The Lord of the Rings: The Passage of the Marshes (Part Three)

The Tale

          In the shadows of evening, they go on. They take frequent rests while Gollum carefully finds the way. When it is dark, they come to the midst of the Dead Marshes. They walk carefully in line and the hobbits watch every move that Gollum makes. The fens grow wetter, and if the trio were not so light they might have sunk down forever.

It grows completely dark. The air seems thick. Sam starts to catch pale lights out of the corner of his eye, and at first he thinks that ‘his head was going queer.’ But they are there: wisps of pale sheen like misty flames flickering slowly above unseen candles or dimly shining smoke. They appear and go out and are replaced by others. At last Sam breaks down and asks Gollum, who are they? Are they trapped?

‘Yes, they are all around us,’ [Gollum] whispered. ‘The tricksy lights. Candles of corpses, yes, yes. Don’t you heed them! Don’t look! Don’t follow them! Where’s the master?’

Sam looks back and finds that Frodo has fallen behind. He goes back and finds Frodo looking at the lights, lost in thought. He urges his master on, relaying Gollum’s warning, and Frodo snaps out of it and follows. Turning back, Sam trips and falls and comes face to face in the dark water. There is a hiss, a smell, and the lights swirl. The water is like a grimy glass, and Sam sees something in it. He springs up with horror. ‘There are dead things, dead faces in the water!’ Gollum cackles. “The Dead Marshes, yes …You should not look in when the candles are lit.’

Sam turns to Frodo and asks what they could be. Frodo does not know. ‘But I have seen them too In the pools when the candles are 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 … I know not who they are, but I thought I saw there Men and Elves, and Orcs beside them.’

Gollum explains that there was a big battle here long ago (‘so they told him when Smeagol was young, when I was young before the Precious came’). The Marshes have come creeping over the years, covering the graves. Sam replies that was an age ago; the bodies cannot really be there. It must be some devilry hatched by Mordor. Who knows? says Gollum. But you can’t reach them or touch them; perhaps they are only shapes. He tried long ago. Sam shudders at the thought of the reasons the ever-hungry Gollum might have had to reach the corpses. ‘Can’t we get on and get away?’

‘Yes, yes,’ said Gollum. ‘But slowly, very slowly. Very carefully! Or hobbit down to join the Dead ones and light little candles. Follow Smeagol! Don’t look at the lights!’

Bits and Bobs

The ignis fatuus, or ‘foolish fire’ (so-called because of its erratic movement, or because only fools would follow it, or because it fools people) is a phenomenon storied in fable and lore, although we now know it as swamp or marsh gas, a mixture of methane and other gases that is caused by rotting vegetation that builds up and then escapes, the phosphine within it causing a transient glow.

But to people in folklore, it can be caused by fairies or ghosts, luring people into the depths of danger or marking where ancient crimes or treasures are buried. It has many names: will o’ the wisp, will-o-wisp, jack o’ lantern, friar’s lantern, hinkypunk, spook-lights, ghost-lights, orbs, and of course, corpse candle. And that is just part of a long list in English folklore; the occurrence has many names in many cultures. In my own native state of Texas, the so-called Marfa Lights, though believed by many to be UFOs, have been considered a species of ignis fatuus.

Sauron has the reputation in the Legendarium of being a master of phantoms and lying apparitions. It is by these means that he traps Gorlim into betraying Beren and his companions (in the first version of Lost Tales this was done by Morgoth). So, it seems likely that the appearance of the Dead in the Marshes was one of his works, both as a trap and a discouragement to stop anyone from crossing the area, but perhaps as a bit of propaganda to boot. You may be a valiant Man or Elf opposing Sauron, but the Dark Lord will reduce you to corpses under his sway, no better than if you had been the most obedient Orc. And like so many of Sauron’s ‘statements’, a lie. Their spirits had long passed beyond his grasp.

Tolkien is said to have probably based this passage partly on his experiences in World War One, when bloated unburied corpses could be seen rotting in pools formed by the shelling in No-man’s-land. The circumstances are well attested to in literature of the period.