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
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 the horror of her enemy's eye", and the Wodzaks comment that the Nazgûl uses his eyes "to overwhelm".[14] 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.[14]
Tolkien's biographer
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 the Nazgûl were contaminated and enslaved by a monstrous form of radioactivity which transformed "the very cells of their protoplasm".[17] 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]."[17] Further, Bradley writes, the Nazgûl gave off "radioactive contamination", causing the Black Breath.[17]
Adaptations
Films
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".[18] They hack and slash the Hobbits' beds at The Prancing Pony inn, whereas Tolkien does not identify the assailants.[T 39]
In the
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.[22] 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.[23] Their shrieks are distorted recordings of producer and screenwriter Fran Walsh's scream.[24]
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.[26] 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 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.[25][27]
The fan-made 2009 film The Hunt for Gollum features Aragorn fighting a Ringwraith on the borders of Mirkwood.[28]
In Jackson's 2012–2014 The Hobbit film trilogy, the men who became the Nazgûl are said to have been buried and sealed within the invented High Fells of Rhudaur. In the first film, Radagast briefly encounters the Witch-king while investigating Dol Guldur, and gives the Nazgûl's Morgul dagger to Gandalf to present at the White Council as proof of their return. In the second film, at Galadriel's behest, Gandalf heads to the High Fells and finds that all the Nazgûl have left the tomb. This confirms the Necromancer's identity as Sauron, as the Nazgûl appear alongside their master in the third film in spectral forms wearing Morgul armour and fight Elrond and Saruman before being driven away by Galadriel.[29]
Games
The Nazgûl are featured in the video game Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor and its sequel Middle-earth: Shadow of War. In the latter, Isildur is revealed to be one of the Nazgûl before he is killed by the game's protagonist, Talion. Talion takes Isildur's ring to prolong his life and eventually became Isildur's replacement until the demise of the Nazgûl in the Return of the King.[30] For the expansion to its real-time strategy game The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-earth II, The Rise of the Witch-king, Electronic Arts invented the name Morgomir for one of the Nazgûl.[31]
Influence
The fantasy novelist
Gothic rock band Trivalia released several of their albums through their own independent record label Black Rider and for a period of time issued a fanzine titled Black Rider, inspired by The Lord of the Rings.[33][34]
Notes
- ^ Tolkien in some places stated that the Ringwraiths wore their rings, and in others that Sauron kept control by holding the rings himself: "They would have obeyed . . . any minor command of his that did not interfere with their errand — laid upon them by Sauron, who still through their nine rings (which he held) had primary control of their wills".[T 4] They were by far the most powerful of his servants, and the most suitable for such a mission, since they were entirely enslaved to their Nine Rings, which he now himself held.[T 5]
- Rohan, translated into Old English; Tolkien glosses it in the index as a "work of necromancy", a "spectre". It derives from Old English (ge)dwimor, "phantom, illusion" and -leikr, the Old Norse ending corresponding to Anglo-Saxon -lac, meaning "a state or act".[T 28] Tom Shippey writes that Tolkien borrowed the word from a Middle English poem, Layamon's Brut.[2]
- ^ Wayne G. Hammond and Christina Scull comment that fans' suggestions that Gothmog was a Nazgûl are "no more than speculation". They note that an earlier Gothmog was "Lord of Balrogs", who killed Fëanor and Fingon, and was killed in the assault on Gondolin. They note also that "lieutenant of Morgul" could mean the second-in-command either of Minas Morgul or "more likely" of the Morgul-lord, the Lord of the Nazgûl.[3]
References
Primary
- ^ a b Tolkien 1977, "Of the Rings of Power and the Third Age"
- ^ a b c Tolkien 1977, "The Akallabêth", p. 267. "Yet Sauron was ever guileful, and it is said that among those whom he ensnared with the Nine Rings three were great lords of Númenórean race."
