Trick or Treat? Spooky Middle-Earth - Page 5
© Michael Martinez
It is therefore a foolish and perilous thing, besides being a wrong deed forbidden justly by the appointed Rulers of Arda, if the Living seek to commune with the Unbodied, though the houseless may desire it, especially the most unworthy among them. For the Unbodied, wandering in the world, are those who at the least have refused the door of life and remain in regret and self-pity. Some are filled with bitterness, grievance, and envy. Some were enslaved by the Dark Lord and do his work still, though he himself is gone. They will not speak truth or wisdom. To call on them is folly. To attempt to master them and to make them servants of one's own will is wickedness. Such practices are of Morgoth; and the necromancers are of the host of Sauron his servant.Eventually, Men who practice necromancy may find their bodies seized by the Houseless Elves, and themselves rendered houseless. What becomes of such Mannish spirits? The essay does not say, but it condemns necromancy in the strongest terms. The practice must therefore have been known among even the Elves, and it may be that their attempts to engage in necromancy led the Valar to decree that such communication was off-limits. But the damage had been done. People knew they could communicate with the dead, even if they couldn't be sure of whose dead with whom they communicated. The War of the Ring thus represents a cleansing of the world, a restoration of the natural order. Although Elves might continue to remain in Middle-earth after death, the world has been granted a reprieve. With the Rings of Power destroyed, the Elves no longer need worry about the temptation of engaging in their own form of necromancy. And many of them, especially those who had come to depend upon the Time-stalling effects of the Three Rings, feel the onsought of their world-weariness and they set sail over Sea to seek their own healing. In Aman they will continue to live physical lives, sustained by the Valar. The Lord of the Rings is thus in some ways the ultimate Halloween tale, honoring fallen heroes and foretelling great deeds for those who stay the course and do what is right. The story recognizes the passage from the mythical world to the historic world. It acknowledges the heritage of forgotten peoples and struggles which have removed the physical incarnations of evil from the world, and helped to divide the world of the living from the world of the dead.
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