Nazgûl

The Nazgûl (from Black Speech nazg, "ring", and gûl, "wraith, spirit"), introduced as Black Riders and also called Ringwraiths, Dark Riders, the Nine Riders, or simply the Nine, are fictional characters in J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth legendarium. They were nine Men who had succumbed to Sauron's power through wearing Rings of Power, which gave them immortality but reduced them to invisible wraiths, servants bound to the power of the One Ring and completely under Sauron's control.

"Black Breath", "Dark Riders", and "Black Riders" redirect here. For the black power political organization, see Black Riders Liberation Party. For the supervillain team, see Dark Riders (comics). For the American hardcore band, see Black Breath (band). For other uses, see Nazgul (disambiguation).

Nazgûl
In-universe information
Aliases	The Nine Úlairi[T 1] (in Quenya) Black Riders Fell Riders Ringwraiths
Book(s)	The Fellowship of the Ring (1954), The Two Towers (1954), The Return of the King (1955), The Silmarillion (1977), Unfinished Tales (1980)

The Lord of the Rings calls them Sauron's "most terrible servants". Their leader had been the King of Angmar, and their main stronghold was the city of Minas Morgul at the entrance to Sauron's realm, Mordor. They dress entirely in black; in their early forays they ride on black horses, but later they ride flying monsters, which Tolkien later described as "pterodactylic". Their main weapon is terror, though in their pursuit of the Ring-bearer Frodo, their leader uses a Morgul-knife which would reduce its victim to a wraith, and they carry ordinary swords. In his final battle, the Lord of the Nazgûl attacks Éowyn with a mace. The hobbit Merry stabs him with an ancient enchanted Númenórean blade, allowing Éowyn to kill him with her sword.

Commentators have written that the Nazgûl serve on the ordinary level of story as dangerous opponents; at the romantic level as the enemies of the heroic protagonists; and at the mythic level, where the Lord of the Nazgûl works magic such as bursting the gates of Minas Tirith with magical spells, and calls himself Death. The prophecy that the Lord of the Nazgûl would not die by the hand of man echoes that made of Macbeth; Tolkien disliked Shakespeare's treatment of myth, and critics have found Tolkien's use of a woman and a hobbit better than Shakespeare's solution.

The Nazgûl appear in numerous adaptations of Tolkien's writings, including animated and live-action films and computer games. Species of several different kinds of animal, including an ant, a crustacean, and a parasitoid wasp, have been named after them.

Fictional history

Second Age

Those who used the Nine Rings became mighty in their day, kings, sorcerers, and warriors of old. They obtained glory and great wealth, yet it turned to their downfall. They had, as it seemed, unending life, yet life became unendurable to them. They could walk, if they would, unseen by all eyes in this world beneath the sun, and they could see things in worlds invisible to mortal men; but too often they beheld only the phantoms and delusions of Sauron. And one by one, sooner or later, according to their native strength and to the good or evil of their wills in the beginning, they fell under the thraldom of the ring that they bore and of the domination of the One which was Sauron's. And they became forever invisible save to him that wore the Ruling Ring, and they entered into the realm of shadows. The Nazgûl were they, the Ringwraiths, the Úlairi, the Enemy's most terrible servants; darkness went with them, and they cried with the voices of death.

The Silmarillion, "Of the Rings of Power and the Third Age"[T 2]

The Nazgûl or Ringwraiths (Quenya plural: Úlairi) first appeared in the Second Age, according to the "Akallabêth" in The Silmarillion. The Dark Lord Sauron gave nine of the Rings of Power to powerful mortal men, including three lords of the once-powerful realm of Númenor and kings of other countries.[T 1][T 3][lower-alpha 1]

The Silmarillion states in "Of the Rings of Power and the Third Age" that the rings enslaved their bearers to the power of Sauron's Ring, into which he had put much of his own power. The corrupting effect of the rings extended the bearers' earthly lives far beyond their normal lifespans.[T 2][lower-alpha 2]

