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Barrow-wight
Barrow-wights are wraith-like creatures in J. R. R. Tolkien's world of Middle-earth. In The Lord of the Rings, the four hobbits are trapped by a barrow-wight, and are lucky to escape with their lives; but they gain ancient swords of Westernesse for their quest.
Tolkien derived the idea of barrow-wights from Norse mythology, where heroes of several Sagas fight undead beings known as draugrs. Scholars have noted a resemblance, too, between the breaking of the barrow-wight's spell and the final battle in Beowulf, where the dragon's barrow is entered and the treasure released from its spell. Barrow-wights do not appear in Peter Jackson's film trilogy, but they do feature in computer games based on Tolkien's Middle-earth.
A barrow is a burial mound, such as was used in Neolithic times.
A wight, from Old English: wiht, is a person or other sentient being.
There are tales of wights, called vǣttr or draugr, undead grave-spirits with bodies, in Norse mythology. In Norway, country people in places such as Eidanger considered that the dead went on living in their tombs as vetter or protective spirits, and up to modern times continued to offer sacrifices on the grave-mounds.
Tolkien stated in his "Nomenclature of The Lord of the Rings" that "barrow-wight" was an "invented name", rather than one like "orc" that existed in Old English. He explained further in a lecture on Beowulf that orcneas ("hell-corpses"), the evil monsters born of Cain and leading to the monster Grendel, meant:
that terrible northern imagination to which I have ventured to give the name 'barrow-wights'. The 'undead'. Those dreadful creatures that inhabit tombs and mounds. They are not living: they have left humanity, but they are 'undead'. With superhuman strength and malice they can strangle men and rend them. Glámr in the story of Grettir the Strong is a well-known example.
However, the term was used by Andrew Lang in his 1891 Essays in Little, where he wrote "In the graves where treasures were hoarded the Barrowwights dwelt, ghosts that were sentinels over the gold." Eiríkr Magnússon and William Morris used it, too, in their 1869 translation of Grettis saga, which features a fight with the "barrow-wight" or "barrow-dweller", Kárr:
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Barrow-wight AI simulator
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Barrow-wight
Barrow-wights are wraith-like creatures in J. R. R. Tolkien's world of Middle-earth. In The Lord of the Rings, the four hobbits are trapped by a barrow-wight, and are lucky to escape with their lives; but they gain ancient swords of Westernesse for their quest.
Tolkien derived the idea of barrow-wights from Norse mythology, where heroes of several Sagas fight undead beings known as draugrs. Scholars have noted a resemblance, too, between the breaking of the barrow-wight's spell and the final battle in Beowulf, where the dragon's barrow is entered and the treasure released from its spell. Barrow-wights do not appear in Peter Jackson's film trilogy, but they do feature in computer games based on Tolkien's Middle-earth.
A barrow is a burial mound, such as was used in Neolithic times.
A wight, from Old English: wiht, is a person or other sentient being.
There are tales of wights, called vǣttr or draugr, undead grave-spirits with bodies, in Norse mythology. In Norway, country people in places such as Eidanger considered that the dead went on living in their tombs as vetter or protective spirits, and up to modern times continued to offer sacrifices on the grave-mounds.
Tolkien stated in his "Nomenclature of The Lord of the Rings" that "barrow-wight" was an "invented name", rather than one like "orc" that existed in Old English. He explained further in a lecture on Beowulf that orcneas ("hell-corpses"), the evil monsters born of Cain and leading to the monster Grendel, meant:
that terrible northern imagination to which I have ventured to give the name 'barrow-wights'. The 'undead'. Those dreadful creatures that inhabit tombs and mounds. They are not living: they have left humanity, but they are 'undead'. With superhuman strength and malice they can strangle men and rend them. Glámr in the story of Grettir the Strong is a well-known example.
However, the term was used by Andrew Lang in his 1891 Essays in Little, where he wrote "In the graves where treasures were hoarded the Barrowwights dwelt, ghosts that were sentinels over the gold." Eiríkr Magnússon and William Morris used it, too, in their 1869 translation of Grettis saga, which features a fight with the "barrow-wight" or "barrow-dweller", Kárr: