Inside the Barrow

[The Barrow-Wight]

There are a couple things about the Barrow that I'd like to discuss. (1) When Frodo awoke he found that a pale greenish glow was emanating outward from himself and the floor around him. What was this? (2) Why did Frodo awake while the others slept on? And why was he separated from the others byt the Wight?

I'm sure the Ring is responsible, but I'd like to here some thoughts, explanation and more questions.

Begin....

The Barrow-Wight

[Lady Eowyn]

Hm, good question. I have no clue what that green glow is, but maybe the Wight knew about the ring and knew the power of it.
That's why he separated Frodo from the others. Maybe he was afraid of hurting Frodo because of the ring...

I don't know, just a dumb guess

[Balin999]

hmm could it be that the green glow was from the sunlight outside the barrow?

[JesTheJade]

I myself am not sure what the green light was, however, I have reason to believe it had something to do with the wight. Here is an exerpt:

'But the courage that had been awakened in him was now too strong: he could not leave his friends so easily. He wavered, groping in his pocket, and then fought with himself again; and as he did so the arm crept nearer. Suddenly resolve hardened in him, and he seized a short sword that lay beside him, and kneeling he stooped low over the bodies of his companions. With what strength he had he hewed at the crawling arm near the wrist, and the hand broke off; but at the same moment the sword splintered up to the hilt. <u>There was a shriek and the light vanished. In the dark</u> there was a snarling noise.'

--I, pp. 152, 153

There you see the light vanishing when the wight is injured and retreats. I still don't really know anything for sure, but it does seem like the light is connected with the wight. Hope this is some kind of help.





Jes

[The Barrow-Wight]

The light seems to be a 'reaction' of the Ring to the spell cast by the wight (the spell that overcame Frodo). When Frodo cuts the hand off, the spell is broken and the power of the Ring goes dormnant again.

The Barrow-Wight

[quam]

But if the Ring wants to go back to His Mighty Lord Sauron,
It would have tried to own the barrow-wight(not rkittle!)
instead of some young hobbit,so that it could be brought back far much easier by something controlled by the witch-king,that is, the lord of the nazgul,right-hand of Sauron,right?

"Quis,Quae,Quid
Quem,Quam,Quid"

[Suldaledhel]

Yes good point, perhaps it was the power of something greater than the Ring or Sauron or The Witch-King that kept the Ring from possessing the Wight. After all was it not said in the Silmarillion that everything is part of the plan of Eru, much of which will not be understood but will add to his glory once complete?? Just an after thought mind you, as well as a stab in the darkness,so to speak.

[JesTheJade]

Good points... I have not read the Sil, but I know who Eru is,and that's cool. However, we have yet to resolve the green light situation. Do we think it has nothing to do, then, with the Barrow-wight? Or is that still a possibility?

Jes


<a href=mailto:GrahamTheGrey@aol.com>GrahamTheGrey@ao l.com</a></p>

[The Barrow-Wight]

I don't think the light was caused by the wight, if that's what you mean. Definitely a Ring thing.

The Barrow-Wight

[Gilthalion]

If you haven't yet, listen, if you dare, to http://www.geocities.com/robertwgard...ilthalion.htmlFOG ON THE BARROW-DOWNS</a>!

This is a RealAudio recording of an excerpt from the chapter and you will need the RealAudio Player, which you can get for free by just following the link on my hobby site.

Wooooooooo! Very scary!

[lindil]

Green light was bad magic.
a point of note Wilhelm Reich noted in his experiments that Life-Force when it was healthy and in large concentrations was blue, when sick he called it DOR [deadly orgone something] and it was ... green!

So it was I think given the timing of it's disappearence connected w/ the spell.

[Imp]

The glowing green might be an indication of the ghostly precense.

And maybe the Ring had no effect on the Undead or Dead.

[Odysseus819]

I don't know what the green lilght represents, but does aanyone else think it a very odd, funny detail of this episode the way the wight enters the barrow:



Round the corner a long arm was groping, walking on its fingers towards Sam . . .

