DRAGONS

  IAN MILLER

  GLAURUNG AT THE FIFTH BATTLE

  IAN MILLER

  GLAURUNG, THE FATHER OF DRAGONS

  The first and greatest of the Urulóki, or fire-breathing Dragons, of Middle-earth. This mighty serpent is depicted as being of massive size and strength, and protected by scales of impenetrable iron. His fangs and claws are rapier-sharp, and his great tail can crush the shield-wall of any army. An original creation and villain, Glaurung was – like all of Tolkien’s creatures – nonetheless deeply rooted in ancient literature and language.

  As his principal inspiration for Glaurung, Tolkien looked to the dragon Fáfnir, the “prince of all dragons” in Norse myth and legend, where he guards a mighty treasure horde and is ultimately slain by the hero Sigurd. Glaurung, however, is perhaps an even more malevolent figure than Fáfnir, because beyond dragon-fire and serpent-strength, Glaurung is cunning (though his intelligence – like all of his species in Norse and Germanic legends – is tempered by the flaws of vanity, gluttony and greed).

  The life and death of Glaurung is one of the central tales of The Silmarillion, a tale very much inspired by the Völsunga Saga. In Tolkien’s tale, the Dragon-slayer is Túrin Turambar, who shares many of the characteristics and adventures of Sigurd, the Norse hero of the Icelandic saga. The hero’s guile and battle tactics are certainly comparable. For just as Túrin plunges his sword Gurthang into Glaurung’s soft underbelly in the slaying of the “Father of Dragons”, so Sigurd plunges his sword Gram into Fáfnir’s soft underbelly in the slaying of the “prince of all dragons”.

  GLAURUNG AT THE FIFTH BATTLE KIP RASMUSSEN

  Here, Glaurung battles the forces of Men, Elves and Dwarves, with Azaghal the Dwarf King watching as the beast throws those who have climbed on top of it. Azaghal manages to wound the beast so that it flees the field of battle, but the Dwarf is killed in the process. The weakness he identified is later exploited by Túrin Turambar who slays the monster. Above all, I wanted to depict the immense chaos of the scene which marked the beginning of the end for the forces arrayed against Morgoth.

  ANCALAGON THE BLACK

  The first and greatest of the vast legion of Winged Fire Drakes that Morgoth releases from the deep dungeons of Angband in the last battle of the War of Wrath at the end of the First Age. The attack of Ancalagon (meaning “rushing jaws”) in that last Great Battle has a precedent in the account of the great Norse battle of Ragnarök found in the Old Norse poem Völuspá (part of the Poetic Edda) where “the flying dragon, glowing serpent” known as Nidhogg (meaning “malice striker”) emerges from the underworld, Niflheim. Like Nidhogg, the ravening majesty that is Ancalagon unleashes a terrible withering fire down from the heavens.

  In the Prose Edda’s account of Ragnarök, we have another dragon-like monster, Jörmungandr, the World-Serpent, who rises up with the giants to do battle with the gods, and bring about the destruction of the Nine Worlds. In this version of Ragnarök, the god Thor appears in his flying chariot and, armed with the thunderbolt hammer Mjölnir, slays Jörmungandr. In Tolkien’s Great Battle, the hero Eärendil appears in his flying ship Vingilótë and, armed with a Silmaril, slays Ancalagon.

  YOUNG GUNS DAVID DAY

  With the publishers’ decision to create a multi-volume reference library for a new generation of my readers in 2013, it was an obvious requirement to recruit a new generation of talented illustrators. Kip Rasmussen and Mauro Mazzara are two talented artists and rising stars in the firmament of fantasy illustrators. Kip and Mauro both took on the formidable challenge of illustrating heroic encounters between dragons and dragon-slayers.

  Kip has a particular appreciation for the poetic language and archaic tone of Tolkien’s writing in The Silmarillion, and consequently responded as an artist by creating haunting and evocative scenes of great beauty and power. This is especially true of his many hugely powerful and atmospheric illustrations of battles with dragons. Of the many that featured in The Heroes of Tolkien and The Dark Powers of Tolkien, certainly among the most remarkable was his fantastic portrayal of the battle between Glaurung the Father of Dragons and Azaghal the Dwarf king of Belegost.

