The Treasure of the Barrow-Downs

The barrow-wights in the chapter “Fog on the Barrow-Downs” are distinguished by the coldness of their touch – and the treasure that they haunt.  When Frodo is trapped in the tomb and sees his friends lying nearby, he notices that “About them lay many treasures, of gold maybe, though in that light they looked cold and unlovely.  On their heads were circlets, gold chains were about their waists, and on their fingers were many rings.”  It is a ceremonial, ritualistic arrangement – but it is also an indication of the greed and empty desire that characterize the wights.  Yet the cold of these beings ultimately afflicts our heroes: “Frodo was chilled to the marrow.”  We should, indeed, beware the cold and greedy hearts that haunt our world – for they not only put themselves on a path to malice, but threaten to corrupt our collective hopes and aspirations.

Tom Bombadil breaks the barrow spell by dumping the treasure out onto the grass to be claimed by any “kindly creatures.”  Interestingly, he was not opposed to luxury and took “a brooch set with blue stones, many-shaded like flax-flowers or the wings of blue butterflies.”  He planned to give it to Goldberry, but he noted that they would not forget that woman who wore it, long ago.  Remembrance, in fact, is an important theme of the chapter, for the wights themselves are like a memory of ancient wars and sorrows.  Ultimately, though, the brooch is just “a pretty toy."  The true cure to the chill of the wights is to run naked on the grass in the sunlight – to find in the organic and living world the greatest and most authentic treasure, of which the elegant brooch is merely a reimagining and a reflection.