Demons from the Ancient World

The LOTR introduced a shadow & flame in the form of the Balrog of Morgoth, a Demon from the Ancient World lurking in the Mines of Moria. The Fellowship also encounters the ''Watcher in the Water'' upon the entrance to the Mines. What other such evils existed from the Ancient world which were not discussed in the LOTR, & were they free of control from Sauron? In what order of power would you level them? The subject of Balrogs, their methods of battle & spell casting is a very interesting one.

[Gil-Galad]

Most of the evil creatures that you find in LOTR were created by Melkor, more as a mockery to what was created by Eru. for example, the orcs were created out of a mockery of the elves, the trolls were created as a mockery of the ents. Melkor created many other creatures, including vampires, werewolfs, balrog, dragons and many more to do his bidding and bring evil. he possibly created the Watcher but had no use for it seeing how the oceans would easily overcome him, so he probably cast it off and worked on his next creation.

What about Dragons? Gandalf spoke of a Black Dragon in the LOTR, Ancalagon the Black I think he was called.

[MatthewM]

Vampires? Do you know where it mentions that? I'm not doubting you, I'm just curious. I remember something was mentioned once with a vampire and werewolf but I can't recall where I read that...

Originally Posted by MatthewM

Vampires? Do you know where it mentions that? I'm not doubting you, I'm just curious. I remember something was mentioned once with a vampire and werewolf but I can't recall where I read that...

Gandalf spoke about Werewolves in the Shadow of the Past, but Vampires? Did Morgoth have an army of such undead creatures?

[Gil-Galad]

Dragons were created by Melkor, as i said, first one was Glaurang, the Great Worm, then during the War of Wrath, he unleashed Ancalgon with his Winged-Dragons as a final effort, but it failed.


Vampires were among the creatures of tol-In-Guaroth, though not greatly mentioned, they still served in the ranks of evil during the first age. Vampires might have been created by Sauron, but they were controlled by Sauron.

Was Smaug related to these Dragons? How did he compare in terms of power?

[Gil-Galad]

After the War of Wrath, the creatures of evil created by Melkor all fled before the power of the Valar, the Balrog of Moria was one of them, he embedded himself in Moria till he was awakened by the dwarves. Smaug was a dragon that came from the north where many dragons were roosting. they came down and sacked the Grey Mountains, which was inhabited by the dwarves. Smaug was one of these dragons that basically sacked Erebor and took its wealth for his own.


EDIT: though not as powerful as Glaurang or Ancalgon, he was still the greatest dragon of his days, till his death by the hand of Bard.

What did Tolkein have to say about Giants? They were briefly mentioned in the Hobbit (& I might add also feature prominantly in the game BFME II).

[Bêthberry]

Ungoliant was not created by Melkor: "The Eldar knew not whence she came." Shelob is the last of her children, I believe and as I recall it isn't known for sure that Shelob dies in LotR. Does this place her higher than the Balrog, who was destroyed?

[Farael]

I don't believe the watcher in the water was created by Melkor either, but I don't have any quotes right now to support that.

Also, technically, Melkor did not create balrogs. Balrogs were the incarnate form of lesser ainur that were swayed into Melkor's power, if I'm not mistaken.

Edit: I don't think Shelob dies in LoTR. Not by Sam's hand, at any rate.

[Gil-Galad]

Shelob starves to death due to the wounds inflicted on her by Samwise the Brave.

According to the Tolkien Beastiary by David Day, the Watcher was a creature created by Melkor but forgotten.


with Ungoliant and the spiders, i beleive that they were created at the forming of the world but were swayed by evil, like the Crebain were turned into evil use while the Ravens assisted the dwarves.

[Saurreg]

Originally Posted by Bêthberry

Ungoliant was not created by Melkor: "The Eldar knew not whence she came." Shelob is the last of her children, I believe and as I recall it isn't known for sure that Shelob dies in LotR. Does this place her higher than the Balrog, who was destroyed?

No one really knows where Ungoliant came from, though the Silmarillion hinted that she might have entered the world during the influx of the Ainur.

An anomaly like Tom Bombadil?

[Bêthberry]

The relevant passage about Shelob in LotR is as follows:

Originally Posted by The Choices of Master Samwise

Shelob was gone; and whether she lay long in her lair, nursing her malice and her misery, and in slow years of darkness healed herself from within, rebuilding her clustered eyes, until with hunger like death she spun once more her dreadful snares in the glens of the Mountains of Shadow, this tale does not tell.

