Éowyn Kills the Witch-king

Éowyn Kills the Witch-king is the climactic moment of the Battle of the Pelennor Fields, in which Éowyn of Rohan, aided by Meriadoc Brandybuck, slays the Witch-king of Angmar, the Lord of the Nazgûl, fulfilling the prophecy that no living man could kill him and breaking the terror that had hung over Gondor and Rohan. The deed is a profound reversal of expectation: the Witch-king, who had seemed invincible and had just struck down Théoden, is destroyed by a woman and a hobbit, figures he had dismissed as beneath his notice. The event marks the turning point of the war, the vindication of Éowyn's hidden courage, and the moment when the shadow of Mordor begins to lift.

The Confrontation on the Field

The scene opens with the Witch-king's attention fixed not on Éowyn but on the fallen Théoden, whose horse Snowmane had rolled away from him in its death agony. Éowyn, standing before the king, is so far beneath the Black Captain's notice that he heeds her no more than a worm in the mud, even as she barely dares to move lest his deadly eyes fall upon her. The great beast he rides beats its hideous wings, filling the air with foul wind, and then falls upon Éowyn, shrieking and striking with beak and claw. Yet she does not blench. Described as a maiden of the Rohirrim, a child of kings, slender but as a steel-blade, fair yet terrible, she deals a swift, skilled, and deadly stroke, cleaving the outstretched neck of the beast asunder so that its hewn head falls like a stone. As the huge shape crashes to ruin with vast wings outspread, the shadow passes away, and a light falls about her, her hair shining in the sunrise.

The Fall of the Black Rider

From the wreck of his mount rises the Black Rider himself, tall and threatening, towering above Éowyn. With a cry of hatred that stings the very ears like venom, he lets fall his mace. The blow shivers her shield into many pieces and breaks her arm, and she stumbles to her knees. He bends over her like a cloud, his eyes glittering, and raises his mace to kill. But at that instant he too stumbles forward with a cry of bitter pain, his stroke going wide and driving into the ground. Meriadoc Brandybuck, the hobbit, has stabbed him from behind, shearing through the black mantle and passing up beneath the hauberk to pierce the sinew behind his mighty knee. Merry cries out Éowyn's name, and with her last strength she drives her sword between crown and mantle as the great shoulders bow before her. The sword breaks sparkling into many shards, and the crown rolls away with a clang. Éowyn falls forward upon her fallen foe, and the mantle and hauberk are found empty, shapeless on the ground, torn and tumbled. A cry goes up into the shuddering air, fading to a shrill wailing that passes with the wind, a voice bodiless and thin that dies and is swallowed up, never to be heard again in that age of the world.

The Prophecy Fulfilled

The Witch-king's death fulfills the ancient prophecy that he would not fall by the hand of any living man. Éowyn, who had ridden to war in disguise as Dernhelm, and Meriadoc, a hobbit of the Shire, are precisely the figures the prophecy's terms exclude: a woman and a halfling. The Black Captain, who had dismissed Éowyn as a worm in the mud and Merry as beneath notice, is undone by those he scorned. The empty mantle and hauberk reveal the nature of the Nazgûl: their power was bound to the will of Sauron and the terror they inspired, and once that terror is broken, the form itself dissolves into nothing. The cry that fades into the wind marks the end of the Witch-king's presence in the world, a presence that had haunted the histories of both Gondor and Rohan for centuries.

Aftermath and the Death of Théoden

In the aftermath, Meriadoc stands in the midst of the slain, blinking like an owl in the daylight, for tears blind him. Through a mist he looks on Éowyn's fair head as she lies and does not move, and on the face of the king, fallen in the midst of his glory. Snowmane, in his agony, had rolled away from Théoden again, yet the horse was the bane of his master, having fallen upon him in its death throes. Merry stoops and lifts Théoden's hand to kiss it, and the king opens his eyes, clear and speaking in a quiet though laboured voice. The king's last words and his death follow, but the moment of the Witch-king's fall has already secured the field. The deed breaks the morale of the enemy forces and opens the way for the eventual victory of the armies of the West, marking the first great reversal of the war against Mordor.

The Significance of the Deed

The slaying of the Witch-king is the moment when the war's momentum shifts decisively. It is the first time a Nazgûl, and the greatest of them, is destroyed in battle, and it proves that the servants of Sauron are not invincible. For Éowyn, the deed is the culmination of her hidden longing for glory and her refusal to be confined to the role of a woman watching from the sidelines. She had sought death in battle, and in winning it she also wins the release from the shadow of despair that had gripped her. For Meriadoc, the stroke that pierces the sinew behind the knee is an act of loyalty and courage that redeems his earlier capture and proves the worth of the hobbits in the great wars. The empty mantle and the fading cry signify the end of an age of terror, and the light that falls about Éowyn in the sunrise marks the beginning of hope after the long defeat.