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Originally Posted by Inziladun
Embalming could explain this, as the Númenoreans certainly practised the art, but I would question whether they did it as a matter of custom on all their people, or just their Kings (and later, Stewards).
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Barrow-Downs were Royal tombs where Chieftains and Kings of the Edain were buried over the ages. Perhaps the oldest, pre-Numenorean, barrows had the corpses not embalmed, so the Wights who entered these mounds would have to be content with mere bones. The barrow in question, dating from TA 1409, obviously contained the embalmed corpses of the Last Prince of Cardolan and his family, including the Lady of the Brooch. They would be still well preserved in 1636 - so this particular Wight could have got a nice whole body.
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Indeed. If the Wight knew of the existence of the Ring, why wasn't it taken from Frodo immediately? That is why I simply cannot believe that the Wights did know. The Witch-king stayed there for a while, and his presence acted as a catalyst to increase the hostility of other evil creatues in the area. But did he actually tell those creatures what he was doing, and what they should look for? Again, the actions of the Wight that took the hobbits seem to indicate it was doing its own thing, evil in itself, but not necessarily in lock step with the goals of the Witch-king.
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I think the Wight desired to "play" with the unnecessary, ringless hobbits, those the WK wouldn't want anyway. The hobbit who had the Ring was set aside, awaiting to be delivered to the nazgul.
I don't believe the Wight, being an Evil magical creature, was unable to feel which one of the hobbits carried a powerful artifact, imbued with Darkness. Maybe it didn't know what exactly it was, but it felt its magic strongly, I guess.
Orcs who had attacked Isildur were drawn to the Ring (UT), though they had no idea of its existence. The Watcher-in-the-water picked Frodo unerringly out of the company of nine, and so did the orc who rushed into the Chamber of Mazarbul and hit Frodo with a spear.
It is quite possible, IMO, that it was the Ring that permitted Frodo to overcome the Wight's magick and to wake up in time to save the others - much like the Ring unwittingly helped Sam against the Orcs at Cirith Ungol.