Quote:
"The Balrogs were destroyed, save some few that fled and hid themselves in caverns inaccessible at the roots of the earth"
So besides under Moria we can find a couple more elsewhere! Any guesses? Ash Mountains? How about deep into Aglarond or under Mindolluin!
|
Still it might be noted that this was written when Tolkien imagined (seemingly) thousands of Balrogath at Morgoth's command in the First Age; and there is at least one later indication that Tolkien was considering a quite drastic reduction in numbers (at most seven)!
Tolkien never really got around to a true rewrite of the end of
Quenta Silmarillion
-- outside of some cursory corrections, concerning which Christopher Tolkien warns do not necessarily illustrate that this section of QS thus was fully 'updated' and revised by his father.
Would JRRT have revised 'few' if he went ahead with this reduction? I don't know, but I'm just saying this line really hails from the late 1930s, well before Tolkien at least mused about reducing Balrog numbers in Middle-earth.