Q: Could Eärnur Have Slain the Lord of the Nazgûl?
Readers want to know if Glorfindel was suggesting that a man would not be able to kill the Lord of the Nazgûl, a point the latter raised in his confrontation with Éowyn: “‘Hinder me? Thou fool. No living man may hinder me!’”
Glorfindel was merely foretelling the future, not revealing that men could not harm the Nazgûl. However, seven years after he had finally taken the throne Eärnur answered the Nazgûl’s challenge and rode off to Minas Morgul and was never seen again. He presumably died there, or maybe was subjugated with a Morgul-blade and made into a weak, tormented wraith. Why did Eärnur fail, if anyone wielding a sword like Merry’s could have struck a blow that weakened the Nazgûl?
We don’t know what happened between Eärnur and the Nazgûl, or if the King of Gondor even met the Nazgûl in battle. Maybe he was ambushed by Orcs before he entered Minas Morgul, or slain immediately after he entered the city.
What we do know is that Merry caught the Nazgûl by surprise. He was laying on the ground, overcome by the Nazgûl’s power, and barely able to move. The ringwraith simply ignored him and focused his attention on Éowyn. In similar circumstances anyone with similar courage, determination, and opportunity probably could have struck the decisive blow (assuming they were armed with a sword like Merry’s). It’s hard to imagine Eärnur laying on the ground in terror, or the Lord of the Nazgûl ignoring him while dealing with someone else.
However, if we’re going to engage in wishful thinking then it should be clear that Tolkien attributed the rending of the Nazgûl’s shape to Merry’s sword, which was forged in Arnor more than a thousand years before. Aragorn had said of that sword (and Pippin’s too) that it was “wound about with spells for the bane of Mordor”. Frodo’s sword came from the same hoard and if you think about his confrontation with the Nazgûl, they broke his sword from afar. He had already struck at them once with it, only tearing a cloak. But why did they need to break his sword if they were immune to it?
In my opinion the deciding factor was Merry’s sword. Had Eärnur been able to deliver two blows to the Lord of the Nazgûl with such a weapon he probably would have succeeded as Éowyn finally did. But we don’t even know if the sword-smiths of Gondor possessed the same knowledge and skills that the smiths of Arnor possessed. Arnor was bordered on two sides by Elvish and Dwarvish realms. It’s hard to imagine the Dunedain of the North not benefiting from such close proximity to two races capable of forging magical weapons.
There is no mention of similar weapons in Gondor. In fact, Tolkien wrote of Merry’s sword, “No other blade, not though mightier hands had wielded it, would have dealt that foe a wound so bitter, cleaving the undead flesh, breaking the spell that knit his unseen sinews to his will.” Perhaps there was only one sword in all of Middle-earth capable of doing the deed, long prepared by some ancient smith of Cardolan against the final need, but never used in battle because the Dunedain were overwhelmed.
The knowledge to make such weapons may not have existed in either Arnor or Gondor after Cardolan’s last prince fell. And if that is the case then there was no way that Eärnur could have defeated the Lord of the Nazgûl, if only because he lacked one of the two, three, or four weapons that were capable of breaking the sorcery that bound the Nazgûl’s shapelessness into a form capable of interacting with the living world.
# # #
Have you read our other Tolkien and Middle-earth Questions and Answers articles?
I find the comment “Had Eärnur been able to deliver two blows to the Lord of the Nazgûl with such a weapon he probably would have succeeded as Éowyn finally did.” to be strange; Merry’s sword burned away like wood in his hand after he struck one blow. Strider says “all blades perish that pierce that dreadful king”.
I think Earnur would’ve needed more than one blade, at the very least. I also doubt that The Witch King decided to engage him in honorable combat.
Yes but the point is about whether Eärnur could have defeated the Lord of the Nazgûl. In the right circumstances, which we know based only on empirical evidence of one event, two blows would be required. Hypothetically anyone *could* do it with the right weapon(s) but in practice only Merry and Éowyn were ever in a position to make the effort.
I think we have to accept the power of prophesy and dreams in Middle Earth. If a prophesy hadn’t existed, perhaps Eärnur, given the right blade, could have done the deed. But the prophesy did exist, and knowledge of its existence was enough to give the Witch King pause when Éowen revealed herself.
I’ve often wondered whether “man” in this context was gender-specific or race-specific. Would the spells used in the making of the rings need to be so specific? “Immune to death by the hand of Man” would leave a whopping big opening for Elves, Dwarves, Maiar, and even Hobbits like Merry, but perhaps that’s what the Elvish smiths had in mind – the equivalent of a software developer’s back door. Regardless, there’s a fair chance that the rings’ properties were communicated to others before the fall of Eregion.
We don’t know if Merry’s blade (and its brethren from that barrow) were the only ones wound with spells to defeat that enemy, but they were wrought to be wielded by mortal Men like Eärnur. Would Merry’s blade have killed, rather than wounded, had Merry been of greater stature/longer reach? It’s conceivable that, knowing the prophesy, the swordsmith could aspire only to maim, not kill. Still, that would at least remove a formidable foe from the heat of battle, a technique that worked reasonably well at the Fords of Bruinen.
“Far off yet is his doom, and not by the hand of man shall he fall.” “No other blade, not though mightier hands had wielded it, would have dealt that foe a wound so bitter, cleaving the undead flesh, breaking the spell that knit his unseen sinews to his will.”