The Nazgûl had a sharp sense of smell.[2] The Lord of the Rings states that their sight worked differently, too: "They themselves do not see the world of light as we do, but our shapes cast shadows in their minds, which only the noon sun destroys; and in the dark they perceive many signs and forms that are hidden from us: then they are most to be feared."[T 6] Their chief weapon was terror; it was so powerful that Sauron faced one disadvantage when using them: they could not easily travel in secret.[T 3] Tolkien added, in Unfinished Tales, that the terror they spread was greater when they were unclad and invisible; and when they were gathered together.[T 7]

Few of the Nazgûl are named or identified individually in Tolkien's works. Their chief, also known as the Lord of the Nazgûl and the Black Captain, appears as the Witch-king of Angmar during the Third Age, instrumental in the destruction of the North-kingdom of Arnor.[T 8] In Unfinished Tales, his second-in-command is named as Khamûl, the "Black Easterling" or the "Shadow of the East".[T 9] Three of the Nazgûl were great Númenórean lords;[T 1] in his notes for translators, Tolkien speculated that the Witch-king of Angmar, a northern kingdom with its capital at Carn Dûm, was of Númenórean origin.[T 10]

The nine, as Nazgûl, were soon established as Sauron's principal servants.[T 11] They were dispersed after the first overthrow of Sauron late in the Second Age at the hands of the Last Alliance of Elves and Men, but their survival was assured since the One Ring survived.[T 11]

Third Age

The appendices to The Lord of the Rings state that the Nazgûl re-emerged over a thousand years later in the Third Age, when the Lord of the Nazgûl led Sauron's forces against the successor kingdoms of Arnor: Rhudaur, Cardolan, and Arthedain. He effectively destroyed all of these, but was eventually defeated by the Elf-lord Glorfindel, who put him to flight, and made the prophecy that "not by the hand of man will he fall".[T 12] He escaped, and returned to Mordor. There, he gathered the other Nazgûl in preparation for the return of Sauron to that realm.[T 12][T 13]

The Nazgûl besieged Minas Ithil and, after two years, captured it and acquired its palantír for Sauron. The city thereafter became Minas Morgul, the stronghold of the Nazgûl.[T 13] Sauron returned from Dol Guldur in Mirkwood to Mordor late in the Third Age and declared himself openly.[T 14] He sent two or three of the Nazgûl to garrison Dol Guldur.[T 13]

By the time of the main narrative of The Lord of the Rings, Sauron had already learned from Gollum that a hobbit, Bilbo Baggins of the Shire, had acquired the One Ring.[T 15] Sauron entrusted its recovery to the Nazgûl. They reappeared "west of the River", riding black horses that were bred or trained in Mordor to endure their terror.[T 14] They learned that the Ring had passed to Bilbo's heir, Frodo, and hunted him and his companions across the Shire; the hobbits heard what seemed to be snuffling, and sometimes saw them crawling or crouching.[T 16][T 17] The hobbits escaped, via Tom Bombadil's realm of the Old Forest where they were not pursued, to Bree.[T 18][T 19][T 20] A Ranger of the North, Aragorn, arrived ahead of them and for some days led the hobbits on paths not closely followed by the Ringwraiths.[T 21][T 22]

Five of the Nazgûl cornered Frodo and his company at Weathertop, where the Witch-king stabbed Frodo in the shoulder with the Morgul-knife, breaking off a piece of it in the Hobbit's flesh.[T 6] During their assault, they mentally commanded Frodo to put on the One Ring; while wearing it, he saw them as pale figures robed in white, with "haggard hands", helmets and swords. The Witch-king was taller than the others, with "long and gleaming" hair and a crown on his helmet.[T 6]

When all Nine were swept away by the waters of the river Bruinen, their horses were drowned, and the Ringwraiths were forced to return to Mordor to regroup.[T 23] The nine companions of the Fellowship of the Ring left Rivendell as the "Nine Walkers", in opposition to the Nazgûl, the "Nine Riders".[T 24] The latter reappeared mounted on hideous flying beasts.[T 25][T 26]

The Nazgûl came again ... like vultures that expect their fill of doomed men's flesh. Out of sight and shot they flew, and yet were ever present, and their deadly voices rent the air. More unbearable they became, not less, at each new cry. At length even the stout-hearted would fling themselves to the ground as the hidden menace passed over them, or they would stand, letting their weapons fall from nerveless hands while into their minds a blackness came, and they thought no more of war, but only of hiding and of crawling, and of death.

