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Re: Mechanical Monsters at the Fall of Gondolin?
From
The War of the Jewels, "The Grey Annals", §74, underlining mine:<blockquote>
Quote:<hr> There came wolves, and wolfriders, and there came Balrogs a thousand, and there came <u>worms and drakes, and Glaurung, Father of Dragons</u>.<hr></blockquote>Under §332:<blockquote>
Quote:<hr> Now the Naugrim withstood fire more hardily than either Elves or Men, and it was the custom moreover of the Enfeng to wear great masks [
struck out: or vizors] in battle hideous to look upon, which stood them in good stead against the drakes. And but for them Glaurung <u>and his brood</u> would have withered all that was left of the Noldor.<hr></blockquote>Sohere is Glaurung named "Father of Dragons" with other dragons about him in the battle, at least some of whom, if not all, are descended from him. I think (though have not checked completely) this is the source of the slightly modifed
QS77 account which agrees with this except for unimportant changes of wording.
So there were definitely other dragons active before the fall of Gondolin besides Glaurung.
To HerenIstarion:
The original quoted passage only says that none of the creatures especially devised for the taking of Gondolin were known in later days, speaking nothing of other dragons. In the original
FG Meglin advises Melko to "make beasts <u>like snakes and dragons</u>", that is, new kinds of creatures in the likeness of the beasts that already existed, but of metal and fire. These new monsters were presumably either later destroyed or ceased to operate in other ways, for they were not seen again, whereas the lineage of the the earlier flesh dragons of course continued until much later.
I take this passage to be valid still in my editing (with some hesitation). Yes, other dragons descended from those active before the sacking of Gondolin were known much later, but not those here specially devised, though now not devised of metal.
Smaug is a winged dragon, and winged dragons are definitely not covered by the passage, as in the
Silmarillion stream they first appear only at the end of the War of Wrath from which two escape, presumably that parents of later winged dragons.
On the different kinds of dragons, note that Tolkien refers to serpents as having feet. I can find no distinction whatsover in his use of
dragon,
drake,
serpent,
snake, and
monster in
FG. Rather oddly the word
worm does not occur there, though later it is his favorite synomym for dragon.
I have no disagreement or quibbles of any kind with any of the other comments. The difficulties and hestitations mentioned are the same that I see, and I agree with the conclusions reached.
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Edited by: <A HREF=http://www.barrowdowns.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_profile&u=00000212>jallanit e</A> at: 7/24/01 8:24:13 pm