The dead marshes?

[Arwen Imladris]

How did the dead people keep so long? How did the candles get lit? Stay lit under water-like stuff? Was it Sauron? If not then who? Why? What is their purpose?

[Elrian]

They weren't real candles, the marshes were haunted, and doubless under some spell from Sauron.

[Marileangorifurnimaluim]

I have trouble crediting Sauron with that much power.

There are many things in the LotR that though evil, or cruel, or inimical to people, or just plain sad, are not within the control of an uber-lord. Caradhras the cruel, the dragons, Ungoliant, Shelob, the Barrow-wights, Old Man Willow, the oathbreakers at Erech.

Sauron might make use of and be pleased by the restless dead of the Gladden Fields, but he cannot command their spirits anymore than he could command Shelob. Even if he were able (and I don't think even Melkor had that power, Melkor could only twist and mock life) it seems unlikely that at a time he was plotting and launching a great war, he would waste his time and energy on a parlor trick in a swamp at his doorstep that no one would see.

-Maril

[Elrian]

He was called the necromancer after all, he had the ability,. Like Gandalf said about him hurling snow at them on Caradras all the way from Morder, his power had grown great indeed.

[Guildo]

It was Sauruman that hurled the snow at them from Isengard not mordor, and i agree with Marilpajgfbvkyklaobvuy (sp) the dead Marshes where a far more complicated magic than just a spell of Sauron, like the paths of the dead which i believe to be Gondolin. Perhaps the dead marshes wher a result of Morgoths and Saurons torment and torture over thousands of years that left many angry uneasy sad gory scary unimaginable uneasy spirits but not a direct spell, and even if Sauron could do such magic when Sam and Frodo where their Sauron did have enough power to take phisical form much less mantain a magic as terrible and gutrenching as the dead marshes.

but thats just my two lembas worth

[lathspell]

Guildo - do not say thing you've seen in the movie, for it is terrible. it doesn't make sense in many ways.... just a spell of Sauron? wait till you meet him. Paths of the Dead and Gondolin, I never thought of that, but it seems quite unlikely if not impossible.

Yet I think that the faces and candles were living dead. As Gollum says (I don't have the book here, so this ain't the exact quote): 'Sss, ack, don't look in the water, my preciousss...it's candles, corpses of candles.'

So I believe that they are corps candles. These are creatures (living dead) that lure people of all kinds to themselves and in that way betray them to their death, by draining their lifeforce from them. The light is the lure.

greetings,
lathspell

P.S.: I guess that this is also why Frodo stood looking in the water, hearing and seeing nothing else until Sam saved him.

[Eol]

I personal think a little differently about the dead marshes. I don't think that the marshes were filled with living dead, but the illusion of living dead.

Then again, bodies preserve very well in marshy areas. Have you heard of the peat bog mummies? The moist environment would prevent rapid decay that would take place otherwise in the open air.

And the light thing, I do not think it would be a indication of draining the living, but definatly luring. Why remain in torument when you drag others with you. Misery loves company.

Just some thoughts.

[Tirned Tinnu]

Tolkien alludes to other fairy stories often in his works. it is known that to walk in marches at night is a perilous thing, even in the real world.
In early times, people believed that the lights that they saw in marshes were spirits, or fairy, waiting to lead you to your death, Indeed many who saw them followed, and were swallowed up by their own mis-step.
The scientific explanations that we have for marsh lights today are varied. Some say it is methane spontaneously combusting, some say it is the acion of quartz rocks under the Earth, rubbing against each other, causing electic balls to rise and float for long distances.
As stated in the above post, peat bogs do preserve the dead, and there were hundreds of thousands of Elves and Men floating in the waters, left from the mighty battle against Sauron.
I find it sad and scary that their faces, some ruined and partly rotted, noble and grim, float under the water. It is also possible that Frodo has some special power to see them along with Gollum. Frodo exhibits the capacity to dream events, perhaps the Ring has also imparted to him the talent for seeing the evidence of the past more clearly. Note that Sam really doesn't notice them. He merely drags Frodo away from his staring at them.

[ September 06, 2002: Message edited by: Tirned Tinnu ]

[Eol]

Tin, you have a very valid point. It has been a while I have looked at such mythology, especially concerning marshes and the fae and evil spirits that seek to bring the demise of man.

Though I think Frodo saw it because he was looking for it. Sam probably knew better then to try to look, being scared to go through.

The Dead Marshes contained spirits or images of spirits from both sides of a terrible battle or battles. There was more evil in the world than Sauron, so the indication is that he was not responsible for the creation of the Marshes. He took adavantage of their presences as a buffer zone protecting Mordor, similar to Shelob.

