The canon role of the Barrow-wights lasts for a single chapter in “The Fellowship of the Ring,” conveniently called “Fog on the Barrow-Downs.” In it, Frodo, Sam, Merry, and Pippin leave Tom Bombadil’s house and head across the Barrow-downs toward the main road and the village of Bree. They start in daylight but end up lost in the foggy downs as night falls. Frodo is separated from his companions and then confronted by a terrifying shadowy figure — a Barrow-wight. He is captured, and the book says, “the icy touch froze his bones, and he remembered no more.”

When he wakes up, Frodo is in the nearby barrow lying alongside his three Hobbit companions — all not moving and in a sleep-like trance. They are dressed in white and covered in cursed treasures. Importantly, one naked sword is lying across their necks.

The nearby wight chants an incantation, and then its hand emerges, preparing to behead all four Hobbits with a sword. Tolkien describes the chilling scene thusly, “[Frodo] heard behind his head a creaking and scraping sound … Round the corner a long arm was groping, walking on its fingers towards Sam, who was lying nearest, and towards the hilt of the sword that lay upon him.” Frodo cuts off the hand and then, recognizing that he’s outmatched, sings a song that brings merry old Tom Bombadil prancing to the hill.