The animals in ME

[Noxomanus]

Being a great lover of animals (in a Radagast fashion) there are things considering the animals in ME I wonder about.

First of all,did the animals "awake" like The Children of Illuvátar?I seem to remember that in the Silm beasts just started to appear in the forests of ME.

And then,the monsters and terrible beasts send by Melkor and hunted by Oromë,would these be Tolkiens way of dealing with prehistoric fossil beasts?It's a fact we don't know how much time was between the shaping of Arda and the coming of the Elves but probably a veeeeery great amount of time.

And last,could those animals on the dark side be called corrupted and evil or were they just innocent and used by Melkor or Sauron? (and I'm not talking about intelligent Wargs or Dragons here,but simple animals like dogs or horses or Mumakil)

[Aredhel Idril Telcontar]

Actually, I think it says in Sil, that Yavanna created all living creatures (the olvar) and all plants (the kelvar). I could be mixing them up, but I think I'm right...
After Melkor took over Middle Earth, Yavanna put the plants to sleep (sound's harsh, right [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img]) and the animals were twisted.
Many new ones were created in Valinor.
I hope I helped [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img]

[Lyra Greenleaf]

You couldn't say that Mumakil or horses are evil, they were just being used. I think that's more a question of ethics than Tolkien! They had no choice, after all.

[akhtene]

would these be Tolkiens way of dealing with prehistoric fossil beasts?

[img]smilies/smile.gif[/img] Who can now tell why dinosaurs died out? And in myths and tales monsters seldom if ever die of old age. There's always a hero to help. [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img]

As for calling animals corrupted and evil, we should first decide whether they have reason and thus tell evil from good. (BTW, can the ability to speak be taken as the sign of reason?) If the creature is rational, he/she/it takes one or other side voluntary (eg. Huan) thus becoming good or evil. But then again, do we consider such creatures animals ?
If an animal has no sense (a horse or a bird) its just a matter of feeding and training. Can we call a knife corrupted if someone was cut with it? A question of ethics, really.

[Lobelia]

Hi! When I saw this topic, I hoped it might be about the general theme of animals in ME, such as the horses. Good or evil, the ones in THE HOBBIT get eaten! The only survivors of the innocent ponies are those Smaug didn't get around to eating before he was killed and those belonging to Beorn, because he had the sense to demand their return. In LOTR, however, the only horses killed are those belonging to the Ringwraiths, which might possibly have been stolen from Rohan, poor things, and Snowmane, who at least gets a hero's funeral. Does this say something about JRR's attitude? I don't know. He doesn't seem to like wolves very much, intelligent or not, there are no nice spiders and while the eagles are always good,ravens are often bad (not always - the ones in THE HOBBIT weren't). Maybe it's a bit like a reflection of the sentient races?

[Birdland]

Noxomanus - I, too, remember commenting on the lack of "good" animals in Tolkien's work, especially considering the role that animals have played in the world's mythologies.

Here's some comments from my earlier thread: The "evil" animals of ME

[Noxomanus]

I'd have loved Tolkien to have been more informative about his animals.

[Frodo Baggins]

Yes there seems to be a lack of good animals. The only really good animals I see are Shadowfax, Asfaloth, adn Gwaihir.

I'm miffed because JRRT had cats as being from Mordor. I ADORE cats and have three sweet ones myself that I just love to pieces, and NONE of them come from Mordor.

[Noxomanus]

Some people take it all way to serious......but maybe Tolkien was afraid of cats. I don't "fear" cats but I can believe some people might.

[Frodo Baggins]

If Tolkien wanted the ultimate Shelob killer though, a cat would have been great. Just yesterday one of my cats caught a rather large spider, pulled off three of its legs, and then drowned it in the swimming pool. Couldn't you imagine a BIG kitty ripping off Shelob's legs and then drowning her in the sea of Rhun?

[Rumil]

I'm curious as to the extent of animal 'intelligence' in Middle Earth.

There are many animals with the power of speech or which appear to understand or respond to complex speech or instructions eg. Roac and Carc the ravens, the great eagles, wargs, mearas, Huan the wolfhound, Tevildo, Carcharoth, the crebain, spiders of Mirkwood, Beorn's servants, even the perceptive fox.

