Barrow-downs

The downs rise east of the Old Forest and west of Bree, an open country of green ridges topped with rings of stones and long grave-mounds. The Great East Road skirts their northern edge.

Men buried their dead here long before Arnor was founded, and the Dúnedain of Cardolan used the same mounds. In TA 1409 the Witch-king of Angmar overran Cardolan, and the last prince of the realm fell and was buried there. After the Great Plague of TA 1636 emptied the country of the living, evil spirits out of Angmar and Rhudaur entered the deserted mounds, and Bree-landers avoided the downs from then on.

On 28 September TA 3018 the hobbits, caught in fog after resting too long by a standing stone, were taken by a wight and laid out in a barrow with a sword across their necks. Frodo remembered Bombadil's rhyme and sang it; Tom broke the mound open, drove the wight out and brought the four back to the Road. The daggers he gave them from the spoil were Arnorian work, and one later pierced the Witch-king.

Events at this place

1. TA 1636 · Appendices

   The end of Cardolan and the coming of the wights

   The Great Plague killed the last of the Dúnedain of Cardolan, and evil spirits out of Angmar and Rhudaur entered the empty barrows of Tyrn Gorthad, among them the grave of the prince who fell in the war of TA 1409.

2. TA 3018, September 28 · The Lord of the Rings

   Captured by a Barrow-wight

   Frodo, Sam, Merry and Pippin were taken in the mist on 28 September. Frodo's call brought Tom Bombadil, who destroyed the wight's hold.

3. TA 3018, September 28 · The Lord of the Rings

   The barrow-blades taken

   Tom gave each hobbit a long knife from the hoard, forged in the North-kingdom for the war against Angmar.

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