[Gilthalion]

Like Thing, from the Addams Family.

[Suldaledhel]

Walking on its fingers means that the hand was crawling towards him, and the fingers were groping along in front of it.. I think not for propulsion, but rather a sense of feel(??) to get a sense of anything that lay in front of it.. but I dont see why the wight would feel his way around rather than just actually look.. hmm beats me.. anyone have any thoughts??



-Sûldal ~ "See, half-brother! This is sharper than thy tounge. Try but once more to usurp my place and the love of my father, and maybe it will rid the Noldor of one who seeks to be master of thralls." -Feanor to Fingolfin-

[Samwise of the shire]

Suld.maybe if the barrow wight looked around the corner then it would've scared Frodo to death-grin-.Hey Rkittle maybe the green stuff was fungi dust and some got on Frodo?Guam Frodo is NOT a young Hobbit he's fifty years old.JTJ why did you have to write that out?The barrow part freaks me out.

[Zoe]

Sam: compared to maia, elves, or even men of noble blood, 50 years was hardly old.

[Elenanna]

but for hobbits that was around middle aged

[burrahobbit]

Not if they had a Ring.

What's a burrahobbit got to do with my pocket, anyways?</p>

[Samwise of the shire]

True.
Well I'm Back

[Elenanna]

If the hobbit had a ring it would still be midle aged, just because the last day of their life is later does not mean that the age is any less old for them. It's still counts as middle aged even if it isn't in the middle of their life. E.g. you would count some-one around the age of 40-50 to be middle aged whether or not they lived to be 100+.

[burrahobbit]

Yes, but with the ring he might as well have still been 33.

What's a burrahobbit got to do with my pocket, anyways?

[Elenanna]

mabye, but he still does age or gets weaker

[burrahobbit]

Of course he gets older, but he would only become weaker with lack of exercise and poor nutrition. The Ring kept him exactly the same as when he first got it, he didn't age. He was &quot;well preserved.&quot;

What's a burrahobbit got to do with my pocket, anyways?

[Elenanna]

I dont mean weaker as in physically I mean weaker without the ring, their will power would weaken and become more attached to the ring, so in the end they would need it to survive

[Galadrielle Annatar]

The thing that came into the room was just an arm as far as I can make out, so there for it was walking on it's hand.

I will support this with evidence from the book as soon as I can be bothered to get up and find the page hehe

[draggonklaw]

(A bit of humor).
I sometimes get a &quot;green glow&quot; that emanates from me when I forget to put on my deodorant in the morning. I mean, by the time I get off work, even the immediate vicinity around me has the &quot;green glow&quot; too!
Perhaps Frodo hadn't put on his deodorant for a couple of days. This raises the question: What do hobbits and other middle-earthling use for deodorant? Maybe some Athelas under the ol' arm pits does the trick! (Bad. I know. Sorry.)
Now seriously, I joke because I think Rkittle hit the nail on the head with his spell theory.
It is horrific to think of how bad things would have turned out in middle earth had the ring fallen into the hands of a Barrow-wight. I'll bet that the ring would have eventually made it back to Sauron. I wonder though If possibly Eru or one of the Ainur had a hand in that situation?

[Elenanna]

Yeah, it definately would've fallen into the hands of Sauron, because I think the barrow wights were under control of the ring wraiths. I thought Eru and the Ainu had a hand in the whole situation, watching over the peoples of middle earth... well definately Eru.

[Hookbill the Goomba]

I've had a few thoughts about this topic and I've come to a few theories...

Both The Barrow Wights and the Nazgûl were (directly or indirectly) a result of Sauron's intervention, correct? Sort of. So, they may well have similar powers and such, yes?
Now, a little quotation from the books:

Originally Posted by The lord of the Rings Book 4, Chapter 8: The Stairs of Cirath Ungol

"All was dark about it, earth and sky, but it was lit with light [...] Paler indeed than the moon ailing in some slow eclipse was the light of it now, wavering and blowing like a noisome exaltation of decay, a corpse-light, a light that illuminated nothing."

