They are the reeking marshlands that lie northwest of Mordor. Filled with the rotting
dead from battles long ago. But there, long before Frodo, Sam and Gollum would
cross them en route to Mordor, elves, men and orcs from centuries past would find their doom.
Today on Nerd of the Rings, we cover the Dead Marshes.
In 3434 of the Second Age, the Last Alliance is marching to make war upon
Sauron. The army consists of Noldor led by Gil-galad, Men led by Elendil,
Dwarves of Khazad-dum, and Silvan elves led by Amdir of Lothlorien and Thranduil’s father
Oropher from Greenwood. They meet the dark lord’s forces on the plains of Dagorlad outside Mordor.
However, not all of the elves were truly united under the command of Gil-galad. Amdir and Oropher
are Sindarin elves, and didn’t care to be commanded by the high king of the Noldor.
They and their armies of silvan elves charge against the host of Mordor before Gil-galad
gave any such order. While valiant, the silvan elves were ill-equipped compared to the Noldor.
Oropher dies in the initial skirmish, while Amdir and his forces are cut off
and driven into the marshlands northwest of Dagorlad.
Amdir and half of the Galadhrim die there - a heavy price for their commander’s impatience.
The battle of Dagorlad would go on for months and when the Last Alliance was eventually victorious,
they would bury the bodies of the slain in the lands outside the marshes.
Throughout the centuries of the Third Age, the marshes would grow. Slowly they swallow
the numerous graves. Of course, we would learn of the chilling nature of these lands
when Gollum, Sam, and Frodo traverse them in the late Third Age. But Over 1000 years
before that time, there would be others who would find their dooms in the Dead Marshes.
In 1944, Gondor suffers a dual assault where the Haradrim attack from the South and the
Wainriders - chariot riding Easterlings - attack from the East. King Ondoher takes
the northern army to face the Wainriders, while sending Earnil II to face the Haradrim.
However, the Easterlings are too quick. They attack the head of Gondor’s army before it
sets up defensive positions. The King and his sons are killed in the initial onslaught
and in the ensuing chaos, many of the Gondorians are driven into the Dead Marshes.
The Wainriders make camp in Ithilien to celebrate their victory. But little did
they realize Earnil had defeated the Haradrim, and reinforced with those retreating from the north,
he catches the Wainriders by surprise. The Battle of the Camp is a huge victory for
Gondor, and the Wainriders who were not slain in the assault,
were like their previous foes, driven into the Dead Marshes where they perished.
The next reference of the Dead Marshes comes in the prelude to the War of the Ring.
In 3017, when Aragorn catches Gollum on the outskirts of the marshlands.
This was after Gollum had spent the previous eight years being tortured by Sauron
for information on the Ring. It's entirely possible that Gollum first learned his
way through the marshes during his initial trek to Mordor, which led to his captivity.
Two years later, (Feb 29, 3019) Gollum would meet Frodo and Sam in the Emyn Muil
after the breaking of the Fellowship. He tells the hobbits that he knows a
hidden way through the marshes and on March 1st, they begin their passage.
"On either side and in front wide fens and mires now lay, stretching away southward and eastward
into the dim half-light. Mists curled and smoked from dark and noisome pools. The reek of them hung
stifling in the still air. … The hobbits soon found that
what had looked like one vast fen was really an endless network of pools, and soft mires,
and winding half-strangled water-courses. It was dreary and wearisome. Cold clammy
winter still held sway in this forsaken country. The only green was the scum of livid weed on the
dark greasy surfaces of the sullen waters. Dead grasses and rotting reeds loomed up in the mists
like ragged shadows of long-forgotten summers.
Frodo and Sam follow their guide through the festering marshlands,
ever closer to Mordor. Yet in the marshes they would encounter one of the most eerie sights
in all their journey. In the Dead Marshes there are candles and lights dancing about,
mesmerizing those who looked upon them. Gollum tells the hobbits they are tricksy
lights - candles of corpses and says do not heed them, look at them, or follow them.
As he and Frodo make to follow Gollum, Sam trips and finds something more disturbing than lights…
‘There are dead things, dead faces in the water,’ he said with horror. ‘Dead faces!’
Gollum laughed. ‘The Dead Marshes, yes, yes: that is their name,’ he cackled.
‘You should not look in when the candles are lit.’ ‘Who are they? What are they?’
asked Sam shuddering, turning to Frodo, who was now behind him. ‘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.’ Frodo hid his eyes in his hands. ‘I know not who they are; but I thought
I saw there Men and Elves, and Orcs beside them.’ ‘Yes, yes,’ said Gollum. ‘All dead, all rotten.
Elves and Men and Orcs. The Dead Marshes. There was a great battle long ago, yes,
so they told him when Sméagol was young, when I was young before the Precious came.
It was a great battle. Tall Men with long swords, and terrible Elves, and Orcses shrieking.
They fought on the plain for days and months at the Black Gates.
But the Marshes have grown since then, swallowed up the graves; always creeping, creeping.’
‘But that is an age and more ago,’ said Sam. ‘The Dead can’t be really there! Is it some
devilry hatched in the Dark Land?’ ‘Who knows? Sméagol doesn’t know,’
answered Gollum. ‘You cannot reach them, you cannot touch them. We tried once, yes, precious.
I tried once; but you cannot reach them. Only shapes to see, perhaps, not to touch.
No precious! All dead.’ Sam looked darkly at him and shuddered again,
thinking that he guessed why Sméagol had tried to touch them. ‘Well, I don’t want to see them,’ he
said. ‘Never again! Can’t we get on and get away?’ ‘Yes, yes,’ said Gollum. ‘But slowly, very slowly.
Very carefully! Or hobbits go down to join the Dead ones and light little candles.
Follow Sméagol! Don’t look at lights!’
While we often stick within the story of Middle-earth, the Dead Marshes are
one of those things that seem to have a very strong connection to Tolkien’s own experience
in World War I, and I feel it’s definitely worth noting. As Tolkien states in Letter 226:
Personally I do not think that either war (and of course not the atomic bomb) had any influence
upon either the plot or the manner of its unfolding. Perhaps in landscape. The Dead Marshes
and the approaches to the Morannon owe something to Northern France after the Battle of the Somme.
This is something I thought was really well depicted in the Tolkien biopic from
a few years back, where the blast craters in the no man’s land between the two sides
would create pools, with the bodies of fallen soldiers floating in them.
Returning to the story, Frodo, Sam, and Gollum would come to the end of the Dead Marshes on March
2nd. That night they, see a winged Nazgul fly overhead. Though they had successfully passed
the pools of the dead, there were yet many dangers on the path that lie ahead.
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