Now there's a downright refusal to provide "the purposed domination of the author" in the story. Some may liken that passage to the 'cup half empty/cup half full' interpretation, but I prefer simply to go with the ambiguity of the passage and recognise that Tolkien decided to leave the reader a bit of a tease.

[Lalwendë]

Originally Posted by Gil-Galad

Shelob starves to death due to the wounds inflicted on her by Samwise the Brave.

According to the Tolkien Beastiary by David Day, the Watcher was a creature created by Melkor but forgotten.


with Ungoliant and the spiders, i beleive that they were created at the forming of the world but were swayed by evil, like the Crebain were turned into evil use while the Ravens assisted the dwarves.

The biggest demon from the ancient world mentioned is probably David Day. He's not erm...the most reliable of sources. Nice books though, I got the Bestiary twice because the pictures are so beautiful (contrary to what Alex Lewis of the TS thinks, after he gave the illustrations an unwarranted knocking about!). The best source in terms of reliability is the Robert Foster A-Z.

Remember Melkor couldn't create any new life, he could only corrupt what already existed. The scariest thing though is possibly this:

Far, far below the deepest delvings of the Dwarves, the world is gnawed by nameless things.

Nameless things can be whatever you want them to be, that's what's so scary about 'em. Check out me horror thread for more nasties.

Talking about Ungoliant, after a while, she takes nobody for her master:

there in Avathar, secret and unknown, Un- goliant had made her abode. The Eldar knew not whence she came; but some have said that in ages long before she descended from the darkness that lies about Arda, when Melkor first looked down in envy upon the Kingdom of Manwe, and that in the beginning she was one of those that he corrupted to his service. But she had disowned her Master, desiring to be mistress of her own lust, taking all things to herself to feed her emptiness; and she fled to the south, escaping the assaults of the Valar and the hunters of Orome, for their vigilance had ever been to the north, and the south was long unheeded. Thence she had crept towards the light of the Blessed Realm; for she hungered for light and hated it.

More Gigantarachnophobia...

[Nogrod]

If we take the trichotomy (?) as granted: that there are the Valar, the Maiar and the created ones, thence we face the question where do all these like Bombadill, Ungoliant or Glaurung come from.

But they might also be the anomalies, beings that are not just possibly explained by the storyline Tolkien gave us? So Eru couldn't be sure of every minute detail of the creation or didn't wish to intervene in every "detail"? Or that there were ones brought forwards in the creation even the Eru could not fathom - or of which s/he would not wish to steer?

The Ainulindalë in the end was the product of the Ainur making their personal contributions to the harmony (kosmos in Greek, meaning "harmonious whole") and one or more of these sounds they made might be the notes that would bring the balance just by not being the benevolent and good ones... to bring the balance? Had Eru a need to bow to the morality or the good of the being to be what s/he was, or was the good created because s/he willed it in a way it is? Or was there a place for the bad to just create a space for the good?

So where do these anomalies stem from? A good question indeed! And getting a bit too deep in to the metaphysical dimensions of ethics as well...

Tolkien was a catholic, yes he was, but most of his writings tell us that he was not writing a "christian" story here to explain the systematic problems christianity had tried to solve from the middle-ages onwards... More than that I see here a genuine bafflement in front of the distractment of the harmony everyone of us can see. The plight of every true christian - and a true disbeliever too...

Originally Posted by MatthewM

Vampires? Do you know where it mentions that? I'm not doubting you, I'm just curious. I remember something was mentioned once with a vampire and werewolf but I can't recall where I read that...

You might be thinking of the Silmarrillion when Luthien and Beren transform into a vampire and werewolf respectively. Other than that I can't think of a mention in LOTR.

[Lalwendë]

Originally Posted by Nogrod

If we take the trichotomy (?) as granted: that there are the Valar, the Maiar and the created ones, thence we face the question where do all these like Bombadill, Ungoliant or Glaurung come from.

But they might also be the anomalies, beings that are not just possibly explained by the storyline Tolkien gave us? So Eru couldn't be sure of every minute detail of the creation or didn't wish to intervene in every "detail"? Or that there were ones brought forwards in the creation even the Eru could not fathom - or of which s/he would not wish to steer?

I think simply Arda and Middle-earth needed their 'mysteries' just as our world does. There are many things that are or have been in our world that nothing can adequately explain. Just imagine an Arda where everything was explained, everything was logical. Ugh. Where would be the magic in that?

Even if such beings are put down to having been designed or brought forth by Eru for some reason, the fact that none of the Children can explain where they came from only underlines Eru's own mystery and such a level of greatness that simply cannot be explained by pathetic human (or Elven) minds.

