Frodo's Barrow Dilemma

[Pitchwife]

Originally Posted by Inziladun

At any rate, I don't believe they and the Nazgûl were creatures of the same order.

Not in the final version, but I vaguely remember a note from the early drafts (in HoME VI) where Tolkien toyed with the idea that the Black Riders (whose nature he hadn't quite determined at the time) could be something like Barrow-wights on horses. Seems like the idea of some connection between the Nazgûl and the Wights was one of those things that appeared early in the writing process and hung around in his head until the end, even if their precise meaning underwent several mutations.