Ghosts in Middle Earth

 Yes there are! (This is the short answer.)

The long answer goes something more like this: There are undead spirits that linger in Middle Earth. There are also mentions of phantoms. Whether or not these two concepts combine to create a “traditional” ghost is unknown, though.

We see a few examples of what could be generally labelled as “ghosts” in Middle Earth. There are the Oathbreakers of Dunharrow, who haunt the Paths of the Dead. These are the spirits of deceased men who are trapped in Middle Earth because they broke their oaths. They basically just wait around for a couple thousand years until they have the opportunity to fulfill their oaths. After that, their spirits disappear (probably having finally passed on to the Halls of Mandos.)

There are also the lights that Frodo and Sam see in the Dead Marshes. Though the Peter Jackson adaptation showed actual ghostly figures in the water, in the book they see flames flickering over the marshes, and later faces staring up at them from the water. Gollum tells them that the faces appear when the lights do, and that the faces can only be seen, never touched. We know that the marshes themselves were created when a battlefield from the Second Age flooded over, and that the faces belong to the elves and men who died there. So they definitely count as some sort of ghosts.

Furthermore, Tolkien mentions in other writings that, occasionally, a spirit does not go to the Halls of Mandos after its body dies. He says that these spirits

Wander houseless in the world, unwilling to leave it and unable to inhabit it, haunting trees or springs or hidden places that once they knew. Not all of these are kindly or unstained by the Shadow. Indeed the refusal of the summons is in itself a sign of taint.

He then goes on to say (in the closest thing we have to a cultural discussion of ghosts in Middle Earth):

It is therefore a foolish and perilous thing, besides being a wrong deed forbidden justly by the appointed Rulers of Arda, if the Living seek to commune with the Unbodied, though the houseless may desire it, especially the most unworthy among them. For the Unbodied, wandering in the world, are those who at the least have refused the door of life and remain in regret and self-pity. Some are filled with bitterness, grievance, and envy. Some were enslaved by the Dark Lord and do his work still, though he himself is gone. They will not speak truth or wisdom. To call on them is folly. To attempt to master them and to make them servants of one own’s will is wickedness. Such practices are of Morgoth; and the necromancers are of the host of Sauron his servant.

SOURCES: LOTR, Histories of Middle Earth vol. 10 (“Laws and Customs Among the Eldar”)

Originally posted on askmiddlearth.tumblr.com