Did you recognize that familiar song in ‘The Rings of Power’s latest episode?
The Lord of The Rings: The Rings of Power season 2 has been delivering one great episode after another. But season 2 episode 4 was a landmark episode for several reasons that are important to Tolkien book fans. For starters, we got Tom Bombadil and the barrow-wights!
Spoilers ahead for The Rings of Power season 2!
In TROP season 2 episode 4, “Eldest,” while The Stranger stumbles upon Tom Bombadil’s hut and learns more about his power and purpose, Elrond and Galadriel, along with a company of elves, are making their way to Eregion. They encounter a destructed bridge, and believe it to be the world of Sauron. Galadriel’s ring gives her the foresight about an evil on the alternate southern road but Elrond doesn’t want to take the longer road and chooses to ignore her warning.
It is on the southern road that the elves encounter the barrow-wights. The barrow-wights are malicious evil spirits of old kings and warriors that haunt burial mounds and can drag people underground to put them under a spell, never to wake again. One of the elven party does get dragged in exactly like this, and even Galadriel is on her way before Elrond saves her. Elrond, ever the lore master, remembers reading that the only way to kill these barrow-wights is to stab them with their own swords. And it works!
But here’s something interesting to note about this scene. When the barrow-wights rise, a song that sounds like an incantation plays in the background. It goes like this:
“Cold be hand and heart and bone,
and cold be sleep under stone:
never more to wake on stony bed,
never, till the Sun fails and the Moon is dead.”
Book fans will recognize this verse as the incantation that the barrow-wight chants in The Fellowship of The Ring when it captures Frodo, Sam, Merry, and Pippin after they leave Tom Bombadil’s house and are on their way to Bree.
Astute fans of the movies will also be able to recognize this verse, albeit in the voice of Gollum! Even if the Peter Jackson movies didn’t feature Tom Bombadil and by extension, the barrow-wights (because Tom is the one who gets rid of them after Frodo ends the spell), this incantation ended up being used in the movies anyway, but not in The Fellowship of The Ring.
Do you remember the scene in The Two Towers when Frodo is caressing the One Ring while Sam is sleeping, and then he hears Gollum talking to himself? Frodo confronts Gollum about his past, how Gandalf had told him Gollum was one of the river folk, and something akin to a hobbit before the ring took control of him. He calls Gollum by his name—Sméagol. When Frodo is trying to remind Gollum of his old self, Gollum begins reciting a poem to avoid listening to Frodo. Can you guess what that poem was?
“Cold be heart and hand and bone,
Cold be travelers far from home,
They do not see what lies ahead
when sun has failed and moon is dead.”
These are the same lines from the barrow-wight poem with a few words altered!
Despite what the haters might say, The Lord of The Rings: The Rings of Power is doing a fantastic job of paying tribute to Tolkien’s work, the ethos of his writing, and even the Peter Jackson movies, as any true fan would. And these little additions are proof!
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