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Elentari
Joined: 12 May 2003
Posts: 254
Location: Lost in elven dreams...
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 Posted: Sun May 22, 2005 8:51 am Post subject: Dead Marshes |
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Silly yet highly annoying question.
Was the Dead Marshes created in the Last Alliance battle (and, as my not-so-very-bright calculations led me to believe, the result of all those nice but poorly armed greenwood elves fighting Sauron's orcs) or did they exist before and only increased with it?
(I Guess Gollum said 'a battle long ago... men and elves[es] and orcses...' but at this point things are just mixed up in my mind.)
Need to know.
And since I am here, is the correct term orquish or orcish??? |
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SpaceWeavil
Joined: 27 May 2004
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| Posted: Sun May 22, 2005 10:05 am Post subject: |
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There is a quote, I believe in Unfinished Tales, that said Amdir, who led the Lorien elves to the Last Alliance, was cut off from the rest of the army and driven into the marshes. For that reason I always thought the marshland itself was there, and only became full of bodies after the Alliance, if that makes sense?
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NancyBrooke
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| Posted: Mon May 23, 2005 8:45 am Post subject: |
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I think you've pretty much got it, Ghetto.
I read it as the Marshes existed previously and expanded to absorb the graveyard of the Last Alliance.
In The Two Towers chapter "The Passage Of The Marshes" Gollum tells Frodo and Sam:
| Quote: | | "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." |
Were Gollum's people living in the area at the time? I wasn't sure ... that might make an interesting story - what they saw, if they hid, how they survived etc. 
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NancyBrooke
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| Posted: Mon May 23, 2005 8:46 am Post subject: Re: Dead Marshes |
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| Elentari wrote: | | And since I am here, is the correct term orquish or orcish??? |
Oh ... and, 'Orcish'.
(How'd that Q get in there?)
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Elentari
Joined: 12 May 2003
Posts: 254
Location: Lost in elven dreams...
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| Posted: Mon May 23, 2005 9:31 am Post subject: |
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I have found a new term also- orkish. Now I am wondering whether orkish is the more 'ancient' term... and damn if i know how it got there either...
Just making sure: Marshes always existed, but they sprad after the battle and encompassed the graves. How on earth did they actually trap the souls of the fallen warriors? I know that some elves in the FA refused to go to the Halls of Mandos, doublessly not sure whether that was yet another trick of the Bad Guy, but by the end of second age they ought to know better. And I am not even mentioning orcs and men.
Plus, Sauron lost the ring and was for many years weak and helpless (We only have news of him a thousand years after, when he built and occupied Dol Guldur in 1100 TA) So who made the spell (if that was it) to trap the souls? The Witch King???
Plus, I think I remember the plain where Orophin fell was not far from there. Is it possible that they were close by? (Leggy's grandpa never went to mandos...)
Elentari, confused. |
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SpaceWeavil
Joined: 27 May 2004
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| Posted: Mon May 23, 2005 12:25 pm Post subject: |
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| NancyBrooke wrote: | I think you've pretty much got it, Ghetto.
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Ghetto? 
As for Orcish v. Orkish, I've read, I think on Ardalambion, a quote from Tolkien saying that Orkish was preferred over Orcish, something to do with the consonants. I'll try and remember where I read that.
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NancyBrooke
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| Posted: Mon May 23, 2005 3:50 pm Post subject: |
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| SpaceWeavil wrote: | | NancyBrooke wrote: | I think you've pretty much got it, Ghetto.
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Ghetto? |
Sorry, Weavil ... brain squelch. 
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NancyBrooke
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| Posted: Mon May 23, 2005 3:54 pm Post subject: |
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| Elentari wrote: | How on earth did they actually trap the souls of the fallen warriors?
Elentari, confused. |
 Souls? Where does it say their souls were trapped? I always figured it was the rotting bodies ... though Gollum does say you can't reach them and Frodo says they are fair (well, some, anyway). Never thought those were actual Elf souls trapped in there, a la The Paths of The Dead ... that would suck.
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SpaceWeavil
Joined: 27 May 2004
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| Posted: Mon May 23, 2005 3:58 pm Post subject: |
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| NancyBrooke wrote: | | Elentari wrote: | How on earth did they actually trap the souls of the fallen warriors?
Elentari, confused. |
Souls? Where does it say their souls were trapped? I always figured it was the rotting bodies ... though Gollum does say you can't reach them and Frodo says they are fair (well, some, anyway). Never thought those were actual Elf souls trapped in there, a la The Paths of The Dead ... that would suck. |
Unless they are unhoused fëar, maybe hanging around there because they won't answer the call of Mandos for some reason? Otherwise I don't know.