- ^ a b Tolkien 1980, 4. "The Hunt for the Ring" i. "Of the Journey of the Black Riders"
- ^ Carpenter 2023, #246 to Mrs Eileen Elgar, September 1963
- ^ Tolkien 1980, "Journey of the Black Riders"
- ^ a b c Tolkien 1954a book 1, ch. 11 "A Knife in the Dark"
- ^ Tolkien 1980, 4. "The Hunt for the Ring" ii. "Other Versions of the Story"
- ^ Tolkien 1955, Appendix A, 1 "The Numenorean Kings"
- ^ Tolkien 1980, Index, entry for Khamûl
- ^ Tolkien writes: "the name and origin of the Witch-king is not recorded, but he was probably of Númenórean descent." Hammond, Wayne G. & Scull, Christina, The Lord of the Rings: A Reader's Companion, p. 20. Tolkien later removed the passage; it does not appear in the version in Jared Lobdell's A Tolkien Compass.
- ^ a b Tolkien 1955, Appendix B, "The Tale of Years", entries in "The Second Age"
- ^ a b c Tolkien 1955, Appendix A, I, iv "Gondor and the heirs of Anarion"
- ^ a b c Tolkien 1955, Appendix B, "The Tale of Years", entries in "The Third Age"
- ^ a b Tolkien 1954a, book 2, ch. 2 "The Council of Elrond"
- ^ Tolkien 1954a, book 1, ch. 2 "The Shadow of the Past"
- ^ a b Tolkien 1954a book 1, ch. 3 "Three is Company"
- ^ Tolkien 1954a book 1, ch. 4 "A Short Cut to Mushrooms"
- ^ Tolkien 1954a book 1, ch. 6 "The Old Forest"
- ^ Tolkien 1954a book 1, ch. 7 "In the House of Tom Bombadil"
- ^ Tolkien 1954a book 1, ch. 8 "Fog on the Barrow-downs"
- ^ Tolkien 1954a book 1, ch. 9 "At the Sign of the Prancing Pony"
- ^ Tolkien 1954a book 1, ch. 10 "Strider"
- ^ Tolkien 1954a book 1, ch. 12 "Flight to the Ford"
- ^ Tolkien 1954a book 2, ch. 3 "The Ring Goes South"
- ^ a b c d e f g Tolkien 1955, book 5, ch. 6, "The Battle of the Pelennor Fields"
- ^ a b c Carpenter 2023, #211 to Rhona Beare, 14 October 1958
- ^ Tolkien 1955, book 5, ch. 4 "The Siege of Gondor"
- ^ Tolkien 1990, p. 372
- ^ Tolkien 1955, book 5, ch. 6, "The Battle of the Pelennor Fields". "There they had been mustered for the sack of the City and the rape of Gondor, waiting on the call of their Captain. He now was destroyed; but Gothmog the lieutenant of Morgul had flung them into the fray..."
- ^ Tolkien 1955, book 5, ch. 10 "The Black Gate Opens"
- ^ Tolkien 1955 book 6, ch. 3, "Mount Doom"
- Frodo would have had if he discovered some Hobbitslearning to ride Nazgûl-birds, 'for the liberation of the Shire'."
- ^ Carpenter 2023, #26 to Stanley Unwin, 4 March 1938
- ^ Tolkien 1988, pp. 42–43
- ^ Tolkien 1954a, book 2, ch. 7 "The Mirror of Galadriel"
- ^ Tolkien 1989, pp. 259–260
- ^ Tolkien 1955, book 5, ch. 4, "The Siege of Gondor"
- ^ Tolkien 1954a, book 2, ch. 1 "Many Meetings"
- Eriador still lie before us. But their power is in terror, and already some in Breeare in their clutch. They will drive these wretches to some evil work: [Bill] Ferny, and some of the strangers, and, maybe, [Harry] the gatekeeper too."
Secondary
- ISBN 978-0-345-27547-9.
- ^ Shippey 2005, p. 394
- ISBN 978-0-00-720907-1.
- The Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar. Level/area: Barad Guldur.
- ISBN 978-0-8020-3806-7.
- ^ OCLC 298788493.
- ^ a b Shippey 2005, pp. 242–243
- ^ ISBN 978-1-4766-1486-1. Retrieved 28 November 2021.
- ^ ISBN 978-0786474783.
- ^ Croft, Janet Brennan (2014). "Review: The Body in Tolkien's Legendarium: Essays on Middle-earth". Mythlore. 33 (1, Fall/Winter 2014): 146–149.
