The Dead and The Undead

[Boromir88]

Thank you for the link (and the link in the thread you linked), Mithadan. I think they will do exactly what you intend, and spark more discussion. Necromancy is certainly linked to a topic about the dead and the undead.

I was intrigued by the comment, in one of the threads, about Isildur and his heirs (Aragorn) being able to use weapons of Sauron (the Dead of Dunharrow) against him. I don't recall reading any character making that comment, but Aragorn is able to command the spirits of the oath-breakers. I don't think we could call Isildur or Aragorn necromancers, but it is an interesting point in perhaps understanding the power Aragorn had to "summon the dead to fight."

Looking at the words of Isildur's curse is interesting:

'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 the years uncounted, and you shall be summone once again ere the end."~The Passing of the Grey Company

So the curse is their spirits will never be able to rest until they fulfill the oath they made to Isildur. What is perhaps more interesting is Isildur says Sauron was their "Black Master." Over the years I've perhaps forgotten and just assumed the Men of Dunharrow did not fight because they were scared of their mortality and frightened of the power of Sauron, but it's more than that:

"But when Sauron returned and grew in might again, Isildur summoned the Men of the Mountains to fulfill their oath, and they would not: for they had worshiped Sauron in the Dark Years."~ibid

This is going to be a lot of speculation on my part, but it contradicts what I had always assumed. I assumed they didn't fight because they feared death and then ironically, breaking their oath was the punishment for fearing their own mortality. But it goes beyond that, reading they had "worshiped" Sauron I think suggests possibly a cult or practitioners of sorcery. Is it too much of a stretch to see "worship" as having an association to necromancy, and therefor the Dead Men are indeed a case of weapons of Sauron being used against him?

[Formendacil]

We don't know much (really, do we know anything?) about the worship of Sauron in Middle-earth beyond that he WAS worshipped, but I think that some comparative "religious studies" to what we know of the Melkor-worship he introduced in Númenor would, in fact, suggest that Sauron-worship in Middle-earth was heavily tied to Death and the fear of death, which, ironically, seems to have involved deaths and accelerated dying.

[Zigûr]

Originally Posted by Formendacil

WI think that some comparative "religious studies" to what we know of the Melkor-worship he introduced in Númenor would, in fact, suggest that Sauron-worship in Middle-earth was heavily tied to Death and the fear of death, which, ironically, seems to have involved deaths and accelerated dying.

I agree. The Black Númenóreans also worshipped Sauron "being enamoured of evil knowledge", suggesting that he promised them insight into things Men were not meant to wot of. It wouldn't surprise me if Sauron-worship, at least in some quarters, focused on the fruitless pursuit of long life and power over the wills of others.

Incidentally, I believe the door that Baldor was found trying to open was the entrance to a temple to Sauron, or the Shadow more generally, beneath the Haunted Mountain.

Whether that was the same as the Sauron-religion propagated among the Easterlings and Haradrim may also be worth a separate discussion: "To them Sauron was both king and god; and they feared him exceedingly".

[Boromir88]

Originally Posted by Formendacil

We don't know much (really, do we know anything?) about the worship of Sauron in Middle-earth beyond that he WAS worshipped, but I think that some comparative "religious studies" to what we know of the Melkor-worship he introduced in Númenor would, in fact, suggest that Sauron-worship in Middle-earth was heavily tied to Death and the fear of death, which, ironically, seems to have involved deaths and accelerated dying.

Originally Posted by Zigûr

Incidentally, I believe the door that Baldor was found trying to open was the entrance to a temple to Sauron, or the Shadow more generally, beneath the Haunted Mountain.

Interesting about the door Baldor finds, and it may give some clues as to the Sauron-worship by the Men of Dunharrow:

...Brego and his son Baldor climbed the Stair of the Hold and so came before the Door. On the threshold sat an old man, aged beyond the guess of years; tall and kingly he had been, but now he was withered as an old stone. Indeed for stone they took him, for he moved not, and he said no word, until they sought to pass him by and enter. And then a voice came out of him, as it were out of the ground, and to their amaze it spoke in the western tongue: The way is shut.

'Then they halted and looked at him and saw that he lived still; but he did not look at them. The way is shut, his voice said again. It was made by those who are Dead, and the Dead keep it, until the time comes. The way is shut.'

