Because of Crickhollow

Arnthro

Active Member
When they were stalking and half surrounding Crickhollow, is it possible that the Nazgul were collectively enhancing the black breath?
(especially as the night grows and towards the climax of the event with the poor old door)

Even though we've been shown that the Nazgul can direct the black breath and therefore very likely control the intensity of it....

I wonder if they can ever fully turn it off?
(which would be the sense of "LOTRO dread" that Fatty could have been sensing all day?)

Maybe connected to Croaker's post of Sauron's evil will being connected to the Nazgul?

Lastly, I dislike the idea of this question drawing parallels to Rowling... BUT...

Does the black breath feed the Nazgul? Because they take their time often before acting, is the fear they build actually strengthening them?
 
Interesting to consider, but I don't think so. I reckon every scrap of being in the Nazgul comes from Sauron. They are utterly dependent on him for their very existence. When they are defeated at Bruinen they are nothing until they crawl back to Sauron for a recharge - I don't think there's any amount of lingering and saying "Boo!" to squirrels that could power them up.

Sauron himself, though. He gathers power in this sort of manner I think, over time.
 
HA! HA! Saying "Boo!" to squirrels to power up. Agreed. They are wraiths. Enslaved.

And to your point when geese and other animals react to the Nazgul, the Nazgul aren't feeding off it or even acknowledging those reactions.

Your response makes me think that it is Sauron's energy or evil will that is actually the black breath. I wonder.
 
Oh my! That brought to my mind a broader question: What the heck is the Black Breath?

I can find only one reference to it in The Fellowship of the Ring:

[Nob talking about finding Merry outside.] He seemed to be asleep. “I thought I had fallen into deep water,” he says to me, when I shook him. Very queer he was, and as soon as I had roused him, he got up and ran back here like a hare.’

‘I am afraid that’s true,’ said Merry, ‘though I don’t know what I said. I had an ugly dream, which I can’t remember. I went to pieces. I don’t know what came over me.’

‘I do,’ said Strider. ‘The Black Breath. The Riders must have left their horses outside, and passed back through the South-gate in secret. They will know all the news now, for they have visited Bill Ferny; and probably that Southerner was a spy as well. Something may happen in the night, before we leave Bree.’

Tolkien, J.R.R.. The Fellowship of the Ring: Being the First Part of The Lord of the Rings (pp. 173-174). Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Kindle Edition.​

So it seems that the Black Breath was something the Nazgul used to knock out Merry, a thing mentioned once, never to appear again in the books.
 
The Black Breath shows up again just twice in Return of the King, in "The Houses of Healing". Aragorn mentions it and then it is featured in the herb-master's "doggerel":
When the black breath blows
and death's shadow grows
and all lights pass,
come athelas! come athelas!

Life to the dying
In the king's hand lying!
That's on p847 in my edition.
 
I thought the men of Minas Tirith referred to the Black Breath during and after the battle of Pelennor to explain people who weren't necessarily badly hurt, but were still wasting away. Isn't there a line about how it seemed to the healers that it lay worst on Faramir (this is before Aragorn shows up)?

From my recollection, it seems they hit upon the true name for the phenomenon out of serendipity (if so, hardly a unique happenstance in this trilogy).
 
I thought the men of Minas Tirith referred to the Black Breath during and after the battle of Pelennor to explain people who weren't necessarily badly hurt, but were still wasting away. Isn't there a line about how it seemed to the healers that it lay worst on Faramir (this is before Aragorn shows up)?

From my recollection, it seems they hit upon the true name for the phenomenon out of serendipity (if so, hardly a unique happenstance in this trilogy).
They called it "the Black Shadow" which explains why my rather simplistic search missed it.
 
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