In The Lord of the Rings, J. R. R. Tolkien’s classic fantasy trilogy, the center of evil in Middle Earth is the land of Mordor, a desolate and evil country. From there Sauron, the Dark Lord, sends out his spies and agents in pursuit of his goal: the conquest of the world of men, hobbits, elves, and dwarves. The most fearsome of these servants are the Nazgûl, otherwise known as the Ringwraiths or Black Riders, ghostly creatures who had once been men, great kings who had fallen under Sauron’s power. As Tolkien describes them:

 

"And one by one, sooner or later, according to their native strength and to the good or evil of their wills in the beginning, they fell under the thraldom of the ring that they bore and of the domination of the One which was Sauron’s.