This 'corpse-light' seems very interesting to me. Very appropriate for the Barrow Wight, wouldn’t' you say? If it is not the same light, then perhaps it is the same sort of power?

[Farael]

Originally Posted by The Barrow-Wight

I don't think the light was caused by the wight, if that's what you mean. Definitely a Ring thing.

Ah... but we forget that Frodo is described to be a "special" hobbit. No, I'm not saying he glows, but perhaps the green glow is a "reaction" to something the wight is doing. Perhaps it is a counter-spell (innate, of course because Frodo did not know magic). Perhaps it's a counter-spell caused by the Ring.

But we see a correlation between glow and the creepy... sorry, creepING hand. Glow, hand appears, hand gets chopped, no glow.

I think Hookbill may be on to something (read the previous post). It seems that dead, decaying things glow. Another example I can think of are the candles in the dead marshes. So there is another correlation between this glow and dead, wight-like creatures. (Mostly Hookbill's dig, my comparison may be stretching it a bit, but he's right on)

[alatar]

Not exactly sure.

First off, there has to be some light source as the scene is much less interesting when we cannot 'see' anything happening. So I'm guessing that the green glow is a plot device. Green, like in Minas Morgul, to indicate decay.

I initially thought that it was some moss or other plant-life that was emitting the glow, and though that might have been possible in Middle Earth, there are no 'green light-emitting' plants, mosses, etc in the real world. However, if the moss on walls contained the luciferase enzyme, which would be great to have in shubbery, then they would emit the glow. If there were ordinary moss and a little bit of light squeaking though the doorway, we may have a green glow as seen here.

Discounting that, knowing that the Barrow was littered with gems, jewels and other crystals, we could also consider triboluminescence, but that's a bit unlikely due to the lack of activity in the room. I would then say that the green glow is somehow an indication of the wight, and Frodo, being the bearer of the Ring and already, pre-Weathertop, not your average hobbit, is sensitive enough to see it. Why is Frodo set apart? Was this do to the Ring or Frodo's resistance? Or being taken last? (Did I remember that right?) Was the Barrow Wight (in the books, not on this forum ) trying to force Frodo down the wrong path? If Frodo would have walked away, leaving his friends behind in the cold barrow, his downfall and the recapture of the Ring by Sauron would have been assured. Gandalf, later in Rivendell, notes that that moment in the Barrowdowns was the scariest of all in the journey from the Shire to Imladris.

Anyway, those're my thoughts.

[Farael]

Originally Posted by alatar

I initially thought that it was some moss or other plant-life that was emitting the glow, and though that might have been possible in Middle Earth, there are no 'green light-emitting' plants, mosses, etc in the real world. However, if the moss on walls contained the luciferase enzyme, which would be great to have in shubbery, then they would emit the glow. If there were ordinary moss and a little bit of light squeaking though the doorway, we may have a green glow as seen here.

Isn't there some kind of green algae that luminesces? or is it a Protozoan? I remember from first-year bio, they had a flask that if you shook it it'd glow green... maybe Frodo moved and disturbed the Wight's algae? no wonder why he was angry and sung a curse about stiff dead bones. *ahem*

Originally Posted by Alatar

Why is Frodo set apart? Was this do to the Ring or Frodo's resistance? Or being taken last? (Did I remember that right?) Was the Barrow Wight (in the books, not on this forum ) trying to force Frodo down the wrong path? If Frodo would have walked away, leaving his friends behind in the cold barrow, his downfall and the recapture of the Ring by Sauron would have been assured.

Well, I'm not sure that the Wight was trying to nudge Frodo to leave his friends behind and so make it easier for him to be ensnared by the ring. After all, he might as well just grab it and possibly earn some gifts from his Master (by that I mean the Witch King whom I believe awoke the wights on his way to The Shire).