  Mauro created his own spectacular scenario in The Armies of Morgoth, depicting the armies of Elves and Men of Beleriand finding themselves confronted by legions of Orcs backed by the unstoppable terror of a fire-breathing Dragon with a bodyguard of Balrog demons in the War of Wrath. Mauro has proved to be a gifted artist with a flamboyant and dramatic style that blends in with a deep knowledge of history that is essential to successfully illustrating Tolkien’s world. This has proved to be especially important in his works created for The Battles of Tolkien, The Heroes of Tolkien and The Dark Powers of Tolkien where each of these are concerned with the historic, literary and cultural inspiration behind Tolkien’s writing.

  THE ARMIES OF MORGOTH

  MAURO MAZZARA

  SMAUG VS. BARD THE BOWMAN

  KIP RASMUSSEN

  THE PERFECT FAIRY-TALE DRAGON

  Smaug was inspired by the nameless dragon portrayed in the Anglo-Saxon epic poem Beowulf. Tolkien was one who searched for “dragons, real dragons, essential both to the machinery and the ideas of a poem or tale.” He found elements of his Dragons in Germanic literature and mythology, but also very specifically in Beowulf, a poem that provided both the monster and much of the plot outline for his fairy-tale novel, The Hobbit.

  The Hobbit takes its basic plotline from Beowulf and his fatal encounter with a dragon. In that ancient poem, a thief enters the dragon’s lair and steals a gold cup. In Tolkien’s tale the thief is the Hobbit, Bilbo Baggins. And in both tales, the theft of a gold cup awakens a sleeping dragon that emerges from its lair to lay waste to a nearby kingdom. The Hobbit is essentially the Beowulf dragon story told from the thief’s point of view. There is, however, one problem with Beowulf’s dragon. It is more the terrifying embodiment of an evil curse than an individual villain that happens to be a dragon.

  All characters in a really good fairy-tale adventure must offer the reader something of a close-up, intimate feeling. This is true of all of an adventure’s characters, even – or especially – the bad ones. The trouble with the Beowulf dragon is that the closer you come, the more it recedes. You cannot gain a hold on it. In fact, the monster is not even given a name. For Tolkien, this was a cardinal sin. Within the spheres of Middle-earth names are the primary factors in all life forms and his chief motivation in the creation of all things. It may be suggested that Tolkien began to feel like the maiden in “Rumpelstiltskin” whose fate depended on discovering the creature’s true name. With this end in mind, and a philological search through a series of Old English and prehistoric German words he arrived at the name “Smaug”.

  So Tolkien decided “Smaug the Golden”, “Smaug the Magnificent” and “Lord Smaug the Impenetrable” would be the names of the greatest Dragon of the Third Age. Not simply a Cold-drake like those haunting the Dwarf mansions of the Grey Mountains, Smaug was to be a full-fledged golden-red Fire-drake.

  Smaug had vast wings like a bat and a coat of impenetrable iron scales. Far better than a large but nameless lizard like Beowulf’s monster. The name “Smaug the Greatest of Calamities” carried the collective meaning of its composite parts in Old English: penetrating, inquiring, burrowing, worming into and creeping through. These were all useful clues to a really slippery, intelligent and nasty villain. Then, too, came an appropriate – if accidental – pun on smog, which insinuates its way through a distinctive whiff of brimstone.

  To all the sinister qualities gained by way of the naming of Smaug, Tolkien added a multitude of aspects in legendary dragons dating back to the ancient Greek Python of Delphi as a fierce guardian of treasure: a great serpent; a keeper of arcane knowledge; a monster with an inquiring mind, a terrifying glance and a mesmerizing voice. It is certain that from this hoard of dragon lore, Smaug the Worm of Dread inherited its laser eyes, brilliant intellect, mesmerizing spells and a few of its other more terrifying qualities.

  And yet, as Tolkien famously wrote in his lecture and essay “On Fairy-Stories”: “The dragon had the trade-mark of Faerie written plain upon him.” This is perhaps why his dragons either appear in the ancient mythic world of Elves in The Silmarillion or the children’s fairy-tale world of Hobbits in The Hobbit, but not in the epic high romance world of mortal Men in The Lord of the Rings.

