Dead Marshes

The Dead Marshes fill the low ground between the eastern slopes of the Emyn Muil and the plain of Dagorlad before the Morannon. On the map they are the last stretch of open country before Mordor's northwestern corner, with the Ephel Duath wall rising ahead and the Ash Mountains closing from the east.

The marshes have crept outward over the centuries and swallowed the field where the Last Alliance fought Sauron at the end of the Second Age. Faces lie under the water, pale and rotting: warriors of both sides, still in the mud, with small lights drifting above them. Gollum warns that you must not look at the candles and must not follow them.

He led the hobbits across by the tracks only he knew, three days of wet, cold crawling with no cover. Sam fell and saw the faces. On the last night a Nazgul on a winged beast passed overhead three times, and Gollum was left shaking on the ground.

What the marshes do in the story is connect the two wars. Frodo walks over the dead of the first defeat of Sauron on his way to try the second. It also explains why nothing guarded that approach. The marshes were treated as impassable, and the only living creature who knew a track through them was walking in front of Frodo.

Events at this place

1. SA 3434 · The Silmarillion

   The Last Alliance fights on the Dagorlad

   The armies of Elves and Men met Sauron's host on the plain before the Morannon. The marshes later spread over the graves.

2. TA 3019, March 1 · The Lord of the Rings

   Gollum leads the hobbits across

   Frodo and Sam crossed the marshes with Gollum as guide, saw the drowned faces, and were passed over by a winged Nazgul.

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