I'm fairly sure he was taken last. Or at least, since we are told the story from Frodo's perspective, by the time he is caught he can no longer hear his friends' screams.

Originally Posted by FoTR Fog on the barrow downs

(to give you an idea of what has happened before without copying too much text, Frodo is screaming for Merry, Sam and Pippin as they got separated in the fog)

'Where are you?' he cried again, both angry and afraid.
'Here!' said a voice, deep and cold, that seemed to come out of the ground. 'I am waiting for you!'

It seems to me that:
a) The Barrow Wight knew of Frodo's coming
b) Frodo was probably the last one of the bunch (else the wight might have said "you and your friends" perhaps?)

Also,

Originally Posted by FoTR

But though his fear was so great that it seemed to be part of the very darkness that was round him, he found himself as he lay thinking about Bilbo Baggins and his stories (...)

(...)He found himself stiffening, as if for a final spring; he no longer felt limp like a helpless prey.
As he lay there, thinking and getting a hold on himself, he noticed all at once that the darkness was slowly giving way: a pale greenish light was growing round him. It did not at first show him what kind of a place he was in, for the light seemed to be coming out of himself, and from the floor beside him

A few pointers before another quote and then my conclussion... hope you are not bored yet.
a) When Frodo is afraid, he can see nothing.
b) When Frodo starts to feel a little less scared, he begins to see
c) The light is not only coming out of himself but from the floor beside him.

I'll discuss C now because it has nothing to do with the quote. Isn't it likely that, in Frodo's altered state of mind, he'd see things a little differently than what they are? What if the floor was glowing, reflecting on Frodo and he thought the light was coming off of him?

Also, to follow up with my luminscent algae theory, He might have spilled the stuff on himself and the floor. After the end of my quote it says that the light had "not yet reached the walls" perhaps it was because the poodle of water and algae had not yet dripped that far. *ahem, back to serious discussion*

Originally Posted by RoTK

(A quick preview to save you lines upon lines of text that do not matter to my point, Sam and Frodo are in the Emyn Muil trying to climb down a mountain, and just as Frodo is giving it a try a Nazghul flies overhead, Frodo slips but luckily lands on a shelf not too far below)

...But either the darkness had grown complete, or else his eyes had lost their sight. All was black about him. He wondered if he had been struck blind. He took a deep breath....

... Quickly Sam unslung his pack and rummaged in it. There indeed at the bottom was a coil of the silken-grey rope made by the folk of Lorien. He cast an end to his master. The darkness seemed to lift from Frodo's eyes, or else his sight was returning. He could see the grey line as it came dangling down, and he thought it had a faint silver sheen.

Again we see that, in a moment of great distress (and when dealing with super-natural creatures) Frodo seems to loose his sight. The only other time (other than these two) that I can think of Frodo being in a similar situation is when he is trying to escape the "Black Riders". Yet by then he did not know exactly who or what they were and perhaps in his ignorance he was not as acutely afraid.

So what's the point of all this? well, the glow may very well have been there all along, it was not until Frodo settled down a bit that he was able to see.

[Firefoot]

It is interesting that the light is green. Green is usually used to show life, vibrancy, and growth; the barrow is quite the opposite, dead and decaying. It provides an interesting contrast - another example of evil twisting around good to make it eerie and foul. Even the light itself - usually another symbol of good - is convoluted. It is a 'cold glow' and causes the precious treasures illumined by it to seem 'cold and unlovely'. Later, when Tom opens up the Barrow, the light that streams in is 'real light.'

[Child of the 7th Age]

Just wanted to mention that there was an old, old thread on the BD started by Joy where folk discussed how "green" could be used to represent dying and death and evil as well as goodness and life. Here.

It's never had that personal connotation for me, but thought you might enjoy seeing this.

[littlemanpoet]

Originally Posted by Farael

Isn't it likely that, in Frodo's altered state of mind, he'd see things a little differently than what they are? What if the floor was glowing, reflecting on Frodo and he thought the light was coming off of him?

