What are Barrow-downs in ‘The Rings of Power?’

The latest episode of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power featured a place called Tyrn Gorthad, or the Barrow-downs, but what is the history of the haunted graveyard, and why are there murderous wights roaming the place and killing at whim?

If you’ve read The Lord of the Rings, then you’re familiar with the Barrow-downs as a place Frodo and his three Hobbit companions visit on their way to Bree. This happens just after meeting Tom Bombadil and resting in his house. When properly healed of their road weariness, Bombadil bids the Hobbits farewell and warns them to avoid the Barrow-downs because of the evil that dwells there. The Hobbits accidentally come upon a barrow-wight and are bewitched, but Frodo, remembering their plight, calls out to Bombadil for help. Bombadil wards off the evil spirit and says one final farewell to the fellowship, and the Hobbits find their four Dúnedain-wrought blades in one of the tomb.

In The Rings of Power, Elrond and Galadriel’s party finds itself in the middle of the Barrow-downs, and is promptly surrounded by these powerful wights. They manage to overcome this adversary, but not before losing one of their number and learning that even now, Sauron is large at work mustering all the evil in the world.

But what are these barrows in Tyrn Gorthad, and why does the place remain haunted across the different ages of Middle-earth?

What are the Barrow-downs and what are the barrow-wights?

In the Third Age, the Barrow-downs are located east of the Shire and past the Old Forest. But in the First Age, when the first of the Edain (the three houses of Men) came to dwell in that place, it went by a different name. The Edain were beleaguered by Easterlings, men loyal to the dark lord Morgoth, and they fled Tyrn Gorthad in the First Age. When Morgoth was finally defeated in the War of Wrath, the Edain returned to the area, and it served as a tomb for the men of the North as well as their Dúnedain descendants.

In the second age, emigrants from Númenór came to occupy the area again, and the land was ultimately incorporated into Elendil’s kingdom of Arnor to the North. During the third age, far outpassing the events of The Rings of Power, the kingdom of Arnor was fragmented into three different kingdoms; Arthedain, Cardolan, and Rhudaur. The Barrow-downs became part of Cardolan, but when the Witch-king of Angmar began his conquest of Arnor, he sent spirits known as “barrow-wights” to haunt the Dúnedain.

The existence of the barrow-wights makes it impossible for future kings to settle in the area again, and so the Barrow-downs become deserted. Even thousands of years later, the area remains inaccessible to men on pain of death, and it’s not clear if the downfall of Sauron after the War of the Ring also caused these barrow-wights to finally disappear.