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Witch-king)
The Witch-king is a fictional character created by J. R. R. Tolkien, the chief of the Ringwraiths of Middle-earth.
The Witch-king was originally a human lord but in the Second Age he was given one of nine Rings of Power to help rule over his realm. He and eight others were already in the service of Sauron, the Dark Lord of Mordor. The Rings gave them much power which they used to further their, and their lord Sauron's goals, but eventually the Rings turned them into the Nazgûl.
The Witch-king became the lord of the Wraiths, and Sauron's chief servant. After the Dark Lord's fall, he and the Wraiths disappeared until he reappeared in 1300 of the Third Age in Eriador, where he founded the realm of Angmar. Over the next seven Centuries he assailed the kingdom of Arnor and destroyed its splinter-realms Rhudaur and Cardolan, finally defeating Arthedain at the Battle of Fornost, although Angmar in turn was destroyed by a (late) army of Elves from Lindon and Men from Gondor.
He fled south, back to Mordor, which by now was inhabited by Sauron's creatures again, and then besieged and took Minas Ithil, renaming it Minas Morgul. The Witch-king became its lord. Eärnur, King of Gondor, who had previously routed the Witch-king at Fornost but was unable to slay him (at which point the Ñoldorin Elf-lord Glorfindel prophesied to Eärnur that no man would slay the Witch-king), accepted the Witch-king's challenge (against the advice of the prophecy of Glorfindel) to meet him in single combat in Minas Morgul, and never returned. From that day until the coronation of Elessar hundreds of years later, Gondor was ruled by a Steward, as there was none to claim the kingship.
He led the search for the One Ring, and later Mordor's assault on Minas Tirith. Here he was slain by Théoden's niece Éowyn with the aid of the Hobbit Meriadoc Brandybuck, thereby fulfilling the prophecy that no man would slay him. It is important to note that in Tolkien's writings, lowercase man did not refer just to humans but also to adult males of any race.
The Witch-king's true name is never given, and therefore among Tolkien fans, the Witch-king is often simply called Angmar, after the name of the realm he founded and led. Many fans also identify him as one of the three Black Númenóreans under the Nazgûl. In the Middle-earth Role Playing games, he is called Murazor, a Númenórean prince, though this is considered non-canonical as it does not appear outside of the role playing material.
fr:Roi-Sorcier d'Angmar
ja:アングマールの魔王
nl:Tovenaar-koning van Angband
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