It depends upon how altered. Which has everything to do with (1) the length of time he has borne the Ring toward Mount Doom; & (2) his proximity to Mount Doom. The Barrow is pre-Rivendel, pre- "I will take the Ring though I do not know the way". Thus, I would venture to say that what Frodo sees is what is actually there. Compare that to passages in Mordor in which Frodo tells Sam that all he can see is a wheel of fire. But in this case it's not an altered view of what's nearby, but an artifact (the Ring) so powerful, the master of which is so powerful, that it overwhelms Frodo's perceptions. So in the Barrow if there's a green light, then there's light and it's green.

[MatthewM]

A very interesting topic! I've always loved discussing little details like this in The Lord of the Rings. Although I'm not completely sure where I stand in this, I am going to say that the glow is definitely connected somehow to the ghoulish Wight, as the similarities with the Dead Marshes, etc, have been pointed out.

[JennyHallu]

I believe the green light is inextricably connected to the Wight, and not to the Ring.

And I can prove it: I call your attention to that classic documentary of paranormal phenomena and the investigation thereof: Ghostbusters. It is quite clear throughout the film that several of the ghastly creatures captured on film emanate a green light, which is simply the natural color of the phosphorescent ectoplasmic slime they produce.

[littlemanpoet]

Originally Posted by JennyHallu

Ghostbusters. It is quite clear throughout the film that several of the ghastly creatures captured on film emanate a green light, which is simply the natural color of the phosphorescent ectoplasmic slime they produce.

Yup. Like she said. It's the Wight.

[Alcuin]

The green light in the barrow serves two purposes.

• The barrow, of course, is naturally dark, like the inside of a cave – or a cow. There are no torches, the tomb is sealed (how the barrow-wight exited and entered the barrow, especially with the hobbits, is not explained), and covered above with earth. While many real barrows were built with wood, I think this barrow is constructed of megaliths (especially large stones). If there is no light, all the action will take place in the dark, and Frodo will be at too severe a disadvantage. So the green light plays an important part in the telling of the tale.
• The green light is almost unquestionably a “corpse light,” like unto a will-o-wisp, which might be blue or green in color.

Green lights were in the late nineteenth century associated with ghostly visions and with the appearance of the dead. Consider this from Chapter 2 of Oscar Wilde’s The Canterville Ghost, published in 1887:

For a moment the Canterville ghost stood quite motionless in natural indignation; then, dashing the bottle violently upon the polished floor, he fled down the corridor, uttering hollow groans, and emitting a ghastly green light.

In H.G. Wells tale The Plattner Story, published in 1896, the protagonist experiences an explosion in which he enters a world in which others (presumably the dead) can watch our world but have no influence upon it. That world is illumined with a green light.

From “Unseen — Unfeared” by Francis Stevens (pseudonym for Gertrude Barrows Bennett, 1884-1939?), originally published in People's Favorite Magazine (10 February 1919),

Green light is peculiar. It may be far fainter than red, and at the same time far more illuminating.

The green light, in my opinion, harkens to a tradition that decaying matter can produce a greenish glow.

It has been recently noted by Raynor elsewhere in the Forum that Tolkien had probably visited Wayland’s Smithy, a barrow predating the Anglo-Saxons that they attributed to their (Nordic) god Weyland the Smith. Wikipedia reports a Shropshire legend in its will-o-wisp article about a certain “Will the Smith” who is doomed to wander the earth with a coal he uses to lure travelers to their demise. You can read an excellent, short synopsis of the barrow and its history, and see a diagram of its layout here. Notice in this article that “an area of the burial chamber was known as snivelling corner,” reminiscent to me of Tolkien’s description of the wight after Frodo struck it with the sword he found:

With what strength [Frodo] had he hewed at the crawling arm near the wrist, and the hand broke off; but at the same moment the sword splintered up to the hilt. There was a shriek and the light vanished. In the dark there was a snarling noise.

