What were the Barrow-Wights?

[Vorondil]

Were the Barrow-Wights ghosts, or just ordinary evil spirits? And did Wights exist anywhere else other than the Barrow-Downs?

 

[Radaghast]

I don't know what you mean by 'ordinary' but I think they're evil spirits inhabiting corpses.

 

[Vorondil]

I don't know what you mean by 'ordinary' but I think they're evil spirits inhabiting corpses.

I meant not an evil spirt like a Balrog.

 

[Radaghast]

I wouldn't consider a Balrog a spirit.

 

[Vorondil]

I wouldn't consider a Balrog a spirit.

The Maiar are spirits aren't they?

 

[Radaghast]

Yes, and some of them took physical forms. Including the Balrogs and Istari. The Valar themselves took physical forms.

 

[Vorondil]

Yes, and some of them took physical forms. Including the Balrogs and Istari. The Valar themselves took physical forms.

So the balrogs are spirits with physical forms.

 

[Ent]

Ent was just reading about the Barrow-wights someplace, but can't recall exactly where.
That said, this from "Complete Tolkien Companion" aptly summarizes what Ent took away from the reading...
"But after the final fall of the North-kingdom, evil spirits from faraway Angmar entered the mounds and animated the dead. These ‘Barrow-wights’ walked in the hollow places among the stone-rings and the Downs became more than ever a place of fear to those of nearby lands."