[Saurreg]

Hence the old saying, "God (in this case Eru) moves/works in mysterious ways"

[Annatar!]

Luthien transforms herself into Thuringwethil, Sindarin for 'woman of secret shadow'. She was a messenger of Saurons in the first age who i believe only took the form of a giant vampire bat, not actually being a vampire. Perhaps this ability to transform also indicates that she too was a 'corrupted' Maiar or another enigma or anomoly of the story. I just love how Tolkien plants them everywhere throughout his stories so we can let our imaginations run free!

[Fordim Hedgethistle]

Originally Posted by Bêthberry

Now there's a downright refusal to provide "the purposed domination of the author" in the story. Some may liken that passage to the 'cup half empty/cup half full' interpretation, but I prefer simply to go with the ambiguity of the passage and recognise that Tolkien decided to leave the reader a bit of a tease.

Beebs! I would have thought that you of all people would know Shelob's fate.

[Bêthberry]

Originally Posted by Fordim Hedgethistle

Beebs! I would have thought that you of all people would know Shelob's fate.

Well, as unexpected as this may seem, Fordy mostly in Books I discuss Things Canonical rather than Apocryphal.

But such distinctions don't pertain to avatars, so there's my remembrance now.

It was all a bit florid, eh?

[Alcarin]

What about Shelob?

Edit: Ok, forget that post. I just found out Shelob was actually of one Ungoliant's children. ( She had alot )

Originally Posted by Mansun

What did Tolkein have to say about Giants? They were briefly mentioned in the Hobbit (& I might add also feature prominantly in the game BFME II).

Did Tolkein forget about the subject of Giants after The Hobbit?

[Lalwendë]

Originally Posted by Mansun

Did Tolkein forget about the subject of Giants after The Hobbit?

No, he didn't forget 'em, instead he hid them in a bit of linguistic tricksiness, because Ent is Old English for Giant.

[doug*platypus]

No, Sam's cousin Hal sees one striding across the moors of the Northfarthing... at least he thinks that he does.

Giants would hardly be considered an "evil of the ancient world" though. I don't think that they would necessarily all be considered evil? Hal's giant at least seemed to be fleeing from evil. Perhaps he was an outcast, good giant from the Misty Mountains who was banishéd for being too nice??

On the subject of giants and ancient demons, remember the mysterious inhabitants of Caradhras who threw rocks at the Fellowship. Aragorn says of the fell voices on the wind that:

There are many evil and unfriendly things in the world that have little love for those that go on two legs, and yet are not in league with Sauron, but have purposes of their own.

Tolkien thus leaves the monster door wide open, enabling him to insert fairy tale bad guys wherever he deems fit, such as the giants in the passes of the Misty Mountains in The Hobbit.

[Raynor]

I agree that the giants aren't necessarily evil, well, at least not all of them , since Gandalf intends to get help from them in blocking up the orc cave:

Originally Posted by Out of the Frying-Pan into the Fire, The Hobbit

- I must see if I can't find a more or less decent giant to block it up again, said Gandalf, or soon there will be no getting over the mountains at all.

Tolkien allows plenty of room for creatures of unexplained origins to exist in his stories without requiring us to assume that they have unique origins. Tom Bombadil, Ungoliant, dragons, giants, etc. all have possible--even probable--natures among those outlined by Tolkien, although he does not explicitly tell us to which order each belongs.

Creatures vaguely referred to as "giants" appear only in "The Hobbit," as far as I know, and even there in a possibly superstitious sentence. I believe it's likely that by the time "The Lord of the Rings" was in publication there were no more of these presumably manlike giants.

The point in time at which Ungoliant comes into the story and her latent potential for extraordinary power (having feasted on light--itself an indication that she was no mere incarnate creature--she became more than Melkor could master) suggest that she was one of those primeval spirits that became Ainur. Yet she may not have been an "official member" of that order since it seems that her presence in Arda was unsanctioned by Eru. This fact might qualify her for anomaly status, though I do believe that her true nature is not enigmatic.

Tom's a bit more of a puzzle, and although we may not need to look outside the mythos for the truth of him, I believe he is the one singularity for which this approach might be acceptable. It becomes silly, however, to attempt to quantify his power level in relation to Arda "natives" when we entertain the idea that he may not even belong there.

[Alcuin]

Originally Posted by doug*platypus

No, Sam's cousin Hal sees one striding across the moors of the Northfarthing... at least he thinks that he does.

‘But what about these Tree-men, these giants, as you might call them? They do say that one bigger than a tree was seen up away beyond the North Moors not long back.’