The Return of the King, "The Siege of Gondor"[3]

During the Battle of the Pelennor Fields, the Lord of the Nazgûl used black magic, including Grond, a battering-ram engraved with evil spells, to break the gates of Minas Tirith. He was faced by Éowyn, a noblewoman of Rohan; and not far away, Merry, a hobbit of the Fellowship. Éowyn boldly called the Nazgûl a "dwimmerlaik", telling him to go if he was not deathless.[lower-alpha 3] He cast back his hood to reveal a crown, but the head that wore it was invisible. Merry's surreptitious stroke with an enchanted Barrow-blade brought the Nazgûl to his knees, allowing Éowyn, the niece of Théoden, to drive her sword between his crown and mantle.[T 25] Thus was the Witch-king destroyed by a woman and a Hobbit, fulfilling Glorfindel's prophecy.[T 12] Both weapons that pierced him disintegrated, and both assailants were stricken with the Black Breath.[T 25] After the fall of the Lord of the Nazgûl, command of Mordor's army in the field fell to Gothmog, the "lieutenant of Morgul", of unspecified race.[lower-alpha 4][T 27]

The remaining eight Ringwraiths attacked the Army of the West during the Battle of the Morannon.[T 28] When Frodo claimed the Ring for his own in Mount Doom, Sauron, finally realizing his peril, ordered the remaining eight Nazgûl to fly to intercept him. They arrived too late: Gollum seized the Ring and fell into the Cracks of Doom, destroying the Ring. That ended Sauron's power and everything he had brought into being using it, including the Nazgûl.[T 29]

Steeds

Tolkien stated that the Nazgûl's "fell beasts", while not intended actually to be pterodactyls, were "obviously ... pterodactylic".[T 26] Early reconstruction of a pterodactyl shown

The Nazgûl's flying steeds are given various descriptions but no name. Beregond calls them "Hell Hawks". Tolkien describes them as "fell beasts", though Tolkien applies the adjective fell ("fierce, cruel") to a variety of other creatures throughout The Lord of the Rings – even at one point to the wizard Gandalf. In a letter, he calls the winged mounts "Nazgûl-birds".[T 30] In the absence of a proper name, derivative works sometimes press "fellbeast" or "fell-beast" into service.[7]

In the Battle of the Pelennor Fields, where the Lord of the Nazgûl rode one of the flying beasts against King Théoden of Rohan, his mount is described as:[T 25]

a winged creature: if bird, then greater than all other birds, and it was naked, and neither quill nor feather did it bear, and its vast pinions were as webs of hide between horned fingers; and it stank. A creature of an older world maybe it was ...[T 25]

It is said to attack with "beak and claw".[T 25] Tolkien wrote that he "did not intend the steed of the Witch-king to be what is now called a 'pterodactyl'", while acknowledging "obviously it is pterodactylic and owes much to the "new ... mythology" [of the "Prehistoric"], and might even be "a last survivor of older geological eras."[T 26]

The medievalist Marjorie Burns compares the fell beast to the Poetic Edda's flying steed Sleipnir, "Odin's eight-legged otherworldly horse". She writes that whereas Gandalf's horse Shadowfax resembles Sleipnir in his miraculous speed and in almost seeming to fly, the Nazgûl's mount actually flies but is a "negative image" of Odin's steed; and, she notes, both Odin and the Nazgûl can cause blindness.[8]

Significance

Development

Tolkien began writing The Lord of the Rings with no conception of Black Riders at all. The horseman in dark clothes in the early chapter "Three is Company"[T 16] was originally Gandalf; in 1938, Tolkien called the figure's transformation into a Black Rider "an unpremeditated turn".[9][T 31] Frodo's ring, too, was simply a magic ring conferring invisibility, both in The Hobbit and early drafts of The Lord of the Rings, with no link to Sauron. However, Tolkien was at the time starting to consider the true nature of the Ring, and the idea that it had been made by the Necromancer, and drew itself or its bearer back to him.[9][T 32] The Black Riders became Ringwraiths when the hobbit, at that time called Bingo rather than Frodo, discussed the Riders with the Elf Gildor, later in the same chapter. Over the next three years, Tolkien gradually developed the connections between the Nazgûl, the One Ring, Sauron, and all the other Rings of Power. The pieces finally all came together when Tolkien wrote "The Mirror of Galadriel", some hundreds of pages later, around the autumn of 1941.[9][T 33][T 34]