  THE DEATH OF SMAUG DAVID DAY

  The death of Smaug the Dragon is certainly one of the most dramatic moments in Tolkien’s The Hobbit. It is also one of the most popular and challenging events for an artist to attempt to illustrate. Kip Rasmussen’s painting of Bard the Bowman’s black arrow piercing the soft underbelly of Smaug the Golden Dragon is a stunning and original vision of that critical turning point in Tolkien’s novel.

  It is interesting to compare Kip’s vision with that of the British artist Allan Curless, who was commissioned to re-create exactly that same event 39 years earlier. Allan Curless was one of the major contributors to A Tolkien Bestiary, contributing over 40 drawings and watercolours to the book. He was one of the most versatile of illustrators creating haunting and memorable images, such as those of the Witch-king and the Nazgûl Ringwraiths mounted on phantom horses and upon Winged Beasts. But he also produced numerous drawings of a multitude of birds, beasts, flora and fauna of Middle-earth. Sadly, Allan passed away too soon in 1997. It would perhaps have pleased him to see his Smaug still providing pleasure to readers of Tolkien. For although Smaug first appeared in A Tolkien Bestiary in 1979, it was republished in The Tolkien Illustrated Encyclopedia in 1992 and posthumously proved to be a favourite cover design for many American and foreign language editions of The World of Tolkien since 2002.

  SMAUG

  ALLAN CURLESS

  SCATHA THE WORM

  After the near-obliteration of the Dragons of Middle-earth at the end of the First Age in the last Great Battle of the War of Wrath, it is not until the twentieth century of the Third Age that the histories of Middle-earth speak again of dragons. These monsters are akin to the dragons found in the Middle High German heroic epics of Wolfdietrich and Ortnit. Like the dragons of the mountains of Lombardy who appear in these thirteenth-century tales, the monsters who make their presence known in the Grey Mountains of Middle-earth in the Third Age are Cold-drakes: a somewhat less formidable breed of dragon than either the Fire-drakes or the Winged Fire-drakes of the First Age. And yet, even lacking the power of fire or flight, the great strength of these serpents, with their fangs, claws and armour of iron scales, made them a terror of their times.

  The mightiest of the Cold-drakes of the Grey Mountains who slaughtered Dwarves and Men and took possession of a great treasure hoard is Scatha the Worm. Appropriately enough, Scatha’s name was derived from an Anglo-Saxon word meaning “Assassin”. Scatha’s end at the hand of Fram the Éothéod Dragon-slayer was comparable to that of the Cold-drake that died at the hand of Wolfdietrich, the Langobard Dragon-slayer. Meanwhile, the slaying of Dain I, king of the Dwarves, by the Cold-drakes of the Grey Mountains is mirrored in the slaying of Ortnit, king of the Langobards, by Cold-drakes in the mountains of Lombardy.

  The Langobards were one of the many powerful German tribes who lived on the eastern European borderlands of the Roman Empire. These warrior people swept into northern Italy where they settled and gave their name to the region today called Lombardy. Described by Latin historians as the supreme horsemen of the German peoples, the Langobards were Tolkien’s models for the Éothéod and their heirs the Rohirrim (the Horsemen of Rohan). Also, curiously enough, the tribal name “Langobards” translates directly into English as “Longbeards”, the same name Tolkien gave to the Dwarves of Durin’s Line, and to Dain I, the Longbeard king of the Grey Mountains.

  Ortnit, the eponymous hero of the Langobard epic poem, was the son of Alberich, the legendary dwarf king of the Italian Alps. Just as Dain I’s kingdom in the Grey Mountains was terrorized by Cold-drakes, so Ortnit’s kingdom was terrorized by Cold-drakes in the Lombard Mountains.

  READ AND REACT IAN MILLER

  Finding a style for A Tolkien Bestiary drawings evolved in a very freeflow fashion. I read the text and reacted. Nobody dictated form or feel other than providing the page configurations, showing the illustration areas I was required to fill. They just pressed the button and let me go. Line drawings of Dragons first, then Ents, the Balrog, Dwarves and Barrow-wights. Orcs, elephants, spiders and other characters followed, interspersed with a number of coloured double pages.