Also there is the remarkable statement that all peoples were split between good and evil during the war of the Last Alliance (except the elves), including the beasts and the birds.

I wonder if anyone has any insight into why Tolkien chose some species as intelligent and why others were assigned as good and evil.

(Plus I'm rather concerned about the possibility of a flock of rampaging Second Age Saurionic killer sheep, but there you go)

[ June 05, 2003: Message edited by: Rumil ]

[Birdland]

I'm rather concerned about the possibility of a flock of rampaging Second Age Saurionic killer sheep, but there you go

No, Rumil! Everyone knows that sheep go to Valinor, goats go to the Void.

I'm guessing, like everything else in the book, Tolkien based his choice of animals on Northern European mythology. I know swans, ravens, dragons, horses were all powerful animal spirits. (Didn't Odin ride an eight-legged horse?)

I notice the owl didn't rate a mention in Tolkien's work - good or evil - though it is popular in Celtic myth.

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the only horses killed are those belonging to the Ringwraiths, which might possibly have been stolen from Rohan, poor things (reposted)
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The horses mentioned above were indeed stolen from Rohan. The Ringwraithes [img]smilies/evil.gif[/img] (if my memory serves right [img]smilies/rolleyes.gif[/img] ) tried to buy them but none in Rohan would have anything to do with them. I may be wrong but that is what I somehow recall. [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img]

[Sharkû]

I would wager that the animals in the books are less those of Northern European mythology, but simply those of Northern Europe, which is the approximate location of the north-west of Middle-Earth, where the main stories take place. Flora and fauna would be influenced less by deliberate decisions of the author, but the climatic, geographic, and historic circumstances.

Some animals are different in appearance and temper because they were affected by Morgoth and turned into "monsters of ivory and horn" (passim throughout the later QS writings such as HomeX). These include, of course, both beasts from the north-west of Middle-Earth and Europe, and from everywhere else.


Animals with reasoning and speech are a different matter. Tolkien admits that "these have been rather lightly adopted from less 'serious' mythologies, but play a part which cannot now be excised" (MT).

Tolkien explains this further in Myths Transformed:
"Living things in Aman. As the Valar would robe themselves like the Children, many of the Maiar robed themselves like other lesser living things, as trees, flowers, beasts. (Huan.)"

However, this is at least partially contradicted by the later statement "In summary: I think it must be assumed that [orcs] 'talking' is not necessarily the sign of the possession of a 'rational soul' or fëa...talking was largely echoic (cf. parrots), in The Lord of the Rings Sauron is said to have devised a language for them.... The same sort of thing may be said of Húan and the Eagles: they were taught language by the Valar, and raised to a higher level - but they still had no fëar." (ibid.)

Some discussion on the matter can be found in the Ealar and Incarnation thread.

[HerenIstarion]

Ëalar and Incarnation

[Encaitare]

It seems to me that in most cases the only creatures which can really be held accountable for any evil acts they do are the ones who are "sentient," such as Shelob and Huan. The others seem to simply have been taken by the darkness and corrupted (ie: Mumakil, crebain).

I wasn't aware that cats were said to have come from Mordor! Very cool... well, they certainly are sneaky.

[HerenIstarion]

they certainly are sneaky

They are, but the've got style to them . Just as Annatar, before fixing finally on being Sauron

[Mithalwen]

I doubt that any cat would care about anyone's opinion of them ...... dogs think they are humans... cats think they are gods.... and they do have Baudelaire and Verlaine to fight their corner... of course cats do have that love of sitting on paper which is annoying for scholars.......

In the UK cats were regarded as both lucky and unlucky according to region .... the long association with witchcraft maybe...

Tolkien makes up for the eaten ponies in the Hobbit in LOTR .... Bill and Merry's ponies all survive ..... even Boromir's horse gets home.... but the talking animal stuff... hmmmm in the cases where it can't be explained by "lesser Maiar" or certqain individuals eg ... Beorn/ Radagast having a particular understanding of otherwise ordinary animals ....well it just seems a weakness to me...... keep thinking of Skippy and Lassie...

But the thing I want to know concerns Asfaloth ..... the "elf horse" .... is there more significance to that than him being a horse owned by an elf? In the appendixes it mentions Glorfindel riding up on his white horse - surely it can't have been the same one..... or is there an implication of some race of immortal elf horses......?