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Eagle (Middle-earth)

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In J. R. R. Tolkien's fictional universe of Middle-earth, the eagles were immense flying birds that were sapient and could speak. Often emphatically referred to as the Great Eagles,^[1] they appear in various parts of his legendarium, from The Silmarillion and the accounts of Númenor to The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. These creatures are usually assumed to have been similar to actual eagles (for example, as an independent species of the subfamily Buteoninae), but much larger. In The Silmarillion, Thorondor is said to have been the greatest of them and of all birds, with a wingspan of 30 fathoms (180 ft or 60 m).^[2] Elsewhere, the eagles have varied in nature and size both within Tolkien's writings and in later visualisations and films.

1 Appearances
2 List of named Eagles
3 Concept and creation
- 3.1 Nature of the Eagles
4 Adaptations and influences
5 References

Appearances

The difference between "common" and Great Eagles is prominently described in The Hobbit:

Eagles are not kindly birds. Some are cowardly and cruel. But the ancient race of the northern mountains were the greatest of all birds; they were proud and strong and noble-hearted.^[3]

First Age

Throughout The Silmarillion, the Eagles are particularly associated with Manwë, the ruler of the sky and Lord of the Valar (angels or "gods"). In Ainulindalë it is recounted that "spirits in the shape of hawks and eagles" brought news from Middle-earth to his halls upon Taniquetil, the highest mountain in the Blessed Realm of Valinor,^[4] although later in the book the same is said of birds in general.^[2] (On the different conceptions, see Nature below.) Upon their first appearance in the main narrative, it is stated that the Eagles had been "sent forth" to Middle-earth by Manwë. He commanded them to live in the mountains north of the land of Beleriand, in order to "watch upon" Morgoth,^[2] the ultimate evil power who had made war upon the Elves and Men, and to help the exiled Noldorin Elves "in extreme cases".^[5] The eagles were ruled by Thorondor, who dwelt (apparently with the majority of his folk) in the Encircling Mountains to the west of Dorthonion.^[6]^[7] When the Hidden City of Gondolin was built by Turgon between the Encircling Mountains, the eagles of Thorondor became his allies, bringing him news and keeping spies off the borders. Because of their guardianship, the Orcs of Morgoth did not dare to approach either the nearby mountains, or the important ford of Brithiach to the south;^[8] the eagles' watch had been redoubled after the coming of Tuor,^[1] enabling Gondolin to remain undiscovered the longest of all Elven realms. When the city fell at last, the eagles of Thorondor protected the fugitives, driving away the orcs that ambushed them in the mountain passes.^[9] The Eagles fought alongside the army of the Valar, Elves and Men during the War of Wrath at the end of the First Age, when Morgoth was overthrown. In The Silmarillion it is recounted that after the appearance of winged dragons, "all the great birds of heaven" gathered under the leadership of Thorondor to Eärendil, destroying the majority of the dragons during a battle in the air.^[10]

Second Age

Tolkien mentioned the eagles in his accounts of the island of Númenor during the Second Age. He stated that three eagles guarded the summit of Meneltarma, the Holy Mountain, appearing whenever one approached the hallow and staying in the sky during the Three Prayers. The Númenóreans called them "the Witnesses of Manwë" and believed that these eagles had been "sent by him from Aman to keep watch upon the Holy Mountain and upon all the land."^[11] There was another eyrie upon the tower of the King's House in the capital Armenelos, always inhabited by a pair of eagles, until the days of Tar-Ancalimon and the coming of Shadow to Númenor.^[11] In addition, it is stated that many eagles lived upon the hills around Sorontil in the north of the island,^[11] although in the last case it is unclear whether these were "great" or common eagles. When the Númenóreans had finally forsaken their former beliefs and began to speak openly against the Ban of the Valar, it was in the way of eagle-shaped storm clouds, called the "Eagles of the Lord of the West", that Manwë tried to reason or threaten them.^[12]