- ISBN 978-0230101661.
- ^ a b c Urquart, Jennifer (2014). "'The House of his Spirit Crumbles.' A medical consideration of Faramir's condition on his return from the retreat from Osgiliath, in The Lord of the Rings". Mallorn (55 Winter 2014): 14–17.
- ^ ISSN 1547-3163.
- ^ ISSN 1547-3163.
- ^ ISSN 1547-3163.
- ISBN 978-0-00711-953-0.
- ^ a b c Bradley, Marion Zimmer (1961). "The Jewel of Arwen" (PDF). I Palantir (2).
- ^ Gilkeson, Austin (13 November 2018). "Ralph Bakshi's The Lord of the Rings Brought Tolkien from the Counterculture to the Big Screen". TOR. Retrieved 20 May 2020.
Bakshi's Nazgúl shamble and limp like zombies, giving them a truly creepy feeling. Understandably unsettled, the hobbits decide to skip Buckland—and also the Old Forest, Tom Bombadil's house, and the Barrow-downs—and head straight to The Prancing Pony in Bree.
- ^ Gilkeson, Austin (24 April 2019). "Middle-earth's Weirdest film: Rankin-Bass' Animated The Return of the King". TOR. Retrieved 20 May 2020.
Now, I should add that while eight of the nine Nazgûl are skeletons with beautiful heads of white hair riding on flying horses, the Witch-king is more traditionally invisible. ... The Witch-king does finally appear, riding a decently dragonish fell beast rather than a Pegasus.
- ^ Nephrite (22 January 2019). "Audiobook Review: The Lord Of The Rings: The Two Towers(1981)". The Orkney News. Retrieved 28 May 2020.
- ^ Templeton, Molly (6 April 2021). "A 30-Year-Old Soviet Adaptation of The Fellowship of the Ring Is Available for Your Viewing Pleasure". TOR.com. Retrieved 18 April 2021.
- ISBN 978-1-4039-1263-3.
- ^ Dembrow, Dylan (4 November 2018). "Lord Of The Rings: 20 Strangest Details About Witch-King's Anatomy". ScreenRant.
To better distinguish him from his fellow Nazgul, the Witch-king was given additional armor and a large, pointed helm. In the novels, whenever his hood is thrown back, he is described as wearing a king's crown, which floats atop his invisible head and his burning eyes of fire.
- ^ Barnes, Brooks (30 November 2012). "Middle-Earth Wizard's Not-So-Silent Partner". The New York Times.
She also performed with Naked Spots Dance, another punk band. (It was probably good practice for what "Rings" fans know as the "Nazgul scream," a high-pitched screech made by Tolkien's evil Ringwraiths and performed by Ms. Walsh. "I'm a very good screamer," she said by telephone. "It's not that I scream at people. But I can scream. I went into the room with the mike and let out all the stress and the horror and the terror of making those films.")
- ^ a b Dellamorte, Andrew (20 June 2011). "The Lord of the Rings: The Motion Picture Trilogy: Extended Edition Blu-ray Review". Collider. Retrieved 11 March 2020.
- ^ Big-atures (Special Extended Edition documentary) (DVD). New Line Cinema. 2004.
- ^ See also Conlogue, Ray (16 December 2003). "Tolkien's Gentlemanly Art of War". The Globe and Mail.
- ^ Mooney, Michael (20 January 2014). "The Hunt For Gollum". filmscramble. Retrieved 20 May 2020.
- ^ LaSala, Jeff (14 November 2014). "Extending The Desolation of Smaug: More Is More". TOR. Retrieved 21 May 2020.
- ^ Mithaiwala, Mansoor (25 October 2017). "How Shadow of War Breaks Tolkien's Middle-Earth Lore". ScreenRant. Retrieved 21 May 2020.
- ^ "The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle Earth II: The Rise of the Witch-King". Behind the Voice Actors. Retrieved 21 May 2020.
- OCLC 38149929.
- ^ Janjatović, Petar (2007). EX YU ROCK enciklopedija 1960–2006. Belgrade: self-released. p. 228.
- ^ "Trivalia: Neuhvatljivi crni jahači", Rokcomotiva.com
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