'And when will that time be? said Baldor. But no answer did he ever get. For the old man died in that hour and fell upon his face; and no other tidings of the ancient dwellers in the mountains have our folk ever learned. Yet maybe at last the time foretold has come, and Aragorn may pass.'~The Muster of Rohan

This is Theoden's account and I like the feel that it's an urban legend telling of what's been passed down through the Kings of Rohan. It leaves me to wonder that the old man outside the door was already dead, re-animated by one of the cursed spirits because it spoke "as it were out of the ground." The spirit exits and "the old man died in that hour and fell upon his face." Creepy, necromancy Sauron-worship!

[Huinesoron]

Originally Posted by Boromir88

This is Theoden's account and I like the feel that it's an urban legend telling of what's been passed down through the Kings of Rohan. It leaves me to wonder that the old man outside the door was already dead, re-animated by one of the cursed spirits because it spoke "as it were out of the ground." The spirit exits and "the old man died in that hour and fell upon his face." Creepy, necromancy Sauron-worship!

See, now I'd always taken this story entirely at face value, but now you've got me thinking about it... could the 'old man' be a Drúedain watch-stone? We know the Púkel-men were considered to be carved by them, and the repeated references to stone suggest it - as does the fact that Tolkien bothered to write "The Faithful Stone" at all. There's no other stories which link them to animated statues, right? The idea of the 'old man' as an ancient watch-stone expending its last drop of energy does seem to hold up.

If so, this would mean there were four players in the drama of The Broken Oath: the men of the mountains, Sauron who had corrupted them, Isildur who wanted their alliegance - and the Woses, ignored by everyone else, who carefully set their watch-stones to guard the cursed caverns which the Oathbreakers still haunted.

hS

[Galadriel55]

Originally Posted by Zigûr

Incidentally, I believe the door that Baldor was found trying to open was the entrance to a temple to Sauron, or the Shadow more generally, beneath the Haunted Mountain.

I am curious about this. Is there any source to suggest this as Baldor's destination?

Originally Posted by Boromir88

This is going to be a lot of speculation on my part, but it contradicts what I had always assumed. I assumed they didn't fight because they feared death and then ironically, breaking their oath was the punishment for fearing their own mortality.

But that brings up another player, our favourite king of Numenor. Ar-Pharazon and his men are also trapped in a deathless state, truly in punishment for desiring immortality. What does make them? Still living? Undead? Or does that depend on the state of their hroas and the connection between hroa and fea, if the spirit is still bound to the body?

[Huinesoron]

Originally Posted by Galadriel55

I am curious about this. Is there any source to suggest this as Baldor's destination?

I wondered that same thing. Aragorn may imply it, if you squint: he calls out "Keep your hoards and your secrets hidden in the Accursed Years!" Accursed Years implies a direct connection to Sauron, and I'm sure I've seen (somewhere!) the secrets used as a synonym for the Mysteries. The other possibility that sticks out is that it was just a treasure room (hence 'hoards') - but if Rohan is inspired by the Anglo-Saxons, it's worth noting that some of the richest places in Saxon England were the churches and monasteries (much to their detriment when the Vikings showed up!)

I've just glanced through the drafts given in HoME VIII, and... well, CT didn't even give them in full, so close were they to the text. The only difference is that Baldor is named by Aragorn directly, and a passing mention that even after the Paths were no longer haunted, nobody went through his stone door.

What's weird is that I have a very clear memory of reading that section for the first time, and being sure that Baldor was outside a golden door. It's literally only in this thread that I've discovered it's just stone. I must be mixing it up with something, but have no idea what!

hS

[Boromir88]

Originally Posted by Huinesoron

See, now I'd always taken this story entirely at face value, but now you've got me thinking about it... could the 'old man' be a Drúedain watch-stone? We know the Púkel-men were considered to be carved by them, and the repeated references to stone suggest it - as does the fact that Tolkien bothered to write "The Faithful Stone" at all. There's no other stories which link them to animated statues, right? The idea of the 'old man' as an ancient watch-stone expending its last drop of energy does seem to hold up.

If so, this would mean there were four players in the drama of The Broken Oath: the men of the mountains, Sauron who had corrupted them, Isildur who wanted their alliegance - and the Woses, ignored by everyone else, who carefully set their watch-stones to guard the cursed caverns which the Oathbreakers still haunted.

hS

Well, it could have simply been an old man, that is I believe the traditional reading is the face value interpretation. Some 2500 years pass from when Isildur cursed them and Baldor finds the door. Despite that I think the area was still populated by Pukel-men and the Men of Dunharrow were ancestors of the Dunlendings, who had been pushed into the White Mountains by the Numenoreans and then the Rohirrim.

