The Dark Powers of Tolkien Page 2

  Remarkably, other aspects of Morgoth are comparable to the darkest aspects of Loki’s greatest foe, Odin, king of the Norse gods. Odin is most often assumed to be comparable to Zeus, king of the Olympian gods, and consequently comparable to Tolkien’s Manwë, King of the Valar. However, Odin also had a terrifying aspect, as shown in the requirement for human sacrifice in his worship. Linguistically as well, the name Mor-Goth, meaning “Dark Enemy” in Elvish, is suggestive of the dark Germanic (Gothic) “Black-Goth” god whom Tolkien called “Odin the Goth, the Necromancer, Glutter of Crows, God of the Hanged”.

  DARK FORCES OF MIDDLE-EARTH

  UNGOLIANT, THE “DARK TERROR”

  Ungoliant is a terrible primordial monster that takes the shape of a gigantic spider. Ungoliant’s name may translate simply as “Black Spider” or “Dark Terror Spider” in Sindarin, but her nature is more in keeping with Tolkien’s original name for her: Moru, meaning “Primeval Night”.

  Perhaps only on the Indian subcontinent is there a mythological creation that comes close to Ungoliant. This is the eight-limbed being known as Kali, the “Black One”. Kali is the Hindu goddess of destruction, who has other names and forms, but who in her eight-limbed form is shown as dancing on the slaughtered bodies of her lovers.

  Tolkien tells us that Ungoliant’s origin is unknown even to the Valar, but we may surmise that she may have been a corrupted Maia Spirit, or an entity that escaped the darkness of the Void and entered the world when “Melkor first looked down with envy” upon Arda. She may be an incarnation of the darkness of the Void itself. She is certainly the first entity to take on spider form and is known as the “Mother of All Spiders”.

  By comparison, Kali, as the “Destroyer of the World”, demands blood sacrifices, intoxicating drink and ritual suicides. She dances to demonstrate “the power of death at the end of the world”, which ultimately cannot help but be a dance of self-annihilation.

  It is difficult to imagine something as deeply unpleasant as J. R. R. Tolkien’s Ungoliant. She represents more than the simple physical horror of gigantic, unnatural arachnids bent on destruction and murder. What she does represent might be best described as a crawling, animated black hole in space, sucking up and annihilating all morality, all goodness.

  Few cultures have really grasped the concept of non-existence as have Indian and Tibetan religions. In Tibetan painted scrolls, we find a “Master of Non-Being”, an entity similar to Kali and to Ungoliant, but in a male form that actually resembles Melkor the Dark Lord. Indeed, in this living form of darkness the identities of Morgoth and Ungoliant merge as one. This Tibetan Satan is a massive scorched black demon described as a “Black Man, as tall as a spear … the Master of Non-Existence, of instability, of murder and destruction”. And just as Ungoliant and Morgoth together extinguish the sacred Trees of Light in the Undying Lands, the Tibetan Master “made the sun and the moon die and assigned demons to the planets and harmed the stars”. Sometimes called the “Gloomweaver”, Ungoliant wove a web of darkness and horror that Tolkien describes as the “Unlight of Ungoliant”.

  Ungoliant’s Daughters: the Spiders of Nan Dungorotheb

  The tale of Ungoliant is an affirmation of the self-defeating nature of evil. In Tolkien’s Catholic Christian view – based on the theology of St Augustine – evil is nothing but the absence of good. Tolkien explained his understanding of evil in a letter: “In my story I do not deal in Absolute Evil. I do not think there is such a thing, since that is Zero.” Consequently, Ungoliant and Morgoth are destined to a self-devouring annihilation, a return to the Void, and the nothingness of “non-being”.