Third Age

By the end of the Third Age, a colony of Eagles lived in the northern parts of the Misty Mountains, as described in The Hobbit. They mostly nested upon the eastward slopes not far from the High Pass leading from Rivendell, and thus in the direct vicinity of the Goblin Town beneath the Mountains. It is stated that these Eagles often afflicted the goblins and "stopped whatever wickedness they were doing"; however, their relationship with the local Woodmen was only cool, as the eagles often hunted their sheep.^[3] During the events of the book, eagles of this colony rescued Thorin's company from a band of goblins and wargs,^[3] ultimately carrying the dwarves to the Carrock.^[13] Later, having espied the mustering of goblins all over the Mountains, a great number of Eagles gathered under their leader and participated in the Battle of Five Armies near the Lonely Mountain. It was only with their help that the Dwarves, Men and Elves managed to defeat the goblins.^[14] In The Lord of the Rings a prominent (though behind-the-scene) role is played by Gwaihir, and the Eagles appear in great numbers towards the end of the book. In a parallel to The Hobbit, they arrived at the Battle of the Morannon, helping the Host of the West against the Nazgûl. Several of them rescued Frodo Baggins and Samwise Gamgee from Mount Doom after the One Ring had been destroyed.^[15]

List of named Eagles

Thorondor

The Lord of Eagles in the First Age, said in The Silmarillion to be the "mightiest of all birds that have ever been", with a wingspan of thirty fathoms and a golden beak.^[2] His name translates from Sindarin, an Elven tongue devised by Tolkien, as 'King of Eagles';^[16] its cognate form in Quenya, another Elven language, is Sorontar.^[1] He led the eagles during most of their appearances in The Silmarillion, and has a significant role of his own. Thorondor first enters the narrative when he helped the Elven-prince Fingon rescue his kinsman Maedhros from imprisonment upon Thangorodrim.^[2] After the Dagor Bragollach, he saved Fingolfin's body from defilement by his slayer Morgoth, giving the Dark Lord a scar on his face and carrying the Elven-king's corpse to the Encircling Mountains north of Gondolin, where it was buried by Turgon.^[7] Shortly afterwards, Thorondor espied Húrin and Huor at the feet of the Mountains, and sent two of his servants to fetch them and bear to Gondolin, fulfilling thus the intentions of Vala Ulmo.^[7] Thorondor and two other eagles rescued Lúthien and the wounded Beren from the doors of Angband during their Quest of the Silmaril, taking them to Doriath.^[17]

Lord of the Eagles

While in The Silmarillion the title "Lord of the Eagles" applies to Thorondor, in The Hobbit it evidently has another significance. No eagles are identified by name in this book, and titles "the Lord of the Eagles" or "the Great Eagle" distinguish their leader from others. It is stated that once he had been healed from an arrow-wound by Gandalf, and that it was in the memory of this service that his eagles helped the dwarves.^[3] After his participating in the Battle of Five Armies, he was given the title King of All Birds and wore a golden crown.^[13] Many readers assume that it was Gwaihir that led the eagles in this story. However, in The Return of the King Gandalf says that Gwaihir has carried him twice before the Battle of the Morannon,^[15] while the proper count would be three or four times if Gwaihir and the Lord of the Eagles were the same individual.

Gwaihir

An eagle from the Misty Mountains that helped Gandalf before and during the War of the Ring; his name means Wind-lord in Sindarin,^[18] and he is said to have been descended from Thorondor.^[15] While Gwaihir was patrolling the land around the southern borders of the Mountains upon Radagast's orders, he espied Gandalf imprisoned upon the top of Orthanc and carried him to Edoras.^[19] Next time, he found the wizard upon the summit of Celebdil after his battle with the Balrog, and took him to Lothlórien.^[20] Gwaihir participated in the Battle of the Morannon, and when the Mount Doom erupted, he carried Gandalf to it, in order to save Frodo and Sam.^[15] Eagles named "Gwaihir" and "Landroval" (or, in even earlier texts, "Gwaewar" and "Lhandroval") also appear in J. R. R. Tolkien's manuscripts of The Silmarillion, where they are stated to have been the two vassals of Thorondor who helped to bear Beren and Lúthien from Angband.^[21]^[22] The passage was removed from the published Silmarillion by Christopher Tolkien to escape the seeming confusion with The Lord of the Rings, although later he admitted that he was unable to interpret his father's intentions and regretted the suppression.^[21]

Landroval

An eagle who helped to carry Frodo and Sam from Mount Doom, said in The Lord of the Rings to have been the brother of Gwaihir and descendant of Thorondor.^[15] His name means 'wide-wing' in Sindarin,^[23] and it was also used for an eagle of the First Age, either the same as that of the Third or not (see above).