Christopher Tolkien speculates in Return of the Shadow, “Ancient History”, that this passage in FotR “Shadow of the Past” might be a foreshadowing of the ents of Two Towers, but he also notes that they appear “in connection with the voyages of Eärendil” in Book of Lost Tales II, where “Tree-men” are mentioned in two outlines as some of the creatures and dangers encountered by Eärendil in his journeys to find the West.

Separately in Return of the Shadow, “From Weathertop to the Ford”, Christopher Tolkien notes in a passage entitled “Note on the Entish Lands” in regards to the Ettendales and Ettenmoors north of Rivendell that

Entish here was used in the Old English sense of ent, ‘giant’; the Entish Lands were the ‘troll-lands’ …, and are in no way associated with the Ents of The Lord of the Rings.

Which begs the question of the identity of the creatures in The Hobbit:

…the stone-giants were out and were hurling rocks at one another for a game, and catching them, and tossing them down into the darkness…

Are these “stone-giants” also “trolls” like the stone-trolls Bill, Bert and Tom whom Gandalf tricked into staying out too late so that they turned to stone when the sun arose?

Originally Posted by Annatar!

Luthien transforms herself into Thuringwethil, Sindarin for 'woman of secret shadow'. She was a messenger of Saurons in the first age who i believe only took the form of a giant vampire bat, not actually being a vampire. Perhaps this ability to transform also indicates that she too was a 'corrupted' Maiar or another enigma or anomoly of the story.

Shortly before Lúthien transformed herself into the likeness of Thuringwethil, there is this passage in Silmarillion, “Of Beren and Lúthien”, when Huan defeats Sauron in werewolf form:

…Sauron yielded himself, and Lúthien took the mastery of the isle and all that was there; and Huan released him. And immediately he took the form of a vampire, great as a dark cloud across the moon, and he fled, dripping blood from his throat upon the trees, and came to Tar-nu-Fuin, and dwelt there, filling it with horror.

Later in this chapter, when Beren sought to leave Lúthien behind as he ventured closer to Angband,

Huan ... had pondered in his heart what counsel he could devise for the lightning of the peril of these two whom he loved. He turned aside therefore at Sauron's isle, as they ran northward again, and he took thence the ghastly wolf-hame of Draugluin, and the bat-fell of Thuringwethil. She was the messenger of Sauron, and was wont to fly in vampire's form to Angband; and her great fingered wings were barbed at each joint's end with and iron claw. Clad in these dreadful garments Huan and Lúthien ran through Taur-nu-Fuin, and all things fled before them.

A hame is an animal skin, as is the fell in this passage: Draugluin was killed by Huan, and it sounds as if Thuringwethil had been, too: in any case, Huan has her mortal remains, i.e., the remains of her incarnate form if, as I agree, Annatar! is correct that Thuringwethil was a lesser Maia of some sort. A question here might concern what sort of spirits inhabited the werewolves of Angband. Draugluin is described (op. cit.) as “a dread beast, old in evil, lord and sire of the werewolves of Angband.” Sire would mean that he was perhaps the first, but at least the physical father of others of his kind; some have argued that these are identical with the wargs of Lord of the Rings, and though this does not ring true to my ear, it is accepted by Hammond and Scull in Reader’s Companion (discussion of wargs, p. 201, and the attack of the wolves in Eregion upon the Nine Walkers (in “Journey in the Dark”), p. 276 of Reader’s Companion). Besides this, one of Sauron’s titles was “Lord of Werewolves.”

The origin of Carcharoth, greatest of the werewolves, is described in this fashion in “Of Beren and Lúthien”:

Morgoth … chose one from among the whelps of the race of Draugluin; and he fed him with his own hand upon living flesh, and put his power upon him. Swiftly the wolf grew, until he could creep into no den, but lay huge and hungry before the feet of Morgoth. There the fire and anguish of hell entered into him, and he became filled with a devouring spirit, tormented, terrible, and strong. Carcharoth, the Red Maw, he is named…

When Carcharoth “became filled with a devouring spirit, tormented, terrible, and strong,” was this a spirit external to his original, physical being, a lesser Maia or the unhoused fëa of a fallen Elf sent to inhabit and empower the physical form of the wolf; or does it describe the state of Carcharoth’s condition, that his own, highly intelligent animal spirit, strengthened beyond its native abilities by Morgoth’s evil will and fiendish personal attentions, “became … a devouring spirit”? To my mind, there is a considerable difference in the implication, purport, and dread of the story between the two situations: a possessing evil spirit from outside, or the twisting of a natural spirit from the inside.