  SCATHA THE WORM

  IAN MILLER

  BALROG OF ANGBAND

  IAN MILLER

  BALROGS OF ANGBAND

  Known as the Valaraukar or “Cruel Demons” in Quenya, these mighty Maiar fire spirits are among the most terrifying of Morgoth’s servants in the War of the Jewels. More commonly known to the Sindar of Beleriand as Balrogs, or “Demons of Might”, they take the form of man-shaped giants shrouded in darkness, with manes of fire, eyes that glow like burning coals, and nostrils that breathe flame. Balrogs wield many-thonged whips of fire in battle, in combination with a mace, axe or flaming sword.

  Visually, the Balrogs, while male, are comparable to the demonic Erinyes (Furies) of Greek mythology, female chthonic deities and avenging spirits – called Alecto, Tisiphone and Megaera – who emerged from the pits of the Underworld to pursue those guilty of crime. Furies were variously described as having snakes for hair, coal-black bodies, bats’ wings, and blood-red eyes. They attacked their victims with blazing torches and many-thonged brass-studded whips.

  There can be little doubt, however, that Tolkien’s primary source for the Balrogs was the fire giants of Muspelheim, the mythical Norse “region of fire”. The giant inhabitants of Muspelheim were demonic fire spirits who – once released – were as unstoppable as the volcanic lava floes that were so familiar to the Norsemen of Iceland.

  There is also a link with Tolkien’s Anglo-Saxon studies. Since Jc’s publication of Tolkien’s notes on the Old English poem Exodus, several scholars have linked this text with his invention of the Balrogs. In these notes, Tolkien took issue with the usual modern translation of the Exodus’s “Sigelwara land” as the land of the Ethiopians. Tolkien believed that Sigelwara was a scribal error for sigel-hearwa, the land of “sun-soot”, and was instead a reference to Muspelheim. The Sigelwara therefore were the fire giants – in Tolkien’s own words, “rather the sons of Músspel…than of Ham [the biblical ancestor of the Ethiopians], the ancestors of the Silhearwan with red-hot eyes that emitted sparks, with faces as black as soot”.

  BALROGS DAVID DAY

  It is instructive to view how the fantastically hellish fire demon that is J R R Tolkien’s Balrog has been portrayed over the decades. The first illustration of the Balrog of Angband was drawn by Ian Miller in 1979 for A Tolkien Bestiary. The second, of the Balrog of Moria, was created by Sam Hadley for The World of Tolkien in 2002; while the third was envisioned by Mauro Mazzara in 2016 for The Battles of Tolkien.

  It is interesting to note how wildly different these interpretations of the monsters are, despite each being drawn from exactly the same Tolkien description. It is curious how Tolkien’s masterful description can evoke horror in all who read it, but no one can really agree on what exactly has been described. Curiously enough, there has been a long-running dispute among hardcore Tolkien fans over the nature and physical attributes of the Balrog. No one, it seems, can come to an agreement on whether or not Balrogs have wings.

  THREE BALROGS DAVID DAY

  To many artists – Ian Miller among them – this lack of agreement about even the most basic features of the Balrog is a boon that allows an artistic licence without limits. All three of these illustrators have taken advantage of this and created unique visions of this monster. In Ian Miller’s rendering we have a fire spirit drawn in his distinctive close-hatched pen and ink style that seems to be reminiscent of the engravings of Albrecht Durer. Although, in knowing Ian Miller’s deep interest in Japanese martial arts, it is not difficult to see something of the Samurai warlord in his Balrog.

  Sam Hadley is a highly adaptable commercial artist who has produced work from book covers to billboards and video games to hand painted murals. He has a wide range of styles from photo-realistic airbrushing to more traditional painting and drawing. In 2002, he brought a heavy metal version of the Balrog into its famous confrontation with Gandalf in the Battle of the Bridge of Khazad-dûm.

  Mauro Mazzara provides a very different version of the Balrog’s battle with Gandalf on the Bridge of Khazad-dûm. His battle with the Balrog is an operatic drama on a spectacular scale in a sword and sorcery world. Mazzara claims the celebrated Tolkien illustrator John Howe as a mentor who inspired him as an artist. It is also quite possible to see something of one of John Howe’s mentors – the great sword and sorcery artist Frank Frazetta – as perhaps indirectly influencing Mauro’s art.