Origins of the Dead Marshes

[HCIsland]

First off, I'm not talking about the Fallen from The Last Alliance but instead as to the origin of Tolkien's concept of the marshes.

I'm a high school teacher and we just returned from a field trip. One of the locations we went to was a sphagnum moss bog where this moss grows across the surface of the water. It is this type of bog that is the source of peat moss that is an industry onto itself in many parts of northern Europe.

These bogs are extremely acidic, and as such no bacteria grows in them. This means that things decompose at an extremely slow rate. They are essentially pickled.

So, what does this have to do with Tolkien? In European bogs, over the years, people digging up peat have unearthed thousands of "bog people". These are dead bodies, thousands of years old, that are mummified by the acidic water and extremely well perserved. I don't know enough about European mythology, but I figure these "bog people" must have worked their way into stories somewhere and I'm wondering if anyone may know about these stories and how they may have influenced Tolkien in what he did, specifically when it comes to the Dead Marshes.

H.C.

[Lord of Angmar]

My! That is quite an interesting bit of information, HC. I was aware of such acidic bogs and their "mummified" inhabitants, but had no notion that thousands of these "bog people" had been unearthed. That is quite interesting, and certainly could have been a conscious origin of the Dead Marshes. There do seem to be some striking similarities.

[Sharkû]

Moors, which once formed a major part of Germanic Europe, were commonly the place to execute certain criminals:

<size=-2">"Proditores et transfugas arboribus suspendunt, ignavos et imbelles et corpore infames caeno ac palude, iniecta insuper crate, mergunt. Diversitas supplicii illuc respicit, tamquam scelera ostendi oporteat, dum puniuntur, flagitia abscondi.

[Traitors and deserters are hanged on trees; the coward, the unwarlike, the man stained with abominable vices, is plunged into the mire of the morass with a hurdle put over him. This distinction in punishment means that crime, they think, ought, in being punished, to be exposed, while infamy ought to be buried out of sight.]" Tacitus: Germania, §12</size>

If I recall correctly, some, if not many, of the bog mummies found had marks such as a rope around their neck.


Incidentally, in those very regions, tales of the moor in general seem only to appear, or to have been unearthed and recorded in later centuries (especially in the romanticist period), when moors were no longer part of the common environment, and no longer held a special meaning either.

[Finwe]

Marshes have figured prominently in the tales of several cultures as being frightening places. It is human nature to be afraid of things that you cannot control, and a bog full of mud that is steadily sucking you under is most definitely something that you cannot control.

[Diamond18]

If the "bog people" were mostly condemned criminals, it seems odd that Tolkien would consciously use the idea for Elves, Men and Orcs who simply died in battle—more particulary the Elves and Men who were the "good guys". At any rate, I can't recall any mention of where the idea for the Dead Marshes came from, in the "Letters". But I can see the concept working its way into his subconscious and influencing his ideas. It is a very creepy occurance... these bogs and the fact that people were mummified in them. Perhaps the Dead Marshes are so effectively creepy because they actually do resemble something from the real world.

[Ophelia]

I haven't heard of any bodys in marshes in the folk tales of my country but there is a legend of little lights - if you follow them they take you deep into a bog and there you find you'r doom . I could say that that is exactly what the dead candles do . They are called vadātājs in my native language but in English something like the misguider . So , if you follow the lights you lighten up you'r own light ... For hundreds of years people of old have been afraid of going trough a forest or field at nights for not to fall into the temptation of the lights . I can do a research on this one if you like but so far that is the main I could say .

-Ophelia-

[Evisse the Blue]

I have also heard of the legend of the lights that misguide you through the marshes, Ophelia. it is held that evil spirits or demons inhabit the marshes, taunting people, making them get lost or showing them riches they can never obtain, thus making them go out of their minds.

Probably the abundance of such legends speaks for them having a basis in reality, like the stories about the mumified bodies from the marshes: many strange lights do appear in uninhabited places of some marshes. The scientific theory is that it is actually the result of the spontaneous combustion of swamp gas.

But I can see how the combination of these two true stories (about the executed criminals and the strange lights) could have led to such creepy tales about the marshes, among them - one of the creepiest stories from LOTR.

[Sauron 666]

Personally when i first read the chapter of the Dead Marshes the first thing that came to my mind was WW1 and the stories of soldiers literally drowning in mud. I knew Tolkein had served in WW1 and I thought this was where the inspiration had come from, i'm sure Tolkein had witness a fellow soldier, maybe even a friend, having the horrible misfortune of drowning in the mud at the Somme.

just my opinion though, all the other posts here are very interesting.

[Lathriel]

I agree with Sauron 666 that Tolkein's experience may have crept into the book because the things he went through in WW1 stayed with him for the rest of his life. It is hard to gorget such a gruesome thing.

[Ophelia]

Hay Sauron666 ! I actually remember reading this somewhere , about that Tolkien and WW1 . He really lost some close friends there and he could never forget the sight of that . Correct me if I'm wrong but I really read this somewhere .
And as for those lights , I know that there really are some sort of chemicals and gasses that easily lighten up .
And Evisse the Blue , how did you get to know about these misguiding lights ?

[The Saucepan Man]

From my Concise Oxford English Dictionary:

will-o'-the-wisp ... a phosphorescent light seen on marshy ground, perhaps resulting from the combustion of gasses.

In English folklore, will-o'-the-wisps were indeed believed to be evil spirits that lured people to their deaths in marshy regions. And it is likely, as Evisse and the dictionary definition above both suggest, that the basis for the legend is lights occurring in marshes as a result of the combustion of marsh gasses.

Undoubtedly Tolkien was aware of this legend and it seems pretty clear that it influenced his description of the Dead Marshes, particularly in the manner of Gollum's warning about the lights:

The tricksy lights. Candles of corpses, yes, yes. Don't you heed them! Don't look! Don't follow them!

And later, referring to how they should make their way through the Marshes:

Very carefully! Or hobbits go down to join the Dead ones and light little candles.

[Finwe]

(I know some of you will kill me for this comparison, but I had to make it anyway)

Tolkien wasn't the only author to make use of humans' subconscious fear of bogs. J.K. Rowling did it too, from the prankster Imps, to, on a much darker note, little gnomish creatures who lure travelers into bogs with torchlight (I forget their name).