Note also that the sword “splintered up to the hilt,” much like the barrow-blade which withered after Merry smote the Witch-king, the Morgul-knife which melted after it had been used to strike Frodo, and especially Éowyn’s sword when she decapitated the injured Witch-king (Return of the King, “The Battle of the Pelennor Fields”): “The sword broke sparkling into many shards.”

Because it may have influenced Tolkien’s imagination of the barrow, here are images of Wayland’s Smithy in poor lighting and fog:

Frodo was not seized with the other hobbits, but separately from them. They have already been captured and arrayed in the apparel of the dead buried in the tomb. The wight before it places its hands upon Frodo says to him, “‘I am waiting for you!’” Indeed it is, for we are told in Unfinished Tales, “The Hunt for the Ring”, that the Witch-king was responsible for sending the wights into the barrows after the Great Plague of III 1636, and that in September III 3018, when the Nine finally found “Shire” and prepared to flush out the Ring-bearer,

…he himself visited the Barrow-downs. In notes on the movements of the Black Riders at that time it is said that the Black Captain stayed there for some days, and the Barrow-wights were roused, and all things of evil spirit, hostile to Elves and Men, were on the watch with malice…

Reader’s Companion notes that the disembodied hand of the wight resembles Tolkien’s painting of Maddo in Tolkien Artist & Illustrator, plate number 78, which they describe (p. 35) as

a bogey … that was imagined and feared by Tolkien’s second son, Michael, when he was a child.

Hammond and Scull in almost the very last sentence of their chapter on Tolkien’s art for “The Lord of the Rings” note that a “sinister hand” is depicted by Tolkien in another early drawing, Wickedness, in Maddo, on Thror’s map in The Hobbit, and in plate 181, a preliminary sketch for an abandoned dust-jacket for The Return of the King depicting the scene in the chapter “The Field of Cormallen” when Gollum falls into the Cracks of Doom with his Precious:

… as the Captains gazed south to the Land of Mordor, it seemed to them that, black against the pall of cloud, there rose a huge shape of shadow, impenetrable, lightning-crowned, filling all the sky. Enormous it reared above the world, and stretched out towards them a vast threatening hand, terrible but impotent: for even as it leaned over them, a great wind took it, and it was all blown away, and passed; and then a hush fell.

The picture, I believe, is a possible guide to how Tolkien envisioned Sauron, and certainly how he envisioned this scene: I am not aware that he ever again attempted to depict that Umaia in art.

Frodo and his burden were, I believe, what the wight wanted: whether the wight was conscious of the Ring or not, it obeyed its master, the Witch-king, and it recognized that Frodo was different from the other three hobbits, whom it sought to offer as human sacrifice to the Darkness (presumably Morgoth or Sauron). Had Frodo put on the Ring in the barrow, I do not believe he could have escaped: he would have seen the wight in the shadow-world as he later saw the five Nazgûl on Weathertop: the wight could have seized him then and there, and held him until the Witch-king arrived to retrieve his goodies. In fact, when Frodo awoke in safety in Rivendell, Gandalf told him (Fellowship of the Ring, “Many Meetings”):

...you have some strength in you, my dear hobbit! As you showed in the Barrow. That was touch and go: perhaps the most dangerous moment of all. I wish you could have held out at Weathertop.

[CSteefel]

Nice analysis Alcuin. Makes good sense to me.

I recall the line from Gandalf about the time in the Barrow as being the closest call of all. When I first read this, it didn't fully register why this would be the case, as compared to the attack on Weathertop or the race to the Ford of Bruinen, for example. But I think the key is in the Unfinished Tales (quoted above), where it is stated that the Wights were specifically roused by the Witch King. They were apparently on the lookout for the hobbits, or at least the Ring, and presumably Bombadil did not know this or he would not have sent them off by themselves. These Wights, at the behest of the Witch King, were apparently serving as reinforcements for the Nazgul...

But yes, clearly the Wight was after the Ring, which seems not to have anything to do with the greenish light...