This same argument can be made of the dragons: are they natural creatures pushed beyond natural bounds by unnatural means; or are they, or at least some of them, natural creatures inhabited by spirits sent to possess the bodies of the worms? In the case of dragons, it would seem the first explanation is the better; but do they not also use “magic” of some sort? Glaurung enchanted both Turin and Nienor; and Bilbo “was in grievous danger of coming under the dragon-spell,” so that he was nearly overcome by “an unaccountable desire [that] seized hold of him to rush out and reveal himself and tell all the truth to Smaug.” (The Hobbit, “Inside Information”) The use of such enchantment seems hardly the stuff of “natural” critters, unless we ascribe to them the kind power described in folk-tales that cobras (and other serpents) possess to “hypnotize” their prey who see them.

It is easy enough to describe Ungoliant, Thuringwethil, and even Tom Bombadil as Maiar of one sort or another, in terms of Ainur who are not Valar but are in Arda; who while not allied to Manwë and his adherents or to Morgoth and his, are aligned with or at least more apt to cooperate with one side or the other. It seems to me that this technique works in all the cases in which we are presented with some primeval critter in Tolkien’s stories that otherwise defies explanation; but the method may cast too broad a net, since it might also include the Ents, who do not seem to be Maiar, but rather the olvar counterparts of Dwarves; and perhaps such creatures as Shelob, who is unquestionably powerful and deadly, but also seems to be something other than a Maia.

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

I more or less agree with Alcuin. From my point of view, most of the strange creatures of Middle-Earth were inhabited by (mostly evil) spirits (in contrary to being something themselves). The best it is shown on werewolves (as quoted by Alcuin above), but it in (some way) applies even on embodied Maiar as we imagine them: For example Sauron had many forms (he's shown as Annatar in the "nice outfit", as well as later the Necromancer, also as the "black warrior" when battling Elendil and Gil-Galad; and in the form of a werewolf and later then a vampire when fighting Beren, Lúthien and Huan - Lúthien here says that if he wouldn't give the power of Tol-in-Gaurhoth over to them, he'd be stripped of his body and he'll return before Morgoth and his "naked self" - hence, the true substantion of him - "will face eternal mockery"). Also, we can then read that Sauron was "mere hateful spirit" without the Ring (I think we all know these things). Powerful spirits like Sauron probably got more opportunities to "dress" themselves - as we read about the Valar, who chose to take the form which resembled their true personality - but the lesser spirits, like these who lived in werewolves, had in my opinion no choice: they were more likely something like captured in the animal bodies (by Morgoth himself, most likely): they somehow "merged" with the animal body (for those who like objective demonstrations, I imagine it somehow like that there was animal body, animal soul - meaning mind, "brains" in the most general terms, and then the evil spirit itself). So in my opinion, besides Maiar as themselves, other creatures were most casually and most likely spirits who entered an animal body: werewolves and vampires (see above), great eagles (in contrary to some "normal birds flying around": the messengers of Manwë), even ents (Sil 2: "...after the Children awake... Yavanna's thought will rise as well, [Eru] will call spirits from far and they will come between kelvar and olvar, some will settle down there, and their rightful wrath shall be feared" - sorry again for the nonprecise quotation, I don't have the English original in possession). I also think the dragons (refer to Alcuin's post for more arguments on this) and barrow-wights are the ones who obviously fall into this cathegory: the wights of course were NOT something like revived spirits of the dead Dúnedain (which is complete nonsense, it is said even elves don't know where Men go after death, and when someone is dead, he is dead for good and goes to wherever Eru destinaded him to: the sole exception of this was Beren [Sil 12: "no one returned from there but Beren"], and I'd like to point out that Beren was still just waiting in Mandos and has not yet left the World. Of course, the spirits of Men leave unless kept in the Middle-Earth by force like the Dead Men of Dunharrow, but there was no need to keep there good-hearted descendants of Edain. Perhaps one or two evil princes of Cardolan will make sense, but not dozens of barrow-wights). It is said in LotR, that "the Witch-King called evil spirits from Rhudaur and Angmar" to infestate the barrows. So about these, I imagine it as spirit entering a (dead) body (bones, generally). Necessary to say, that the term "wight" meant simply "man" before, so whatever...? (I somehow cannot help but think of the possessed man from Mark 5 in association with the barrow-wights.)
Speculations about Kraken, the Giants, and Tom Bombadil I'll gladly leave to someone else Although as Tolkien himself said, "a good story should have its mysteries". So that's about it from my side.