It seems like that would be an awful occupation, just sitting outside the entrance to a Sauron Temple to warn intruders the way is shut. In 2500 years it appears only Baldor and Brego stumbled upon it. When I read the part this last time, I can't shake out the image the old man is the bridge-keeper from Monty Python.

(Edit: and actually the quote from The Rivers and Beacon-hills of Gondor does suggest it was a living old-man, as the end suggests enemies snuck up from behind Baldor and broke his legs. Grim!)

Originally Posted by Galadriel55

I am curious about this. Is there any source to suggest this as Baldor's destination?

It comes from a later essay Tolkien wrote but did not complete, The Rivers and Beacon-hills of Gondor. The essay is referenced in HOME, but CT said was not completely published do to lack of space. I think the expectation is The Rivers and Beacon-hills of Gondor will be published in the new book, The Nature of Middle-earth.

The Men of Darkness built temples, some of great size, usually surrounded by dark trees, often in caverns (natural or delved) in secret valleys of mountain-regions; such as the dreadful halls and passages under the Haunted Mountain beyond the Dark Door (Gate of the Dead) in Dunharrow. The special horror of the closed door before which the skeleton of Baldor was found was probably due to the fact that the door was the entrance to an evil temple hall to which Baldor had come, probably without opposition up to that point. But the door was shut in his face, and enemies that had followed him silently came up and broke his legs and left him to die in the darkness, unable to find any way out.

[Morthoron]

In regards to the Dead Marshes, of course Tolkien was referring to his horrid experience in WWI seeing dead bloated soldiers staring lifelessly as they bobbed up from the murky water at the bottom of bomb craters and foxholes: "the Dead Marshes and the approaches to the Morannon owe something to Northern France after the Battle of the Somme."

What is interesting about Tolkien's ghastly reminiscence is that he married his personal horror to folktales of Welsh and Irish origin:

'I don't know,' said Frodo in a dreamlike voice. 'But I have seen them too. In the pools when the candles were lit. They lie in all the pools, pale faces, deep deep under the dark water. I saw them: grim faces and evil, and noble faces and sad. Many faces proud and fair, and weeds in their silver hair. But all foul, all rotting, all dead. A fell light is in them.'

Gollum refers to these lights as "corpse candles", a motif used often in old ghost tales that either act as a precursor to death, or more malevolently led travelers off the road at night and to their watery deaths in bogs and fens, known in legend as the Ignis Fatuus: a light that sometimes appears in the night over marshy ground and is often attributable to the combustion of gas from decomposed organic matter.

As far as the dead themselves, as noted they look grim, evil, noble, sad, proud, fair -- an approximation of their previous lives and personas mirrored below the foul water. They are not animate, they are reflections; although Tolkien never explained why "a fell light was in them."

Tolkien also notes the Dead Marshes "owe more to William Morris and his Huns and Romans in The House of the Wolfings and The Root of the Mountains." Now, it's been decades since I read Morris, so I can't recall in what context Tolkien was referencing, but I do remember how Tolkienish it seemed (in a Rohirric sort of way), and I will always remember "the treasure of the world, the Dwarf-wrought Hauberk." Weird what one retains.

[Huinesoron]

Originally Posted by Mithadan

To add a bit to this discussion, I am linking an old thread (which, in turn, links another even older one) that touches upon some of these issues. I certainly am not doing this to discourage discussion, but rather to add more ammunition.

http://forum.barrowdowns.com/showthr...ght=necromancy

Reading over the Necromancy thread, I was struck by William Cloud Hicklin speculating that at one point, Tolkien might have considered werewolves and vampires to be the spirits of the dead forced by Sauron into the bodies of animals, and presumably bound fast to his will. It's not a well-supported idea, but "Sauron the Chainer of Souls" would account for basically all of the "Undead".