Tolkien to my knowledge never wrote to clarify these the full meaning of these two passages, but I think some readers are in danger of reading too much specificity into them. As Dave Marx says above, prophecy plays an important role in Tolkien’s legendarium, to the point of seeming almost embodied as predestination (“almost,” I say – Tolkien was a Catholic, after all). Merry and Ewoyn were *meant* to kill the Witch King, it seems, not that this deprives of them of their free will.
But this does not mean that Earnur *could* not have been meant to kill Angmar, had Illuvatar willed otherwise. Clearly immortality was not necessary, for neither Merry or Eowyn were of Elvenkind. A blade, even one forged with great spells of power, can be wielded by any hand, and I think it would be hasty to assume that Merry wielded the only such blade made by Dunedain hands – or even that only those taken by all four hobbits from the barrow were such. It’s hardly unlikely that Earnur, being an heir of the House of Anarion still in the days of its power, would not have had such a blade, passed down through the generations in the royal line (much as Narsil was, and almost certainly a number of other such swords besides); and there’s no reason to think that one blow, if well aimed, could not have sufficed. In the end, “No other blade…would have dealt that foe a wound so bitter” simply because no other blade ever *did*. But there’s no *inherent* reason why Earnur, great Dunedain lord likely wielding a sword of great lineage and power, could not have done so as well – had that been his destiny. Unfortunately for him (and Middle Earth), it was not.
I don’t like anything about Tolkien’s attempt here to bring in destiny.
– daggers were made to be effective against Mordor foes.
– They don’t appear to be in any way more effective than regular blades except in that one instance with the Witch King
– daggers are not primary weapons, not even secondary. Daggers saw some use in armored combat when an opponent was being grappled with. A dagger could then be used to find weak spots in the armor.
– the daggers were of such low significance in war that these enchantment indicate that they were standard on most weaponry of Arnorian origin.
– it would be much harder to argue that there were only less than 5 weapons that were enchanted to defeat nazgul. The weapon of choice being an ineffective dagger. And still not valued enough to have warranted runes, marks or names. Just random loot of barrow wights.
– if enchanted, Arnorian blades were plentiful, they should have made their mark in previous encounters with Nazgul. Any stray hit should have broken the Nazgul’s protection already. In fact, there should have been several heirloom magic blades during the War of the Ring.
– Tolkien made a mess by saying that no other blade could have created damage as bad. There was still Pippin’s blade at least that came from the same hoard.
– the whole concept of enchanted blade is pointless anyway. Daggers were enchanted to defeat Mordor. Those enchantments were identifiable by people who couldn’t themself cast enchantments. But still, they only ever manifested themselves in a confrontation against the Witch King. In all other respects, the blade appeared so mundane that no other character noticed anything
“– Tolkien made a mess by saying that no other blade could have created damage as bad. There was still Pippin’s blade at least that came from the same hoard.”
I think you’re reading too much into what Tolkien said. “No other blade, not though mightier hands had wielded it, would have dealt that foe a wound so bitter.” The key word is “would.” Had Tolkien said “could,” you’d be on to something. But I don’t think Tolkien means to say that no other Dunedain or Elvish blade existed that could have inflicted such a terrible blow on the Witch King – only that this one happened to be the one that did it.
In fact, I happen to largely agree with you, that there likely were a fair number of blades – swords or even daggers – that were enchanted with spells against Mordor and Angmar. Bombadil and Frodo’s party merely happened to stumble across one cache of such weapons. Granted, not many were still likely in circulation by the time of the War of the Ring, even among the Dunedain, but in their heyday, they cannot have been *that* rare.
Fighting and ‘killing’ such a things as a Nazgul is not easy, the Ringwraiths were not only warriors with thousands of years of experience (which must account for something) but also sorcerers of largely unknown powers and abilities (we see that they are at least capable of breaking a sword at distance incapacitating the bearer as this passage seems to imply “Then the leader, who was now half across the Ford, stood up menacing in his stirrups, and raised up his hand. Frodo was stricken dumb. He felt his tongue cleave to his mouth, and his heart labouring. His sword broke and fell out of his shaking hand. The elf-horse reared and snorted. The foremost of the black horses had almost set foot upon the shore.”, as well as using some sort of ‘blasting spells’ to destroy steel gates of Minas Tirith, flaming sword in witch-king’s hand, as well as their ‘natural’ ability of venomous Black Breath and ‘fear aura’, besides they got usual weaponry like swords, maces with which to smash shields and break bones, enchanted dagger morgul-knife to turn living into undead, sort of lesser wraith, and most likely also some sort of poisonous darts, and possibly ability to deal so called morgul-wounds like the one given to Ruling Steward of Gondor Boromir I who was shrunken with pain and crippled afterwards till the end of his days which were quite short due to this ‘enchanted wound’, whether there is any connection with morgul-knife I have no idea but I think it possible that Nazgul can deal wounds with sorcerous effects not only turning into wraiths). So the prophecy aside, without a sword with spells designed against them there’s no chance of winning. In Unfinished Tales Tolkien writes that such a blade like the ones from Barrow Downs (in fact all four of them wielded by Hobbits and given to them by Bombadil from the Barrow that most likely was the grave of last prince of Cardolan) are especially deadly to Nazgul and the very fact of Frodo having it was an unpleasant surprise to Nazgul.