Literary modes

The Tolkien critic Tom Shippey writes that the Nazgûl function at different stylistic levels or modes (as categorised by Northrop Frye in his Anatomy of Criticism) in the story. At one level, they serve simply as story elements, dangerous opponents. But, Shippey notes, the level rises from the romantic, with heroes taking on the black riders, to the mythic, giving as example the assault of Minas Tirith. The leader of the Nazgûl directs the attack on the Great Gate; he bursts the gate using both the battering-ram Grond, written with "spells of ruin", and with "words of power and terror to rend both heart and stone".[T 35][10]

Evil, the absence of good

The Lord of the Nazgûl hovers close to being an abstraction, "a vast menace of despair ... a huge shadow",[T 35] Shippey notes, actually calling himself Death: "Old fool! This is my hour. Do you not know Death when you see it?"[T 35][10] The scene forms, too, a picture of the "unexistence of evil",[10] based on the Boethian philosophy that God is all-powerful, so evil is not the equal and opposite of good, but simply its absence:[11] he forms "a huge shadow".[10]

Invisible, but corporeal

A Nazgûl, depicted as a shadowy but solid body, cloaked and hooded, wearing a sword, and mounted on a horse[12]

Despite his shadowiness and invisibility, Shippey writes, the Nazgûl on the Pelennor Fields also comes as close as he ever does to seeming human, having human form inside his black robes, carrying a sword, and laughing to reveal his power when he throws back his hood, revealing a king's crown on his invisible head.[10]

Yvette Kisor, a scholar of literature, writes that while the Ringwraiths and others (like Frodo) who wear Rings of Power become invisible, they do not lose any of their corporeality, being present as physical bodies. They require, she writes, physical steeds to carry them about, and they can wield swords. She notes that only a person in a body can wield the One Ring, so the invisibility is just "a trick of sight". When Frodo, wearing the Ring, saw the Nazgûl in the "twilight world", they appeared solid, not shadowy. He also saw Glorfindel in that world, as a figure of white flame; and Gandalf explains later that the Ringwraiths were "dismayed" to see "an Elf-lord revealed in his wrath".[T 36][12][13] Frodo is in danger of "fading" permanently into invisibility and the twilight world, as the Ringwraiths have done, living "in another mode of reality". She writes, too, that Merry's sword, with the special power to sever the Witch-king's "undead flesh" and in particular to overcome the "spell that knit his unseen sinews to his will",[T 25] has in fact to cut through real, but invisible, sinews and flesh.[12]

Gradual incarnation

Steve Walker, a Tolkien scholar, writes that the story gives the Ringwraiths credibility through a "gradual incarnation of bodiless presence". Little by little, in his view, Tolkien increases the reader's insight into their nature, starting with Black Riders who are "spies more human than diabolical", rather than developing their character. Walker sees this as appropriate in psychological terms: the Nazgûl's main weapons are psychological, namely fear and despair. He writes that the progressive revelation of their capabilities, and their "escalation of steeds" from horses to fell beasts, builds up in the reader's mind an "increasingly infernal vision".[14]

Prophecy both true and false

The Tolkien critic David Day writes that Tolkien particularly disliked Shakespeare's treatment of myth, and must have resolved to do better. Day compares Tolkien's prophecy "not by the hand of man will [the Lord of the Nazgûl] fall" to Shakespeare's account of Macbeth, who should "laugh to scorn / The power of man, for none of woman born / Shall harm Macbeth" (Act 4, scene 1): Macbeth is killed by one who "was from his mother's womb / Untimely ripp'd" (as Macduff was born by Caesarean section: Act 5, scene 8). In both cases, the prophecies are at once true and false: Macduff was a living man, but not strictly born; while Éowyn and Meriadoc were not men, but woman and hobbit, in Day's view a distinctly better solution than Shakespeare's.[15]

Adaptations

Films

The Nazgûl hacking and slashing at the hobbits' beds in the Prancing Pony inn at Bree, in Ralph Bakshi's 1978 animated film version

The Nazgûl are featured in adaptations of The Lord of the Rings on radio, film, and stage.