[Bêthberry]

Following on from Tirned Tinnu's points about bogs, I would concur that English folk culture has many stories and old tales about false lights in marshes. These find their way in the literature. Here's an example of one from the nineteenth century, from Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre. Jane has just run away from her job at Thornfield because of the master's bigamous offer of marriage and is now lost, starving, on the wild moors (quite wild, rough terrain):

...but all the surface of the waste looked level. It showed no variation but of tint: green, where rush and moss overgrew the marshes; black, where the dry soil bore only heath. Dark as it was getting, I could still see these changes: though but as mere alterations of light and shade: for colour had faded with the daylight.

My eye still roved over the sullen swell, and along the moor-edge vanishing amidst the wildest scenery; when at one dim point, far in among the marshes and the ridges, a light sprang up. "That is an ignis fatuus,' was my first thought; and I expected it would soon vanish....

Jane is wrong in this instance, but Bronte is working with the traditions of marsh lights here.

I had always assumed that Tolkien was using this little bit of folk lore for the Dead Marshes.

Bethberry

[ September 07, 2002: Message edited by: Bethberry ]

[Eol]

It would make complete sense if he was as mythology governed his inspiration for writing especially Beowulf.

Maybe at one time or another, he was at a marsh and saw such...

[Man-of-the-Wold]

First of all let me report that I'm back. I was imprisoned by the cruelest of rogue Vala, "the Real World," which may yet capture me again, but I thought I'd make a cameo for now.

Nice, discussion. Again, I think that some of the nature of evil that Tolkien potrays in his sensitive and deep way is not always one of calculating precisions, and many things are as one reply said below: just inimical or sad.

So, first before relating to the main topic, I'd note my thought on the storm of Caradhras, namely, that in the books its origin (Sauron or Saruman) is unclear, and indeed the Fellowship blames Sauron because of his historic connection with the wintery forces of Angband and Angmar. But it could have been Saruman as depicted in the movie, but unlike the direct drama necessitated by moviemaking, I would submit that it reflects very blunt power issuing from both Barad-dur and Isengard to prevent a crossing of the mountains there and the fellowship meeting with Galadriel. The storm was not necessarily triggered directly by Saruman or by Sauron, but by the Fellowship's (or anyone's) attempt to cross at that time.

As for the Dead Marshes, I don't see why Sauron would go to such trouble. He was being beaten back by the Last Alliance and would hardly have thought to terrorize future ages by creating disturbing images of the victims of Dagorlad someplace where folks hardly needed to ever go any way.

Rather, I look at it as a phenomenom resulting from a combination of factors. First of all they are just images, not the real bodies and spirits of the victims, at least not those of the Men & Elves whose spirits should have be freed (or at least housed in Mandos for the Quendi). Some orcs and evil easterlings are trapped there too, in, perhaps, a more literal sense.

Second, the Dead Marshes are part of the land dominated by Sauron for the entire 2nd Age. So, they are full of his malice and power, and the site is one of natural fetidness, decay and uncleaness. So, the Dead Marshes are permeated or haunted with evil, albeit unconscious, power.

But I think in some way the evil there is not necessarily harmful, beyond the unhealthy aspect of that environment. Rather, it is only as threatening as one's fear of it, like that of the Dead Men of Dunharrow. If one is strong of heart and unafraid, as Gollum is in a perverse way, and Aragorn would have been earlier in a noble way, then the marshes are still undesirable and lamentable, not unbearable.

Third, even as the Dead Marshes are far from neutral on the spectrum of Good & Evil, because the place itself is saturated with cruelty and decay, the precipitating force behind the images is, I feel, that of sadness, horror and tragedy from what happened at Dagorlad before the Dead Marshes expanded there. They are hallow much as Lincoln said that Gettyburg was hallowed by the men who died and suffered there.

Therefore, I see the creation of the phantagoric images and their nighttime illumination as primarily powered by the emotions and energy of the Dunedain and the Eldar that perished there, much as paranormalists will say that many a violent death leaves a psychic imprint that is then subseqently perceived as a ghost.

Also, I think that the marsh images reflect to some extent the blessedness of the Last Alliance's cause, so that something of the fallens' lives is perserved for memory, even within such unfortunately horrible circumstances, lest all free people remain only in slim.

[Tirned Tinnu]

I have found the legend associated with marshes:

The Will o' the Wisp is the most common name given to the mysterious lights that were said to lead travellers from the well-trodden paths into treacherous marshes. The tradition exists with slight variation throughout Britain, the lights often bearing a regional name.