• The Barrow-wights are souls pushed into human bodies other than their own.
• Werewolves and vampires, if they even count, would be human/elvish souls stuffed into wolves and giant bats.
• The Silent Watchers would be bound in stone - easy enough for Sauron, who had already stuffed part of his own spirit into a Ring.
• The Nazgul are bound in the remnants of their own bodies, and possibly even more under Sauron's control for it.
• The Dead Marshes are literally just spirits trapped in the water.
• The Ghosts of Cardolan are probably the same - the souls of the dead, 'sleeping' where they fell.
• Eilinel too? She's called a "phantom devised by wizardry", but that doesn't mean she can't have been the 'sleeping' spectre (= ghost = phantom) of the real woman.
• The Dead of Dunharrow... it would be really dumb of Sauron not to put "and your souls belong to me when you die" into his religion. The men of the Mountains had abrogated their right to pass from the world, but Sauron was defeated and unable to claim them; they had to stay where they were until either the Dark Lord rose to full power, or they fulfilled the conditions laid on them by Iluvatar's chief priest - Isildur, as High King - to reclaim their rightful fate.

There's a clear distinction between spirits which are actively doing Sauron's will (the Wights, the Nazgul) and those which are just 'sleeping' (the ghosts of the Marshes and Cardolan). Speculatively, the difference might be that the active set chose to serve Sauron after death, whereas the 'sleepers' were ensnared, by dying somewhere that was under his power. The Dead of Dunharrow would come somewhere in the middle - they're there willingly, so have an active 'fear' effect, but also have a way out provided to them by Isildur, so aren't utterly dominated slaves. Gorlim, too - he obeyed Sauron but repented, so while he may have been trapped, he wasn't (fully?) controlled. If we want a happy ending for Gorlim and Eilinel, we can assume that Sauron's 'sleeping' souls were released when Luthien broke his power.

Ar-Pharazon and his soldiers, I don't think are undead at all. Iluvatar can put His children into stasis-like sleep - he did it to the Fathers of the Dwarves for centuries! The Numenoreans are probably in the same state.

Originally Posted by Boromir88

Well, it could have simply been an old man, that is I believe the traditional reading is the face value interpretation. Some 2500 years pass from when Isildur cursed them and Baldor finds the door. Despite that I think the area was still populated by Pukel-men and the Men of Dunharrow were ancestors of the Dunlendings, who had been pushed into the White Mountains by the Numenoreans and then the Rohirrim.

(Edit: and actually the quote from The Rivers and Beacon-hills of Gondor does suggest it was a living old-man, as the end suggests enemies snuck up from behind Baldor and broke his legs. Grim!)

An earlier draft specifically says the old man looked a lot like the Pukel-men statues, which strongly implies he wasn't one. I still wonder if he might have been a Wose, though, standing guard over the ancient evil.

I actually don't much like the 'snuck up behind and broke his legs' story: the text in LotR implies a supernatural explanation, with Baldor wasting away while hacking and scrabbling at the stone door under an overwhelming compulsion to get inside. The idea that he wandered in, got beat up, couldn't find the way out so just kept trying the door in front of him while he bled out is pretty dull by comparison.

But if it did happen, given the swords of the Dead have no bite, it seems to imply either the Men of the Mountains were still a viable population thousands of years after their cursing (presumably each one who died left another ghost?), or that someone - the Woses? - was really determined that nobody be allowed to unlock their secrets.

Or, zombies. But I feel like that might have come up while Gimli was going on about them just being spooky ghosts.

hS

[Galadriel55]

Originally Posted by Huinesoron

Ar-Pharazon and his soldiers, I don't think are undead at all. Iluvatar can put His children into stasis-like sleep - he did it to the Fathers of the Dwarves for centuries! The Numenoreans are probably in the same state.

But if they are peacefully asleep, doesn't it defeat the point of the punishment? They have to be conscious in order for it to count, so that they can feel just how weary they are and regret their choices. You can't do that asleep. And I equally don't believe the Fathers of the Dwarves were conscious during their long sleep, that would be cruel to them. No peaceful nap for Ar Phar. Sleep paralysis - maybe.

Originally Posted by Hui

I actually don't much like the 'snuck up behind and broke his legs' story: the text in LotR implies a supernatural explanation, with Baldor wasting away while hacking and scrabbling at the stone door under an overwhelming compulsion to get inside. The idea that he wandered in, got beat up, couldn't find the way out so just kept trying the door in front of him while he bled out is pretty dull by comparison.

So I am also not a fan of real living people being the cause of Baldor's desperation and death. Whatever happened, I prefer that it happened by the power that the dead have over the living. Baldor could easily have broken his own legs if he was recklessly fleeing a nameless fear in complete darkness in the caves.