In Ralph Bakshi's 1978 animated film version of The Lord of the Rings, the Nazgûl "shamble and limp like zombies".[16] They hack and slash the Hobbits' beds at The Prancing Pony inn, whereas Tolkien does not identify the assailants.[T 37]

A Nazgûl portrayed in Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings film trilogy

In the Rankin-Bass adaptation of The Return of the King, the Nazgûl are robed skeletons with white hair. They ride winged horses, although the Witch-king rides a creature more in line with the book when he confronts Éowyn.[17]

In the 1981 BBC Radio serial of The Lord of the Rings, the Nazgûl chant the Ring-inscription in the Black Speech of Mordor.[18]

In The Lord of the Rings film trilogy (2001–2003) by Peter Jackson, the Nazgûl are almost always concealed by cloaks; they attack the inn at Bree themselves.[19] During the siege of Minas Tirith, the Witch-king wears a distinctive helmet over his hood resembling a mask and a crown, rather than the crown worn underneath his hood in the book.[20] Their shrieks are distorted recordings of producer and screenwriter Fran Walsh's scream.[21]

John Howe's illustration of the Witch-king's flying steed drove the design of the monsters in Peter Jackson's films.[22]

Minas Morgul is shown first in The Fellowship of the Ring, when the Nazgûl leave the city and ride towards the Shire to pursue the One Ring. It features again when Frodo and Sam make their way towards Cirith Ungol. These sets were designed by the illustrator John Howe.[23] All nine Nazgûl are shown riding winged monsters. Jackson's monsters explicitly differ from Tolkien's description in that they have teeth instead of beaks. The Nazgûl use them in battle more extensively than in the book. In the film the Witch-king's mount is largely responsible for the death of Théoden and his horse Snowmane, a departure from the book. As confirmed in the films' audio commentary, the design of the monsters was based largely on illustrations by John Howe.[22][24]

In the fan-made 2009 film The Hunt for Gollum, Aragorn fights a Ringwraith on the borders of Mirkwood.[25]

In Jackson's 2012-2014 The Hobbit film trilogy, a prequel to the Lord of the Rings trilogy, the men who became the Nazgûl are said to have been buried and sealed within the invented High Fells of Rhudaur. In the first film, Radagast briefly encounters the Witch-king while investigating Dol Guldur, and gives the Nazgûl's Morgul dagger to Gandalf to present at the White Council as proof of their return. In the second film, at Galadriel's behest, Gandalf heads to the High Fells and finds that all the Nazgûl have left the tomb. This confirms the Necromancer's identity as Sauron, as the Nazgûl appear alongside their master in the third film in spectral forms wearing Morgul armour and fight Elrond and Saruman before being driven away by Galadriel.[26]

Games

The Nazgûl are featured in the video game Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor and its sequel Middle-earth: Shadow of War. In the latter, Isildur is revealed to be one of the Nazgûl before he is killed by the game's protagonist, Talion. Talion takes Isildur's ring to prolong his life and eventually became Isildur's replacement until the demise of the Nazgûl in the Return of the King.[27] For the expansion to its real-time strategy game The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-earth II, The Rise of the Witch-king, Electronic Arts invented the name Morgomir for one of the Nazgûl.[28]

Influence

The black ant species Tetramorium nazgul

In taxonomy, the black ant species Tetramorium nazgul is named for Tolkien's Ringwraiths,[29] as are the stink bug Acledra nazgul,[30] the marine crustacean Potamalpheops nazgul,[31] and the amphibian Abavorana nazgul.[32] The genus of parasitoid wasps Nazgulia, type species N. petiolata, has the same origin.[33]

The fantasy novelist George R. R. Martin's 1983 The Armageddon Rag tells the tale of a rock promoter who had managed a band named the Nazgûl, and was found ritually murdered on the 10th anniversary of the band's breakup.[34]

