One of Tolkien’s abandoned projects was an epic poem about the legend of King Arthur. Laid aside for decades, The Fall of Arthur has finally been published. Tolkien biographer John Garth on how it paved the way for The Lord of the Rings.
Early in The Fall of Arthur, long awaited by fans of J.R.R. Tolkien and now edited for publication by his son Christopher, an army rides to Mirkwood where they see in a storm above it, Ringwraith-like:
wan horsemen wild in windy cloudsgrey and monstrous grimly ridingshadow-helmed to war, shapes disastrous.