Meneldor

A younger companion of Gwaihir and Landroval in the rescue of Frodo and Sam. His name means 'Sky-king' in Sindarin.^[24]^[25]

Concept and creation

The Great Eagles already appeared in the first tale about Middle-earth that Tolkien wrote in late 1910s, The Fall of Gondolin, published in The Book of Lost Tales. The role of Thorondor was expanded in stages, with the successive introduction of relevant plot elements; and after the conception of Númenor entered in 1936-7, the notion that the eagles were the messengers of Manwë was further elaborated. Shortly after, Tolkien introduced the eagles into The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, repeating in the latter both some plot elements and names. In several early texts Tolkien wrote that, before moving to Crissaegrim after the death of Fingolfin, the eagles of Thorondor nested upon the peaks of Thangorodrim above Morgoth's fortress of Angband.^[26]^[8] Christopher Tolkien assumed that this idea was later abandoned.^[8] Another rejected proposal was that after Beren's death Lúthien would not pass of grief, but would be carried to Valinor by Thorondor who would have been "summoned" by Melian the Maia.^[21] The eagles possessed a notable characteristic that distinguished them from other birds in early writings. Tolkien originally described that Eä, the World, was bounded by the Walls of Night, and that the space above the surface of the Earth up to the Walls was divided into three regions.^[27] Common birds could keep aloft only within the lower layer,^[28] while the Eagles of Manwë could fly "beyond the lights of heaven to the edge of darkness."^[29] The conception of limited world and of the layers of the firmament was rejected during the writing of The Lord of the Rings.^[30] The eagle-shaped clouds that appeared in Númenor were one of Tolkien's recurring associations with the downfall of the island, just like the images of a sloping mountain and an overwhelming wave;^[31] they were also introduced by him into two abandoned time-travel stories, The Lost Road and The Notion Club Papers. In a sketch for the former, Tolkien projected that it would be "Sorontur" (Thorondor) himself that appeared in Númenor to the protagonist of the story.^[32] Tolkien's painting of an eagle on a crag appears in some editions of The Hobbit. According to Christopher Tolkien, the author based this picture on a painting by Archibald Thorburn of an immature Golden Eagle, which Christopher found for him in The Birds of the British Isles by Thomas Coward.^{[citation needed]} However, Tolkien's use of this model does not necessarily mean that his birds were ordinary Golden Eagles.

Nature of the Eagles

The question of the Great Eagles' nature was faced by Tolkien with apparent hesitation. In early writings there was no need to define it precisely, since he imagined that, beside the Valar, "many lesser spirits... both great and small" had entered the Eä upon its creation;^[33] and such talking and sapient creatures as the Eagles or Huan the Hound, in Tolkien's own words, "have been rather lightly adopted from less 'serious' mythologies."^[34] The phrase "spirits in the shape of hawks and eagles" in Ainulindalë derives from that stage of writing.^[29] After the completion of The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien introduced a strict "system" of living creatures:

Incarnates or the "Children of Ilúvatar": Elves, Men, Dwarves and Orcs, — those who possessed fëar or souls, with the defining characteristic of being able to speak;^[35]
Self-incarnates or the Valar and Maiar — "angelic" spirits that "arrayed" themselves in bodily forms of the Incarnates or of animals,^[4]^[36] able to communicate both by thought and speech;^[35]
animals, without the soul and unable to speak.

Further information: Fëa and hröa

For some time Tolkien considered the Eagles as bird-shaped Maiar;^[5] however, later he realised that the statement about Gwaihir and Landroval being the descendants of Thorondor had already appeared in print in The Lord of the Rings,^[34] while the notion of the "Children of the Valar" had been rejected by him long before.^[37] In what his son presented as the last of J. R. R. Tolkien's notes on this topic, he decided that the Great Eagles were common animals that "were taught language by the Valar, and raised to a higher level — but they still had no fëar."^[34]

Adaptations and influences

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In The Lord of the Rings film trilogy directed by Peter Jackson, these creatures are 6 m (20 ft) tall with a maximum wingspan of 23 m (75 ft).^{[citation needed]} A notable derivation from the book is that Gandalf summons Gwaihir to Orthanc with the aid of a by-passing moth (the role of Radagast was not included into the film). The same moth also appears to him before the Eagles arrive at the Battle of the Morannon. Tolkien's Great Eagles are likely to have been the inspiration for similar creatures appearing in various fantasy genres, such as the Giant eagles in the role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons.