Winged Dragons

Morgoth's last weapon

For most of the First Age the dragons of Angband crawled. Glaurung and his brood were serpents of fire without wings, and the armies of the Noldor and their allies, though they could not stand against them, at least knew what they faced. The winged dragons were something new. When the host of the Valar had broken every other force that Melkor could send, and had driven him back into the pits beneath Thangorodrim, he loosed from his deepest vaults a fleet of dragons that had never been seen before, and they came out upon wings with thunder and lightning and a storm of fire. Their onset was so terrible that the host of the West, which had swept Balrogs and Orcs before it, was thrown back from the gates.

At their head flew Ancalagon the Black, the mightiest of all dragons. Against him came Eärendil in Vingilot, burning with the light of the Silmaril, and about him gathered Thorondor and all the great birds of heaven. The battle in the air lasted a day and a night. Before sunrise Eärendil slew Ancalagon and cast him down on Thangorodrim, and the mountain-towers broke under him. Nearly all the winged dragons died in that battle. The published texts do not say how many escaped; but since dragons were again in the Northern Waste in the Third Age, some must have.

Smaug

The one winged dragon of later times who is described in full is Smaug. He was also a fire-drake, and in him the two lines of Morgoth's making are joined: he had vast leathern wings that carried him from the North to Erebor in T.A. 2770 and from Erebor to Esgaroth on the night of his death, and he had fire that turned Dale to ruin and the Long Lake to steam. His flight over the Mountain, setting the slopes ablaze, and his last flight over the burning town are the only pictures the texts give of a dragon in the air after the War of Wrath.

Wings and fire

Winged dragons in the texts always also breathe fire; there is no winged dragon without it. The kindreds of dragon are therefore not exclusive. A dragon may be classified by its fire (fire-drake or cold-drake) and separately by its wings, and Smaug belongs to both the fire-drakes and the winged dragons. The Atlas lists him under the fire-drakes with the winged dragons as a secondary kindred.

Fate

Ancalagon's brood was almost wholly destroyed at the end of the First Age. Smaug was the last great winged dragon, and with his death over Lake-town in T.A. 2941 the age of dragons in flight ended. Whether any of the lesser drakes of the North had wings is not recorded.

Dragons of the greatest size, bearing bat-like wings broad enough to carry their bulk. Ancalagon was the largest dragon ever to live; his fall could shatter the triple peaks of Thangorodrim. Smaug was red-gold, his wings vast, his belly armoured in gems.

None beyond that of dragons generally.

Bred by Morgoth in the depths of Angband during the long years of the war and held back until his last extremity in the War of Wrath.

Nearly all slain in the War of Wrath. Smaug, the last, died in T.A. 2941.