This is interesting:

Compact of unctuous vapour, which the night
Condenses, and the cold environs round
Kindled through agitation to a flame,
Which oft, they say, some evil spirit attends,
Hovering and blazing with delusive light,
Misleads th’amaz’d night-wanderer from his way,
To bogs and mires, and oft through pond or pool,
There swallow’d up and lost, from succour far . . .
John Milton Paradise Lost

"The appearance of mysterious lights above marshland gave scientists a ready explanation during the age of reason. Methane and other marsh gases, they said, created by rotting vegetable and animal matter bubbling up through the bogs, when ignited could produce wispy flames and balls of fire which flit about and, when carried by air currents, startle unsuspecting rustics. Newton connected marsh gas with the 'ignis fatuus' (fools light) in 1730, and the theory held good for a number of centuries."


And this:

Turner, writing in 1901, described a region of marshland near Longnor in the upper part of the River Dove, where at twilight ‘there is a flickering light to be seen moving as one moves . . . it has given rise to many tales of belated travellers having been beguiled by it and led into the swamp, where their bodies remain, and from whence their “boggarts” arise at night to caper and dance all over the countryside, to the terror of the inhabitants.’

But this is extremely interesting:

In the case of the Longdendale Lights on Bleaklow they are the burning torches carried by Roman soldiers who tramp across the moor every year on the night of the first full moon in spring.

So here we have a collection of legends, in each county and country there is a different name for it, each according to the local customs of the area.
"In many places the Will o' the Wisp were associated with spirits of the dead who could not enter either heaven or hell, malignantly wandering the earth leading foolish travellers astray."

Why are the "souls" of the Dagorlad still lurking? I believe they are not. But if they were, if only a small percentage of them were evil in life, I think it would turn the marshes into a malevolent place. The tale of the Battle is full of misery. Many good and noble elves died there! Sadness and tears make up the salty aspect of the marsh. I remember reading that it rained and flooded the place, as if the heavens themselves wept.

Here is the quote from "The Passage of The Marshes":

At last Sam could bear it no longer. 'What's all this, Gollum?' he said in a whisper. 'These lights? They're all around us now. Are we trapped? Who are they?'
Gollum looked up. A dark water was before him, and he was crawling on the ground, this way and that, doubtful of the way.
'Yes, they are all around us,' he whispered. 'The tricksy lights. Candles of corpses, yes, yes. Don't heed them! Don't look! Don't follow them! Where's the master?'

So we have two legends of lights combined, the Will o' the Wisp and Corpse Lights, associated with burials. (Ghosts were seen in graveyards, holding candles.)

There was a faint hiss, a noiseome smell went up, the lights flickered and danced and swirled.

That seems to be the exhalation of marsh gas before the lights take effect.

I always wanted to see a 'will o' wisp' as they are called here in the states. The closest I have ever gotten was seeking glow-worms in the forest. Bah.

Do you have a local custom that explains the Marsh Lights? I find this terribly interesting.

[ September 07, 2002: Message edited by: Tirned Tinnu ]

[Elrian]

It was Sauruman that hurled the snow at them from Isengard not mordor, and i agree with Marilpajgfbvkyklaobvuy (sp) the dead Marshes where a far more complicated magic than just a spell of Sauron, like the paths of the dead which i believe to be Gondolin. Perhaps the dead marshes wher a result of Morgoths and Saurons torment and torture over thousands of years that left many angry uneasy sad gory scary unimaginable uneasy spirits but not a direct spell, and even if Sauron could do such magic when Sam and Frodo where their Sauron did have enough power to take phisical form much less mantain a magic as terrible and gutrenching as the dead marshes.
but thats just my two lembas worth

In the movie it was Saruman, not the book.

I wonder if this is a contrivance of the Enemy,' said Boromir. They say in my land that he can govern the storms in the Mountains of Shadow that stand upon the borders of Mordor. He has strange powers and many allies.
His arm has grown long indeed,' said Gimli, 'if he can draw snow down from the North to trouble us here three hundred leagues away.'
His arm has grown long,' said Gandalf.

The Paths of the Dead were not Gondolin, which sank with the rest of Beleriand after the First Age.

That we shall know if we ever come to Erech,' said Aragorn. 'But the oath that they broke was to fight against Sauron, and they must fight therefore, if they are to fulfil it. For at Erech there stands yet a black stone that was brought it was said from Numenor by Isildur; and it was set upon a hill, and upon it the King of the Mountains swore allegiance to him in the beginning of the realm of Gondor. But when Sauron returned and grew in might again, Isildur summoned the Men of the Mountains to fulfil their oath, and they would not: for they had worshipped Sauron in the Dark Years.
Then Isildur said to their king: "thou shalt be the last king. And if the West prove mightier than thy Black Master, this curse I lay upon thee and thy folk: to rest never until your oath is fulfilled. For this war will last through years uncounted, and you shall be summoned once again ere the end." And they fled before the wrath of Isildur, and did not dare to go forth to war on Sauron's part; and they hid themselves in secret places in the mountains and had no dealings with other men, but slowly dwindled in the barren hills. And the terror of the Sleepless Dead lies about the Hill of Erech and all places where the people lingered. But that is the way I must go, since there are none living to help me.

