The Dead Marshes: The Secrets Of Lord Of The Rings' Haunted Swamp Explained

In "The Two Towers" movie, the newly tamed Gollum leads Frodo and Sam in their last push toward Mordor, a journey that involves crossing a sprawling, swampy area called the Dead Marshes. The haunting name is ominous, and the trio's experience reflects that. As they go along, they see flames burning, and Sam also gets a glimpse of a pale white dead face in the water. At one point, Gollum forebodingly says, "All dead. All rottened. Elves and Men and Orcses. A great battle long ago. The Dead Marshes, yes, yes, that is their name."

Gollum also instructs the Hobbits not to follow the lights, pointing out that if they aren't careful, they'll go down to join the dead ones and light candles of their own. It's then that we get the disturbing scene where Frodo falls into the water and a ghostly apparition reaches out for him. Gollum pulls him out in the nick of time, warning him again not to follow the lights.

Even in a story filled with spirits, spells, angels, demons, and armies of dead ghosts, the Dead Marshes sequence stands out as particularly creepy. The entire sequence feels like a one-off horror show; it's unexpected, it doesn't really impact the story, and it's soon left behind. So, what is it then? What are the Dead Marshes? Why are they haunted? J.R.R. Tolkien had a few things to say on the matter. Let's investigate.

In the books, Tolkien gives us a bit more information about the Dead Marshes. As the three travelers pass through the region at night, Sam notices wisps of light, described as a "pale sheen that faded away [...] some like dimly shining smoke, some like misty flames flickering slowly above unseen candles; here and there they twisted like ghostly sheets unfurled by hidden hands." Gollum calls them candles of corpses, warning them not to look at or follow them.

Frodo observes these submerged corpses, reporting, "They lie in all the pools, pale faces, deep deep under the dark water. I saw them: grim faces and evil, and noble faces and sad. Many faces proud and fair, and weeds in their silver hair. But all foul, all rotting, all dead. A fell light is in them."

At this point, Gollum offers a more thorough explanation of the battle mentioned in the movie. He talks about Tall Men with long swords and shrieking Orcs and terrible Elves who fight for days and months on end in the area. This battle, called the Battle of Dagorlad, is similar to the Iliad from Greek mythology in the sense that it is a long-term attack by the Peoples of Middle-earth against Sauron's fortress kingdom of Mordor. For context, this is part of the same war that ends with Isildur using his father's sword to cut the One Ring from Sauron's finger. "The Silmarillion" summarizes the epic engagement of Dagorlad thusly: "All living things were divided in that day, and some of every kind, even of beasts and birds, were found in either host, save the Elves only."

It is a long, deadly affair, and it leaves a lot of bodies in its wake. After the battle, the swamp creeps in and swallows up their graves. This natural phenomenon already makes the area deadly. For instance, later in the Third Age, the remnants of an army of Men that attacks Gondor retreat into the area and are never seen again. The question is, though, how and why is the area haunted, too?

There are a lot of battles in Middle-earth history, many of which are much deadlier than the fighting on the Battle Plain at Dagorlad. So why do we have hauntings from the dead at this location, in particular? In typical Tolkien style, we do have an answer, but it doesn't quite satisfy.

When Sam asks if the dead are really still there or if it's something else haunting the area, Gollum replies, "Who knows? Sméagol doesn't know [...] You cannot reach them, you cannot touch them. We tried once, yes, precious, I tried once; but you cannot reach them. Only shapes to see, perhaps, not to touch. No precious! All dead."

In a letter in 1960, Tolkien attributes the genesis of the Dead Marshes to a couple of things. He mentions inspirational contributions from 19th-century author and modern fantasy pioneer William Morris. He also adds the chilling detail that some of the Marsh's description likely came from his personal experience in World War 1, saying, "The Dead Marshes and the approaches to the Morannon owe something to Northern France after the Battle of the Somme." The trench warfare of the Great War was notorious for its water-filled blast craters, which contained horrors, including chemical run-off and dead bodies.

It makes sense that, when depicting the Dead Marshes, Peter Jackson went for more of the in-your-face horror angle, as that translates better on screen. However, it's worth noting that, in the books, the dangers of the marshes aren't quite as tangible as they are in the film's ghost-attack scene. It isn't a jump-scare "hey, if you fall in, then you're dead!" kind of horror. Instead, it's a quiet, present evil that invades the mind. (Frodo, for instance, sounds "dream like" when he explains what he saw.) When Sam trips and comes close to the surface, he sees the faces, too, but there is no sense of urgent saving required. Gollum only laughs and says, "You should not look in when the candles are lit."

The Dead Marshes are a disturbing aspect of Tolkien's world. They have a violent and bloody backstory, and their haunted nature is one of the least explained areas of Tolkien's lore. The Dead Marshes are also a locale that could easily work their way into multiple upcoming adaptations.

For instance, Prime Video's "The Rings of Power" series is already fully mapped out for five seasons and intends to follow the entire rise and fall of Sauron during the Second Age. The fall part of that story ends with the Last Alliance and the battle of Dagorlad, which means we could see the creation of the Dead Marshes in its closing act. The showrunners are already laying the groundwork for this, too. Episode 3 of Season 2 had a foreshadowing scene where Isildur (Maxim Baldry) finds a dead body with a pale face underwater in a pool.

Warner Bros.' upcoming "Hunt for Gollum" adaptation could also easily feature the Marshes, as this is the area where Aragorn finally discovers and captures Gollum in that search. Heck, even the studio's "War of the Rohirrim" anime could incorporate the haunted area if they wanted to, as it'll likely have enemies arriving from beyond Rohan's eastern borders — part of which includes the Dead Marshes. How, when, and why the haunted swamp shows up remains to be seen, but it is definitely a darkly tempting way to link any adaptation to the original "Lord of the Rings" trilogy.