But by the same token, one of the ideas I've entertained for a while is that we don't even know if he was under an overwhelming compulsion to get in, or get out. Aragorn assumes he was going in, because he's standing there with a torch and a sense of direction. But it's equally possible that Baldor, driven half to madness and losing his way in the dark for however long, was desperate to get out of the caves and could not find the way back. Or, if not get out, then possibly get away, hide, run. All of these are well in the power of the dead spirits. We assume he was after what's behind the door, but we don't know what motivation drove him so intensely to hack at the stone as his strength failed.

Do we know the contents of Baldor's vow? ROTK only says "a rash vow he spoke". If the vow was just to enter the passage, it was fulfilled, he had no reason to seek anything beyond for the vow's sake. If it was to discover the secrets of the place - perhaps, but how strong would it's force be against the dead? And besides, surely there are other places to discover secrets except for this locked door, there's no reason to die scratching at it fruitlessly when there are other options around that would fulfil the vow. So I don't think Baldor stayed there by his own choice, at least; it was not likely his vow that kept him at it.

[Zigûr]

Originally Posted by Morthoron

Tolkien also notes the Dead Marshes "owe more to William Morris and his Huns and Romans in The House of the Wolfings and The Root of the Mountains." Now, it's been decades since I read Morris, so I can't recall in what context Tolkien was referencing

Originally Posted by Boromir88

I know nothing about William Morris, so I can't add anything to that piece of information.

I have read (and been published on) both The House of the Wolfings and The Roots of the Mountains and I'm unsure what Tolkien means, unless his syntax is getting mixed up and he's referring to his writings more generally. It's possible that he is saying that the desolation of the marshes is influenced by Morris's depiction of the Romans and the Huns as marauders who laid waste to the natural environment (as opposed to his nature-loving Goths) and left it in ruins for years to come.

And yes the information in Rivers and beacon-hills of Gondor does somewhat spoil the mystery of the death of Baldor. The idea that his legs were broken by the inhabitants of the Dwimorberg suggests that the Men of Dunharrow still hadn't died out 2,500 years after the end of the Second Age, which seems odd.

[Huinesoron]

Originally Posted by Boromir88

I am familiar with the connection Tolkien makes between the Dead Marshes and Northern France. I believe in the letter he briefly writes the plot doesn't represent the World Wars, but perhaps the landscape did.

Which is the interpretation that made the most sense to me, because I think the descriptions of the landscape through the entire story are perhaps the most fascinating. The land has a "character" of its own, influenced by the people (or unknown things) who lived there.

Originally Posted by Zigûr

I have read (and been published on) both The House of the Wolfings and The Roots of the Mountains and I'm unsure what Tolkien means, unless his syntax is getting mixed up and he's referring to his writings more generally. It's possible that he is saying that the desolation of the marshes is influenced by Morris's depiction of the Romans and the Huns as marauders who laid waste to the natural environment (as opposed to his nature-loving Goths) and left it in ruins for years to come.

Interesting! (I own the Morris books but don't remember them, so am very glad of Zigûr's expertise!) It really does sound like Tolkien drew a distinction between the physical appearance of things (Dead Marshes = the Somme), and their character (approach to Mordor = like the worlds of the Huns and Romans) - and that, unlike what would be my first instinct, he viewed the character as the true "inspiration".

That ties in with the way he doesn't seem to much care what his characters look like, assigning them physical traits only when they can sound properly Old English Epic (tall, bright eyes, hair like shadow following). I think he attributed the same kind of distinction to the Noldorin language-masters, who insisted Quenya was more like Primitive Quendian than Telerin was, even though Telerin kept the sounds more faithfully: they considered the nuances of grammar more significant than what it actually looked/sounded like.

Struggling to remember the Morris books... Zigûr, I know there's a wood-sprite type figure in one of them (shades of Goldberry), but is there anything spooky enough to be a thematic source for any of the undead, such as the Marshes?

hS

[Formendacil]

Originally Posted by Zigûr

And yes the information in Rivers and beacon-hills of Gondor does somewhat spoil the mystery of the death of Baldor. The idea that his legs were broken by the inhabitants of the Dwimorberg suggests that the Men of Dunharrow still hadn't died out 2,500 years after the end of the Second Age, which seems odd.

It comes down solely to taste whether or not one likes the Rivers and Beacon Hills story. It is very "late Tolkien" if that makes any sense as an aesthetic judgment. That said, I don't find it immediately implausible that there would be descendants of the Dead still living and active in the White Mountains 2500 years later, because we know there were.

