Watcher in the Water
The Watcher in the Water is a fictional creature in J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth legendarium; it appears in The Fellowship of the Ring, the first volume of The Lord of the Rings. Lurking in a lake beneath the western walls of the dwarf-realm Moria, it is said to have appeared after the damming of the river Sirannon, and was first recorded by Balin's dwarf company 30 or so years before the beginning of Fellowship of the Ring. The origins of the creature are not described in Tolkien's works, but writers have compared it to squids, the legendary kraken, and even to Tolkien's dragons.
Literature
In The Lord of the Rings, while the Fellowship of the Ring approach Mount Doom to complete its quest of destroying the One Ring made by the Dark Lord Sauron, Gandalf is forced to decide which path to take: over the mountain of Caradhras through the Redhorn Gate, or through Moria, to the Dimrill Gate. At Aragorn's insistence they first try the mountain pass, but the weather proves too severe, and the Fellowship instead approach the Doors of Durin, beside which the Watcher lived in a lake. When Boromir disturbs the water, the Watcher seizes Frodo with a long, pale-green, luminous, fingered tentacle, succeeded by twenty more. The Company rescue Frodo and retreat into Moria, and the Watcher seals the Doors shut. As Gandalf commented, "Something has crept or been driven out of the dark water under the mountains. There are older and fouler things than orcs in the deep places of the world."
WITW-LP
WITW-LP (93.5 FM) is a radio station licensed to Valparaiso, Indiana, USA. The station airs a Contemporary Christian music format and is currently owned by The Book of Life Bible Institute, Inc.
