SOURCE: The Fellowship of the Ring by J. R. R. Tolkien (1954)

DESCRIPTION:"Trembling he looked up, in time to see a tall dark figure like a shadow against the stars. It leaned over him. He thought there were two eyes, very cold though lit with a pale light that seemed to come from some remote distance. Then a grip stronger and colder than iron seized him. The icy touch froze his bones, and he remembered no more." (The Fellowship o the Ring by J. R. R. Tolkien)

NOTES: The barrow wights are the undead corpses of petty kings who once fought amongst each other in the area east of the Shire. Their barrows dot  the landscape. Tom Bombadil saves the hobbits with a song much as he did with Old Man Willow.

HISTORY: The barrow wights didn't make it into the movie version of course. Too much of a digression and it might have confused people, the undead-ness of the black riders. Tolkien wrote this first section of the book without really knowing who the black riders were or where the book was going. Still, I'd like to have seen them in the movie.
 

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