Thing is though, we call them Men of Gondor and refer to the hinterlands south of the Mountains. And the same people still dwelt west of the Gap: the Dunlendings. The idea that there was still some remnant of the White Mountain "Deadlendings" seems very Tolkienesque. And, certainly, with the Dúnedain in Calenardhon being few, it's easy to imagine Gondorians living mostly near the Great Road and either Angrenost or Aglarond--plenty of possibility for remnants of the Mountain people to survive further up, who could have possibly still had some sort of contact with their more-assimilated kin across the White Mountains.

Certainly, we know that the Dunlendings still harbour bitterness at the time of the War of the Ring toward the Rohirrim for usurping "their" land. While this could have specific reference to areas closer to Dunland (I'm thinking especially of the angle between the Adorn, which is a point of contention in Helm's day), it seems to be Calenardhon in general, and it seems more plausible to me that they'd resent the Rohirrim specifically, who are latecomers, if they still had some sort of presence in the White Mountains.

I suppose they needn't be LITERAL descendants (i.e. father to son to son) of the Deadlendings. Perhaps the Curséd Ones literally died out, but whatever lands or homes they had, I doubt they were abandoned completely, and we know Gondor never occupied the area in great numbers, which to me implies a native population. We know that the Dunlendings were willing to live under Gondorian rule as a mixed population retaining some of their culture (c.f. the state of Isengard just before Saruman is given its care--is that part of the "Cirion and Eorl" section of UT?), and a better-integrated version of the same happened south of the White Mountains as Gondor reinforced itself with the men of the Mountains--i.e. cultural kin of the Dunlendings and the Deadlendings.

So I can easily imagine that the Calenardhon-side of the White Mountains was (probably lightly) settled by a folk akin to the Dunlendings and Gondorian hinterlands, and these probably dwindled and thinned even as the Dúnedain did: probably never a great population there, and exposed to dangers like the Wainriders and Balchoth. When Cirion gave away that land to the Rohirrim, there were probably few enough left to think of it as "none," but the idea that there might have been a small sect that, instead of fleeing to Gondor or Isengard or Dunland holed up behind Dunharrow, seems possible.

If so, maybe there was a long chain of hidden continuity with the Dead, but there needn't have been: the Paths of the Dead wouldn't have had any terror if the Dead couldn't influence the living, and the idea that the Dead might have corrupted or used some embittered near-Dunlendings driven to anger at the loss of THEIR land in the service of, as they'd see it, their own kin, to maim and kill Bregor as a sort of dark revenge ritual... well, I'm enjoying the idea.

[Huinesoron]

Originally Posted by Huinesoron

I wondered that same thing. Aragorn may imply it, if you squint: he calls out "Keep your hoards and your secrets hidden in the Accursed Years!"

I was just thinking about this when I read Tolkien's poem The Hoard, collected in "The Adventures of Tom Bombadil". The Foreword only describes it as "depend[ing] on the lore of Rivendell, Elvish and Numenorean", but it the poem ends like this:

There is an old hoard in a dark rock,
forgotten behind doors none can unlock;
that grim gate no man can pass.
On the mound grows the green grass;
there sheep feed and the larks soar,
and the wind blows from the sea-shore.
The old hoard the Night shall keep,
while earth waits and the Elves sleep.

I think this poem has to be about the Paths of the Dead. Aragorn's description of Baldor, just before 'keep your hoards', reads in part:

Originally Posted by RotK

‘Nine mounds and seven there are now green with grass, and through all the long years he has lain at the door that he could not unlock.

That's too close for coincidence. My guess is that Tolkien wrote the poem first, and was thinking of it when he wrote about Dunharrow, though it certainly could be the other way round.

The poem seems to track the fate of a hoard of gold and jewels: made by elves in the First Age, taken by the dwarves, seized by dragons, claimed by a young warrior, and hoarded in the mountains by a king whose evil country was wiped out by an unknown enemy.

That looks a lot like an amalgam. As a hobbit-poem that's about what we'd expect, and the Rohan connection makes me wonder if it was written by Merry, who we know was into lore. He could have merged what little he knew about the Paths of the Dead with the tale of Fram and Scatha, and then blended the whole thing with Bilbo's adventures (Elven treasure taken by dwarves and then dragons). But as an informative tale about the Dead of Dunharrow, I think it's probably lacking.

hS

[William Cloud Hicklin]

The Hoard long predates The Lord of the Rings, and its internal echoes (not direct, but inspirational) are the hoard of Nargothrond and Mim