Location from The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien
A haunted wetland where the dead of ancient battles lie preserved beneath the water — their pale faces watching from below, their candle-lights luring travelers to drown.
The Dead Marshes should not exist. The battle that created them was fought thousands of years ago, and the bodies should have rotted to nothing centuries past. But the marshes preserve. The faces beneath the water are as clear as the day they fell — Elven warriors with braided hair, Mannish soldiers in corroded plate, Orcs with tusked snarls — all lying just below the surface, their dead eyes reflecting the candle-lights that hover above. The smell is stagnant water and organic decay, but cold — not the warm rot of a living swamp but the preserved, chemical stillness of something pickled in malice. The candle-lights are the danger: they draw the eye, invite closer inspection, and those who look too long at the faces feel a compulsion to reach into the water. To touch the dead. To join them. Gollum navigates the safe paths through the marshes from long practice, but even he fears the lights. The footing is treacherous — solid ground gives way to bottomless muck without warning. Nazgûl pass overhead, and the dead lights gutter and flare at their passing.
Vast stretches of stagnant pools and reed-choked bogs extending for miles. The water is dark, still, and covered with a greasy film. Pale, flickering lights — like candle flames — hovering above the surface with no visible source. Beneath the water, visible in the pools: the preserved faces of Elves, Men, and Orcs in ancient armor, eyes open, expressions frozen. Dead grasses, no trees, a flat featureless horizon in every direction.
Also known as: Dead Marshes, the Marshes, the Dead Faces