Dragons

Origins in Angband

Dragons are not among the creatures that the Valar sang into the world. They are the work of Melkor, and the texts are clear that he bred them, though not how. During the long Siege of Angband, when the Noldor had hemmed him in and could not be broken by Orcs alone, Morgoth laboured in the deeps of his fortress on new terrors. The first of them came into the open some two centuries after the Dagor Aglareb, in F.A. 260: Glaurung, the Father of Dragons, golden and wingless, the first of the Urulóki, the fire-drakes of the North. He was then young and only half-grown, and his coming was premature; Fingon rode against him with mounted archers and the young worm, whose armour was not yet hardened, fled back to Angband. Morgoth was displeased that his weapon had been shown before it was ready, and for nearly two hundred years no dragon was seen again.

What Morgoth made in those years was a kind rather than a single creature. When Glaurung came forth again in full strength he had lesser drakes at his back, and by the end of the First Age Morgoth could unleash a whole brood of winged dragons that had never before been seen. The dragons are therefore best understood as a race that Morgoth founded, as he founded the Orcs, though from what beginning the texts never say.

Nature and powers

Dragons are huge, serpentine and armoured. Their scales are proof against ordinary weapons, and the only vulnerable place on a great worm is its underside, which Túrin reached by stabbing upward from a ravine and Bard reached because Smaug's jewelled breastplate had one bare patch. The fire-drakes breathe flame hot enough to melt iron and burn stone; the cold-drakes of the later ages seem to have lacked fire but were deadly all the same. Only the Dwarves, who are hardier than Elves and Men and wore great masks of steel, could stand against dragon-fire in open battle, as the host of Belegost did at the Nirnaeth Arnoediad.

More dangerous than fire is the dragon's mind. Dragons are cunning, patient and learned in the tongues of their enemies, and they take pleasure in talk. To meet the eyes of a dragon is to fall under the dragon-spell: Glaurung held Túrin motionless at the gate of Nargothrond and later stripped Nienor of her memory with a glance, and Smaug very nearly drew Bilbo out of the shadows and into the open with flattery and doubt. Their lies are hard to resist because they are woven with truths, and their malice is long-sighted; Glaurung's last act was to restore Nienor's memory at the moment when the knowledge would destroy her.

Dragons hoard. They cannot make anything themselves, but they know the value of every piece of a hoard, and having slept on one for a century they will notice the loss of a single cup. This lust for gold is one of Morgoth's instruments, for it sets the dragons upon the Dwarves, whose halls are the richest in Middle-earth, and the mutual hatred of Dwarves and dragons runs through the whole history of Durin's line.

The wars of Beleriand

In F.A. 455 the Siege of Angband ended in the Dagor Bragollach. Rivers of fire ran down from Thangorodrim across Ard-galen, and at the head of the flames came Glaurung in his full might with Balrogs about him. The plain was burned into the desert of Anfauglith and the northern realms of the Noldor were shattered. Seventeen years later, at the Nirnaeth Arnoediad, Morgoth loosed Glaurung again as his last stroke, and the dragon broke the union of Elves and Men until the Dwarves of Belegost surrounded him and Azaghâl drove a knife into his belly. Glaurung fled the field, crushing Azaghâl as he went, and the lesser beasts fled with him.

The ruin of Nargothrond in F.A. 495 was Glaurung's own work. He came down from the North with an army of Orcs, defeated the host of Orodreth at Tumhalad, crossed the great bridge that Túrin had built, sacked the city and lay down on its treasure. From that throne he directed the doom of the children of Húrin until Túrin killed him at Cabed-en-Aras in F.A. 499.

The last and greatest of Morgoth's dragons appeared only at the end. In the War of Wrath the host of the Valar drove Morgoth back to the roots of Thangorodrim, and in his final despair he sent out the winged dragons, led by Ancalagon the Black. The onslaught was so terrible that the host of the West was thrown back, until Eärendil came in Vingilot with Thorondor and the Eagles and fought the dragons for a day and a night. Eärendil slew Ancalagon, and the dragon's fall broke the towers of Thangorodrim. Nearly all the dragons perished in that war.

