Barrow-Wights: The Weapon That Killed the Witch-King | Tolkien Explained

The Barrow-wights of Tyrn Gorthad were evil spirits sent by the Witch-king of Angmar to possess the corpses in the ancient burial mounds of Cardolan after the Great Plague of 1636 wiped out the last Dúnedain survivors. These haunted tombs, sacred since the First Age when the Edain first raised barrows over their dead, became instruments of strategic terror for over 1,400 years, preventing Cardolan's restoration. When Frodo, Sam, Merry, and Pippin were captured by a Barrow-wight in September 3018, Tom Bombadil rescued them and gave each hobbit one of four ancient daggers from the tomb. These were Blades of Westernesse, forged around 1409 specifically for the war against Angmar and enchanted to harm the Witch-king himself. Sixteen centuries later, Merry's blade struck the Witch-king at the Battle of Pelennor Fields, breaking the spell that bound his undead form and enabling Éowyn to deliver the killing blow. The weaponsmith who crafted that blade would have been glad to know its fate—that the weapon buried in tombs the Witch-king himself haunted would ultimately destroy him, turning his strategic necromancy into the instrument of his own defeat.