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AngmarofCarnDum
Joined: 15 May 2005
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| Posted: Mon May 23, 2005 8:40 pm Post subject: |
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| SpaceWeavil wrote: | | NancyBrooke wrote: | | Elentari wrote: | How on earth did they actually trap the souls of the fallen warriors?
Elentari, confused. |
Souls? Where does it say their souls were trapped? I always figured it was the rotting bodies ... though Gollum does say you can't reach them and Frodo says they are fair (well, some, anyway). Never thought those were actual Elf souls trapped in there, a la The Paths of The Dead ... that would suck. |
Unless they are unhoused fëar, maybe hanging around there because they won't answer the call of Mandos for some reason? Otherwise I don't know. |
There are several possibilities from which to choose concerning why Elven fëar refuse to answer the call of Mandos.
1. Unwilling to leave a place because of personal reasons (ie. hatred, bitterness, vengefulness, or the reverse love the place too well to leave, etc.) - "But it would seem that in these after days more and more of the elves, be they of the Eldalië in origin or be they of other kinds, who linger in Middle Earth now refuse the summons of Mandos and wander houseless in the world, unwilling to leave it and unable to inhabit it, haunting trees or springs or hidden places that they once knew. Not all of these are kindly or unstained by the Shadow. Indeed the refusal of the summons is in itself a sign of taint."
2. Fëar are thralls of Melkor and/or Sauron. "The fëa is single, and in the last impregnable. It cannot be brought to Mandos. It is summoned; and the summons proceeds from just authority, and is imperative; yet it may be refused. Among those who refused the summons (or rather invitation) of the Valar to Aman in the first years of the Elves, refusal of the summons to Mandos and the Halls of Waiting is, the Eldar say, frequent. It was less frequent, however, in ancient days, while Morgoth was in Arda, or his servant Sauron after him; for then the fëa unbodied would flee in terror of the Shadow to any refuge - unless it were already committed to the Darkness and passed then into its dominion. In like manner even some of the Eldar who had become corrupted refused the summons, and then had little power to resist the counter-summons of Morgoth."
This does not seem to apply to the ones in the Dead Marshes, however. Probably the simplest explanation is that they are in the category of "battlefield ghosts," those spectral beings that, it is said, refuse to leave the scene where they met violent death. (Haunted Gettysburg, haunted Antietam, etc.)
No one can really figure them out either. 
Quotes from Morgoth's Ring, "Of-Rebirth and Other Dooms of Those That Go to Mandos," "Laws and Customs Among the Eldar," p. 223-224.[/b] |
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SpaceWeavil
Joined: 27 May 2004
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| Posted: Mon May 23, 2005 8:43 pm Post subject: |
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Yeah, I was referring to the Morgoth's Ring thing. What I meant was that one of the reasons given in that section might be applicable in some way to the soldiers of the Alliance. If it wasn't a case of unhoused fea, then I don't know what could be the reason for souls being there.
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Elentari
Joined: 12 May 2003
Posts: 254
Location: Lost in elven dreams...
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| Posted: Mon May 23, 2005 9:03 pm Post subject: |
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| I'd buy that one, because it makes a lot more sense than fallen bodies not rotting over three thousand years... |
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AngmarofCarnDum
Joined: 15 May 2005
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| Posted: Mon May 23, 2005 9:23 pm Post subject: |
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| Elentari wrote: | | I'd buy that one, because it makes a lot more sense than fallen bodies not rotting over three thousand years... |
I never did buy the idea of endlessly rotting bodies. The process of decay would have set in long before the days of Frodo, Sam and Gollum. Rather I think the "faces" were apparitions (ghosts), not literal physical forms rotting there. (Of course the idea of the rotting bodies might be an interesting story concept for someone)
Maybe Tolkien had a World War I battlefield in mind when he wrote the Dead Marshes scene, ie. soldiers in uniforms of many nations lying together in death. He certainly saw enough battlefields when he was a soldier.
Whatever Tolkien had in mind, he did not tell us and left it as a puzzle, something never to be explained. He often was tricksy that way. Remember Tom Bombadil and "Who/what/why was he?" |
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Elentari
Joined: 12 May 2003
Posts: 254
Location: Lost in elven dreams...
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| Posted: Tue May 24, 2005 8:19 am Post subject: |
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True. One more for the Big Question Mark box.
Thanks folks. You helped a lot. |
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