The Third Age: Grey Mountains, Scatha, Smaug

Some dragons survived the ruin of Beleriand and made their way into the far North of Middle-earth, and there in the Northern Waste and the Grey Mountains they bred again. The Withered Heath, a barren land between two arms of the Grey Mountains, was remembered in the Third Age as the place where the great dragons bred. Early in the Age one of them, the great worm Scatha, held a hoard in the Grey Mountains until Fram of the Éothéod slew him and took the treasure, which set the Northmen and the Dwarves at odds.

From T.A. 2570 the dragons of the North grew strong again and made war on the Dwarves who had settled in the Grey Mountains. In 2589 a great cold-drake slew King Dáin I and his son Frór at the doors of their own hall, and the following year Thrór led the Longbeards back to Erebor. It did not save them. In T.A. 2770 Smaug the Golden came out of the North, destroyed Dale, drove out the Dwarves and lay down on the wealth of the Lonely Mountain for a hundred and seventy-one years. He was the greatest dragon of his age, and Gandalf later said that his chief reason for helping Thorin was fear that Sauron would use the dragon in a war against the North. Smaug died in T.A. 2941, shot by Bard of Esgaroth with the Black Arrow.

Dragon-fire and the Rings of Power

Dragon-fire is one of the very few things in Middle-earth that can destroy a Ring of Power. Of the Seven Rings of the Dwarves, four were consumed by dragons, and Gandalf named the fire of the worms as a means by which the lesser rings might be unmade. But he was equally clear about its limits. Even Ancalagon, the greatest fire that ever was, could not have harmed the One Ring, which only the fire of Mount Doom could unmake; and by the end of the Third Age no dragon was left in the world whose fire was hot enough to melt even one of the Great Rings.

After the Third Age

Gandalf's remark at the Council of Elrond is the surest statement of the dragons' condition at the end of the Age: there are dragons still, but none in whom the old fire burns hot. Smaug was the last of the great worms. The dragons that remained in the Northern Waste were lesser things, remembered by the Dwarves as a standing danger to any who tried to mine the Grey Mountains, and nothing in the histories of the Fourth Age speaks of them again. In the Shire they had already become a figure of tavern talk, and Sam Gamgee's longing to see one was the longing of a boy for a creature out of stories.

Great serpentine reptiles, armoured in scales that grow harder with age. The fire-drakes of the First Age were wingless and crawled, though with terrible speed; the winged dragons appeared only at the War of Wrath, and Smaug, who had both wings and fire, is the best-described specimen: red-gold in colour, with vast bat-like wings, a long tail, a mouth of fire, and an underside encrusted with gems from centuries of lying on treasure. Dragon-eyes are the seat of the dragon-spell, and dragons see through darkness and smell approaching thieves. Their reek is foul and their blood is deadly: the ichor that ran from Glaurung's wound burned Túrin's hand and its venom nearly killed him.

Dragons have no society. They are solitary, jealous and long-lived, and they serve Morgoth by hatred rather than loyalty; Glaurung obeyed Morgoth's designs, but Smaug served no one in the Third Age. They speak the tongues of their enemies, delight in riddles and flattery, and treasure knowledge of the names and lineages of those who oppose them. Their lore of gold is exact and their memory of its loss is unforgiving.

Morgoth bred the dragons in the pits of Angband during the long Siege, as one of several new terrors intended to break the Noldor. Glaurung was the first to emerge, in F.A. 260, before he was fully grown. From what Morgoth bred them the texts do not say; they are his creatures and no other's, and like the Orcs they are a mockery rather than a making.

Nearly all the dragons were destroyed in the War of Wrath. The survivors bred in the far North, where they warred with the Dwarves throughout the Third Age. Smaug was the last of the great worms, slain in T.A. 2941. Lesser dragons whose fire had cooled were still believed to exist at the end of the Age; nothing more is recorded of them.