Gwaihir

Lineage

Gwaihir was the lord of the Great Eagles who nested in the high Misty Mountains at the end of the Third Age. Gandalf named him the swiftest of the Great Eagles and a descendant of Thorondor, the King of Eagles of the Elder Days. The name Gwaihir also appears in the tale of Beren and Lúthien as one of the two vassals who flew with Thorondor to the gate of Angband; whether the eagle of the Third Age was the same bird, living through two ages and more, or a descendant bearing his name, the texts do not settle, and this compendium treats the Third Age deeds under this entry.

The eagles and the wizard

Gwaihir's friendship with Gandalf was old. Gandalf had once healed him of an arrow-wound, and the debt was repaid several times over. In The Hobbit the Lord of the Eagles of the Misty Mountains is never named; he rescued Thorin's company from Wargs and goblins in the summer of T.A. 2941, carried them to the Carrock, and led the eagles into the Battle of Five Armies below Erebor. Readers commonly take that unnamed lord to be Gwaihir, but the identification is an inference rather than a statement in the text.

Orthanc

In September of T.A. 3018 Saruman imprisoned Gandalf on the pinnacle of Orthanc. Radagast, who did not know of Saruman's treachery, had agreed to send birds and beasts with news to Isengard, and so it was Gwaihir who came flying to the tower by night with tidings of the Nazgûl. He found Gandalf on the roof, carried him off before Saruman knew, and set him down in Rohan. Gandalf later said the Windlord had told him that he could not carry a wizard to the ends of the earth and would bear him only a short way; it was enough. From Rohan Gandalf took Shadowfax and rode to the Shire.

The peak of Zirakzigil

Gandalf fell with the Balrog from the bridge of Moria and fought it up the Endless Stair to the mountain-top, where he killed it and himself died. He was sent back, and lay naked on the summit until Gwaihir found him again. This time the eagle had been sent by Galadriel, who had seen Gandalf's need. Gwaihir marvelled at how light his burden had become, as if the sun shone through him, and carried him to Lothlórien, where he was healed and clothed in white.

The Black Gate and Mount Doom

When the Captains of the West drew up before the Black Gate on March 25, T.A. 3019, and the Nazgûl came down on the host, Gwaihir arrived out of the north with Landroval his brother and all the eagles of the northern mountains, and they drove the Ringwraiths back. Then the Ring went into the fire. Gandalf asked Gwaihir to carry him a third time, and the eagle answered that he would carry him anywhere. With Landroval and the young Meneldor he flew over Mordor faster than any wind, past the ruin of Barad-dûr, and found Frodo and Sam on a hill of ash below the erupting Mount Doom. The eagles lifted them out of the fire, and they woke in Ithilien.

Character

Gwaihir is a lord rather than a servant. He gives Gandalf his help freely, sets his own limits, and speaks with him as an equal. The eagles of his line kept the ancient tie between their kind and the West, and it is fitting that they should appear at the two moments when the War of the Ring turned: when Gandalf was freed to warn the Shire, and when the Ring-bearer was saved.

Not told. He was living at the end of the War of the Ring and presumably ruled his people in the Misty Mountains into the Fourth Age.