Notes

1. In his notes for translators, Tolkien suggested that the leader of the Nazgûl, the Witch-king of Angmar, was of Númenórean origin, but later removed the passage.[1]
2. Tolkien in some places stated that the Ringwraiths wore their rings, and in others that Sauron kept control by holding the rings himself: "They would have obeyed . . . any minor command of his that did not interfere with their errand — laid upon them by Sauron, who still through their nine rings (which he held) had primary control of their wills".[T 4] They were by far the most powerful of his servants, and the most suitable for such a mission, since they were entirely enslaved to their Nine Rings, which he now himself held[T 5]
3. "Dwimmerlaik" represents a word in Rohirric, the speech of Rohan, translated into Old English; Tolkien glosses it in the index as a "work of necromancy", a "spectre". It derives from Old English (ge)dwimor, "phantom, illusion" and -leikr, the Old Norse ending corresponding to Anglo-Saxon -lac, meaning "a state or act".[4] Tom Shippey writes that Tolkien borrowed the word from a Middle English poem, Layamon's Brut.[5]
4. Hammond and Scull comment that fans' suggestions that Gothmog was a Nazgûl are "no more than speculation". They note that an earlier Gothmog was "Lord of Balrogs", who killed Fëanor and Fingon, and was killed in the assault on Gondolin. They note also that "lieutenant of Morgul" could mean the second-in-command either of Minas Morgul or "more likely" of the Morgul-lord, the Lord of the Nazgûl.[6]

References

Primary

This list identifies each item's location in Tolkien's writings.

1. The Silmarillion, "The Akallabêth", p. 267. "Yet Sauron was ever guileful, and it is said that among those whom he ensnared with the Nine Rings three were great lords of Númenórean race."
2. The Silmarillion, "Of the Rings of Power and the Third Age"
3. Unfinished Tales, 4. "The Hunt for the Ring" i. "Of the Journey of the Black Riders"
4. Letters, #246 to Mrs Eileen Elgar, September 1963
5. Unfinished Tales, "Journey of the Black Riders"
6. The Fellowship of the Ring book 1, ch. 11 "A Knife in the Dark"
7. Unfinished Tales, 4. "The Hunt for the Ring" ii. "Other Versions of the Story"
8. The Return of the King, Appendix A, 1 "The Numenorean Kings"
9. Unfinished Tales, Index, entry for Khamûl
10. Tolkien writes: "the name and origin of the Witch-king is not recorded, but he was probably of Númenórean descent." Wayne G. Hammond & Christina Scull, The Lord of the Rings: A Reader's Companion, p. 20. Tolkien later removed the passage; it does not appear in the version in Jared Lobdell's A Tolkien Compass.
11. The Return of the King, Appendix B, "The Tale of Years", entries in "The Second Age"
12. The Return of the King, Appendix A, I, iv "Gondor and the heirs of Anarion"
13. The Return of the King, Appendix B, "The Tale of Years", entries in "The Third Age"
14. The Fellowship of the Ring, book 2, ch. 2 "The Council of Elrond"
15. The Fellowship of the Ring, book 1, ch. 2 "The Shadow of the Past"
16. The Fellowship of the Ring book 1, ch. 3 "Three is Company"
17. The Fellowship of the Ring book 1, ch. 4 "A Short Cut to Mushrooms"
18. The Fellowship of the Ring book 1, ch. 6 "The Old Forest"
19. The Fellowship of the Ring book 1, ch. 7 "In the House of Tom Bombadil"
20. The Fellowship of the Ring book 1, ch. 8 "Fog on the Barrow-downs"
21. The Fellowship of the Ring book 1, ch. 9 "At the Sign of the Prancing Pony"
22. The Fellowship of the Ring book 1, ch. 10 "Strider"
23. The Fellowship of the Ring book 1, ch. 12 "Flight to the Ford"
24. The Fellowship of the Ring book 2, ch. 3 "The Ring Goes South"
25. The Return of the King, book 5, ch. 6, "The Battle of the Pelennor Fields"
26. Letters, #211 to Rhona Beare, 14 October 1958
27. The Return of the King, book 5, ch. 6, "The Battle of the Pelennor Fields". "There they had been mustered for the sack of the City and the rape of Gondor, waiting on the call of their Captain. He now was destroyed; but Gothmog the lieutenant of Morgul had flung them into the fray..."
28. The Return of the King, book 5, ch. 10 "The Black Gate Opens"
29. The Return of the King book 6, ch. 3, "Mount Doom"
30. Letters, #100 to Christopher Tolkien, 29 May 1945, expressing his "loathing" for the Royal Air Force: "My sentiments are more or less those that Frodo would have had if he discovered some Hobbits learning to ride Nazgûl-birds, 'for the liberation of the Shire'."
31. Letters, #26 to Stanley Unwin, 4 March 1938
32. The Return of the Shadow, pp. 42-43
33. The Fellowship of the Ring, book 2, ch. 7 "The Mirror of Galadriel"
34. The Treason of Isengard, pp. 259-260
35. The Return of the King, book 5, ch. 4, "The Siege of Gondor"
36. The Fellowship of the Ring book 2, ch. 1 "Many Meetings"
37. The Fellowship of the Ring, book 1, ch. 10, "Strider". "In dark and loneliness they are strongest; they will not openly attack a house where there are lights and many people — not until they are desperate, not while all the long leagues of Eriador still lie before us. But their power is in terror, and already some in Bree are in their clutch. They will drive these wretches to some evil work: [Bill] Ferny, and some of the strangers, and, maybe, [Harry] the gatekeeper too."

