The Nazgûl

According to Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, the Nazgûl arose as Sauron’s most powerful servants in the Second Age of Middle-earth. They were once powerful mortal Men, three being “great lords” of Númenor. Sauron gave each of them one of the nine Rings of Power. Sauron also gave seven Rings of Power to the Dwarves, and Celebrimbor forged three for the Elves, untainted by Sauron’s evil. It was Sauron’s design to control the Nine, the Seven, and the Three Rings through the power of his One Ring, forged in secret for this purpose, but it was only the Nine who succumbed completely to its power:

“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 undoing. 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 Ulairi, 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”, 346).

The corrupting effect of the Rings extended their earthly lives far beyond their mortal lifespans, while their bodily forms faded over time until they had become entirely invisible to mortal eyes. They assumed visible form only under their outward black attire. The red reflection in their eyes could be plainly distinguished even in daylight, and in a rage they appeared in a hellish fire. They had many weapons; in The Fellowship of the Ring they were armed with steel swords while their leader, the Witch-king of Angmar, wielded a Morgul blade that could turn its victim into a wraith. During the Battle of Pelennor Fields, the Witch-king bore a “long pale sword”. He used a black dart against Snowmane, Théoden‘s horse, and a mace against Éowyn.

Their arsenal of deadly armaments was not confined to physical weapons: they exuded an aura of terror, which affected all but the most powerful living creatures. Their breath (called the Black Breath) was poisonous. The effects of the Black Breath, also known as the Black Shadow, included deep despair, unconsciousness, nightmares and even death. The herb athelas proved powerful against the ills of the Nazgûl, and Aragorn used this to treat many of the Nazgûl’s victims, including Frodo, Faramir, Éowyn, and Merry.

Even their terrible cries inspired terror and despair, and loss of physical control. The Lord of the Nazgûl was notorious for practicing black sorcery, but Tolkien said their chief power was the fear they inspired: “They have no great physical power against the fearless,” he wrote, “but what they have, and the fear that they inspire, is enormously increased in darkness.”^[1]

The Nazgûl first appeared around S.A. 2251 and were soon established as Sauron’s principal servants, less than three centuries after the rings were forged. The Nazgûl were dispersed after the first overthrow of Sauron in 3441 at the hands of the Last Alliance of Elves and Men, but their survival was assured since the One Ring survived.

They re-emerged around T.A. 1300, when the Lord of the Nazgûl, also known as the Witch-king of Angmar, the Black Captain and the Morgul-lord, led Sauron’s forces against the successor kingdoms of Arnor: Rhudaur, Cardolan and Arthedain. He was eventually defeated in battle in 1975 and returned to Mordor, gathering the other Nazgûl in preparation for the return of Sauron to that realm, having achieved his goal of destroying all of Arnor’s successor kingdoms.

In 2000, the Nazgûl besieged Minas Ithil and captured it after two years. The city thereafter became Minas Morgul, the stronghold of the Nazgûl, from which they directed the rebuilding of Sauron’s armies, also acquiring a palantír for the Dark Lord. In 2942, Sauron returned to Mordor and declared himself openly in 2951. Two or three of the Nazgûl (the Second of the Nine was put in charge) were sent to his fortress in Mirkwood, named Dol Guldur, to garrison it.

In 3017, near the beginning of the story told in The Lord of the Rings, after hearing news of the One Ring, Sauron commanded the Ringwraiths to recover the One Ring from “Baggins of the Shire”. Disguised as riders clad in black, they sought out Bilbo Baggins who, as Gollum had revealed, had the One Ring in his possession. It was around 3018 that the “Nine Walkers” of the Fellowship of the Ring were chosen in opposition to the Nazgûl, the “Nine Riders“.

The Nazgûl rode black horses that were bred or trained in Mordor to endure the terror. They learned that the Ring was in the possession of Bilbo’s heir, Frodo. Five of them cornered Frodo and his company at Weathertop, where the Witch-king stabbed Frodo in the arm with the Morgul blade, breaking off a piece of the blade in the hobbit’s flesh. 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. They reappeared later mounted on hideous flying beasts (reminiscent of — and in part suggested by — pterodactyls);^[2][3] they were then called Winged Nazgûl.

The Witch-king of Angmar himself was slain by Éowyn and Merry (known as the Magnificent thereafter), during the Battle of the Pelennor Fields: Merry’s stab with an enchanted Barrow-blade drove the Witch-king to his knees, allowing Éowyn, the niece of Théoden, to deliver a stroke between his crown and mantle. Thus was the Witch-king destroyed by a woman and a hobbit, fulfilling the prophecy that “not by the hand of man will he fall”.^[4] Both weapons that pierced him disintegrated, and both assailants were stricken.

The remaining eight Ringwraiths attacked the Army of the West during the last battle at the Black Gate. However, when Frodo put on the Ring near the fires of Mount Doom, Sauron ordered the eight remaining Nazgûl to fly there to intercept him. They arrived too late, with the Ring falling into the fire. At the moment of the One Ring’s destruction, the remaining Nazgûl were destroyed.