The Watcher in the Water was a creature of many arms that lived in the dark lake before the West-gate of Moria. The lake was not old: the Sirannon, the Gate-stream, had been dammed, and its waters had drowned the valley before the doors.1
As the Fellowship passed in, after Gandalf had found the word that opened the doors, a long sinuous arm, pale-green and luminous and wet, came out of the lake and seized Frodo by the ankle. Sam slashed it and it let go, but many more arms came writhing out of the water. The Company fled inside, and the doors swung shut behind them; Gandalf judged from the sounds that the Watcher had uprooted the holly trees and hurled them across the gate.1
There are older and fouler things than Orcs in the deep places of the world.
It had been there before them. The last pages of the Book of Mazarbul, found in Balin's tomb, record that when Balin's colony tried to escape by the West-gate, the Watcher in the Water took Óin.2
Interpretation What it was, the books never say. Gandalf guesses only that it crept, or was driven, out of the dark waters under the mountains, and he speaks elsewhere of nameless things gnawing the world below the deepest delvings of the Dwarves.1,3
Sources
Citations name the chapter rather than the page, so they work in any edition. The colour of each note shows what kind of source it is.
- Published story The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings as Tolkien published them.
- Published story The Fellowship of the Ring, Book II, ch. 4, “A Journey in the Dark”
- Published story The Fellowship of the Ring, Book II, ch. 5, “The Bridge of Khazad-dûm”
- Published story The Two Towers, Book III, ch. 5, “The White Rider”