Secondary

1. Hammond, Wayne G.; Scull, Christina, The Lord of the Rings: A Reader's Companion, p. 20.
2. Foster, Robert (1978). Guide to Middle Earth. Ballantine Books. p. 184. ISBN 978-0-345-27547-9.
3. The Return of the King, book 5, ch. 4 "The Siege of Gondor"
4. Tolkien, Christopher (1990). The War of the Ring. The History of Middle-earth. p. 372. ISBN 0-395-56008-X.
5. Shippey, Tom (2005) [1982]. The Road to Middle-Earth (Third ed.). HarperCollins. p. 394. ISBN 978-0261102750.
6. Hammond, Wayne G.; Scull, Christina (2005). The Lord of the Rings: A Reader's Companion. HarperCollins. p. 565. ISBN 978-0-00-720907-1.
7. Turbine, Inc. The Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar. Level/area: Barad Guldur.
8. Burns, Marjorie (2005). Perilous Realms: Celtic and Norse in Tolkien's Middle-earth. University of Toronto Press. pp. 104–106. ISBN 978-0-8020-3806-7.
9. Scull, Christina (2006). Hammond, Wayne G.; Scull, Christina (eds.). What Did He Know and When Did He Know It?. The Lord of the Rings, 1954-2004 : Scholarship in Honor of Richard E. Blackwelder. Marquette University Press. pp. 101–112. ISBN 0-87462-018-X. OCLC 298788493.
10. Shippey, Tom (2005) [1982]. The Road to Middle-Earth (Third ed.). HarperCollins. pp. 242–243. ISBN 978-0261102750.
11. Shippey, Tom (2005) [1982]. The Road to Middle-Earth (Third ed.). HarperCollins. pp. 131–133. ISBN 978-0261102750.
12. Kisor, Yvette (2013). Vaccaro, Christopher (ed.). Incorporeality and Transformation in The Lord of the Rings. The Body in Tolkien's Legendarium: Essays on Middle-earth Corporeality. McFarland. pp. 20–38. ISBN 978-0786474783.
13. Croft, Janet Brennan (2014). "Review: The Body in Tolkien's Legendarium: Essays on Middle-earth". Mythlore. 33 (1, Fall/Winter 2014): 146–149.
14. Walker, Steve C. (2009). The Power of Tolkien's Prose: Middle-Earth's Magical Style. Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 23–24. ISBN 978-0230101661.
15. Day, David (2019). Macbeth. A Dictionary of Sources of Tolkien. Octopus. p. 176. ISBN 978-0-7537-3406-3.
16. Gilkeson, Austin (13 November 2018). "Ralph Bakshi's The Lord of the Rings Brought Tolkien from the Counterculture to the Big Screen". TOR. Retrieved 20 May 2020. Bakshi's Nazgúl shamble and limp like zombies, giving them a truly creepy feeling. Understandably unsettled, the hobbits decide to skip Buckland—and also the Old Forest, Tom Bombadil's house, and the Barrow-downs—and head straight to The Prancing Pony in Bree.
17. Gilkeson, Austin (24 April 2019). "Middle-earth's Weirdest film: Rankin-Bass' Animated The Return of the King". TOR. Retrieved 20 May 2020. Now, I should add that while eight of the nine Nazgûl are skeletons with beautiful heads of white hair riding on flying horses, the Witch-king is more traditionally invisible. ... The Witch-king does finally appear, riding a decently dragonish fell beast rather than a Pegasus.
18. Nephrite (22 January 2019). "Audiobook Review: The Lord Of The Rings: The Two Towers(1981)". The Orkney News. Retrieved 28 May 2020.