The Dead Marshes were not something contrived by Morgoth, The Dead Gollum speaks of in this passage are from the Battle of Dagorlad during the last Alliance, Morgoth was long gone by then. The graves of the fallen were eventually swallowed up by the Marshes.

Yes, yes, said Gollum. 'All dead, all rotten. Elves and Men and Orcs. The Dead Marshes. There was a great battle long ago, yes, so they told him when Smeagol was young, when I was young before the precious came. It was a great battle. Tall Men with long swords, and terrible Elves, and Orcses shrieking. They fought on the plain for days and months at the Black Gates. But the marshes have grown since then, swallowed up the graves; always creeping, always creeping.
But that is an age and more ago, said Sam. The Dead can't really be there! Is it some devilry hatched in the Dark Land?
Who knows? Smeagol doesn't know, answered Gollum. You cannot reach them, you cannot touch them. We tried once yes, precious. I tried once; but you cannot reach them. Only shapes to see, perhaps not to touch. No precious! All dead.

[mark12_30]

Gollum also said:

"...You cannot reach them, you cannot touch them. We tried once, yes, precious. I tried once; but you cannot reach them. Only shapes to see, perhaps, not to touch. No precious! All dead."

Sam looked darkly at him and shuddered again, thinking that he guessed why Smeagol had tried to touch them.

Poor, hungry Smeagol. No dinner that day. UGH!!!!! Anyway, if Smeagol-- who is quite the diver and swimmer-- could not touch them, they might have been spirit form only, or perhaps illuionary (I vote for spirit form.)

[Eol]

So the first thought I had that is was purely illusionary seems to be true after all. hmmm, very interesting.

I do not have marshes around where I live, I would have to head east to the ocean bays and inlets before I reach anything of the sort, so I have nothing to share for legends and beliefs.

[Marileangorifurnimaluim]

Man-of-the-Wold, good to see you back. Your post was insightful, well thought out and carefully crafted as usual. I must alert Underhill you have returned! [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img]

Bethberry and Tirned Tinnu, I was thinking about the legends of Will O' the Wisps, but didn't have enough background info to comment. I realized that my knowledge is from derivitive sources and I couldn't speak with much authority. Thank you for the info. Very interesting.

I think that since Tolkien drew on the mythology of England and sought to make a truly English myth, these grey zones of what was merely sad or inimical to humanity in English legend were deliberately carried over, and lived as well in Middle Earth. Even danger in the LotR has a richness and lush variety.

This underscores MotWold's point (ahem, and mine [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img] ) that much of what is dark or dangerous in the LotR doesn't necessarily follow a neat, crisp delineation between Sauron and the Good Guys. Which implies that all is not suddenly well just because Sauron is defeated. Shelob is still out there. This gives the LotR a texture of reality that rings true.

TheRealHarad - Welcome to the Downs! Post often.

-Maril

[Man-of-the-Wold]

Yes, thank you very much.

Tolkien is at pains to make sure that his literary world is very messy. Lots of people with their own issues, and things good and evil that are not in any way united.

As Treebeard says, no one is exactly on my side.

But besides the fact that forces seen and unseen have many sources and objects, or in some cases are simply chaotic, is that neither good nor evil have real metaphysical control. The Palantir, Sauron's affect on the wheather, and various other things work in vague and unwieldy ways. Galadriel, Gandalf, and others with intangible power, are loathe to use them out of wisdom, because no less than their adversaries the can do little more than "unleash" power. Harnessing can only be accomplished in the most basic of ways.

In sense all power, wither primary or secondary in Tolkien's world is primal, and it is only the intent and sentiment behind it that makes it good or evil. So, to be good like Tom Bombadil, it may be of only frustratingly narrow effect. Or, in Sauron's case it is evil because his motivation is nothing but pure "hate".

In a sense, what I fear with the movies is the tendency not to have men on the dark side, because a central point for Tolkien was that men could in large numbers fall into darkness, and that indeed, with just Orcs, neither Sauron or Saruman would have much strength.

Oh, Well.

[ September 13, 2002: Message edited by: Man-of-the-Wold ]