19. Rosebury, Brian (2003). The Lord of the Rings: Imagining Middle-earth. Tolkien. Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 11–59. ISBN 978-1-4039-1263-3.
20. Dembrow, Dylan (4 November 2018). "Lord Of The Rings: 20 Strangest Details About Witch-King's Anatomy". ScreenRant. To better distinguish him from his fellow Nazgul, the Witch-king was given additional armor and a large, pointed helm. In the novels, whenever his hood is thrown back, he is described as wearing a king’s crown, which floats atop his invisible head and his burning eyes of fire.
21. Brooks Barnes (30 November 2012). "Middle-Earth Wizard's Not-So-Silent Partner". The New York Times. She also performed with Naked Spots Dance, another punk band. (It was probably good practice for what “Rings” fans know as the “Nazgul scream,” a high-pitched screech made by Tolkien’s evil Ringwraiths and performed by Ms. Walsh. “I’m a very good screamer,” she said by telephone. “It’s not that I scream at people. But I can scream. I went into the room with the mike and let out all the stress and the horror and the terror of making those films.”)
22. Dellamorte, Andrew (20 June 2011). "The Lord of the Rings: The Motion Picture Trilogy: Extended Edition Blu-ray Review". Collider. Retrieved 11 March 2020.
23. Big-atures (Special Extended Edition documentary) (DVD). New Line Cinema. 2004.
24. See also Conlogue, Ray (16 December 2003). "Tolkien's gentlemanly art of war". The Globe and Mail.
25. Mooney, Michael (20 January 2014). "The Hunt For Gollum". filmscramble. Retrieved 20 May 2020.
26. LaSala, Jeff (14 November 2014). "Extending The Desolation of Smaug: More Is More". TOR. Retrieved 21 May 2020.
27. Mithaiwala, Mansoor (25 October 2017). "How Shadow of War Breaks Tolkien's Middle-Earth Lore". ScreenRant. Retrieved 21 May 2020.
28. "The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle Earth II: The Rise of the Witch-King". Behind the Voice Actors. Retrieved 21 May 2020.
29. Garcia, Fransisco Hita; Fischer, Brian L. (2012). "The ant genus Tetramorium Mayr (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) in the Malagasy region—taxonomic revision of the T. kelleri and T. tortuosum species groups" (PDF). Zootaxa.
30. Faundez, Eduardo (7 September 2016). "South American Stink Bug Named after J. R. R. Tolkien's Nazgûl". Entomology Today. Retrieved 23 May 2020.
31. "Potamalpheops nazgul Christodoulou, Iliffe & De Grave, 2019". WoRMS. Retrieved 23 May 2020.
32. "Abavorana nazgul Quah, Anuar, Grismer, Wood, Azizah, and Muin, 2017". American Museum of Natural History. Retrieved 23 May 2020.
33. Forshage, Mattias; Broad, Gavin R.; Papilloud, Natalie Dale-Skey; Vårdal, Hege (2016). "Insect species described by Karl-Johan Hedqvist". Journal of Hymenoptera Research. 51: 101–158. doi:10.3897/jhr.51.9296. ISSN 1314-2607.
34. Pringle, David (1998). St. James guide to horror, ghost & gothic writers. St. James Press. pp. 388–390. ISBN 978-1-55862-206-7. OCLC 38149929.

Sources

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