  Ungoliant the Gloomweaver ensnares Morgoth the Dark Enemy

  MORGOTH

  THE DARK

  ENEMY IN THE

  FIRST AGE

  GOTHMOG, “LORD OF BALROGS”

  Among the most terrifying of Morgoth’s servants in the War of the Jewels are the Valaraukar, or “Cruel Demons”. These are mighty Maiar fire spirits that the Sindar Elves of Beleriand come to know as the Balrogs, “Demons of Might”. In Middle-earth, these spirits 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 combination with mace, battle axe or flaming sword.

  In some respects, the Balrogs are comparable to the demonic Furies of Greco-Roman mythology: although opposite in sex – the Balrogs are male – the female Furies are chthonic (Underworld) deities and avenging spirits who emerged from the pits of Hell. 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.

  Nonetheless, whatever other mythical monsters might have inspired Tolkien, there can be little doubt that his primary inspiration was the fire giants of Muspelheim (Old Norse: Múspellsheimr), the Norse “region of fire”. The giant inhabitants of Muspelheim were those demonic fire spirits who, once released, were as unstoppable as the volcanic lava floes that were so familiar to the Norse settlers of Iceland.

  Gothmog the Lord of Balrog’s battle with Fingon the High King of the Noldor

  Halls of Angband

  Muspelheim is also philologically linked to Tolkien’s Anglo-Saxon (Old English) studies. Since Joan Turville-Petre’s publication of Tolkien’s notes on the Old English Exodus, several scholars have linked this text to his invention of Balrogs. In these notes, Tolkien argued that the text’s Sigelwara land (“Land of the Ethiopians”) was a scribal error for Sigelhearwa land (“Land of Sun–Soot”) and thus an Old English reference to Muspelheim. The Sigelhearwan were therefore the fire giants, who were, in Tolkien’s own words, “rather the sons of Muspell … than of Ham [the biblical son of Noah, considered the forefather of the Ethiopians], the ancestors of the Sigelhearwan with red-hot eyes that emitted sparks, with faces as black as soot”.

  The greatest of Tolkien’s Maiar fire spirits is Gothmog, Lord of Balrogs and High Captain of Angband. In early versions of The Silmarillion, Gothmog – meaning “Dread Oppressor” – was known as Kalimbo, and is variously described as a savage man, a giant, a monster and a troll. Perhaps, then, Tolkien imagined something akin to the Sumerian giant Humbaba in The Epic of Gilgamesh, “whose roar is a flood, whose mouth is fire and whose breath is death”. Curiously enough, in an early version of The Fall of Gondolin, Gothmog is “a son of Morgoth and the ogress Fluithuin”, but this changed once Tolkien had dispensed with the idea of Valar having children. The only other fire demon given a name by Tolkien was one Lungorthin, a Balrog lord in an early version of The Lay of the Children of Húrin.

  Tolkien changed his conception of Balrogs over time. They became fewer, larger and more powerful. Being Maiar spirits, it may be assumed they could change shape at will and move invisibly and without form, but by the time of Morgoth’s appearance in Beleriand, they – like their master – appear to have lost their ability to shape-shift. Also, through multiple drafts, Balrogs dwindled in number from “a host” of hundreds or even thousands, down to – as a curious marginal note by Tolkien records – “at most seven”.

  Whatever their number, by the end of the First Age, Tolkien informs us, the Balrog Host was entirely destroyed in the War of Wrath “save a few that fled and hid themselves in caverns inaccessible at the roots of the earth”.

  Duel of Balrog and Glorfindel of Gondolin

  WARS OF BELERIAND

  BOLDOG, “ORC CAPTAIN OF ANGBAND”

  Tolkien’s Orcs have their origin during the earliest years of the First Age when Melkor captured many of the newly risen race of Elves and took them down into his fortress dungeons of Utumno and, later, Angband – where they were tortured and transformed into a goblin race of slaves and soldiers who were as loathsome as the Elves were fair. These Orcs were bred in a multitude of shapes, twisted by pain and hate. They were hideous, stunted and muscular with yellow fangs, blackened faces and red slits for eyes.


  Tolkien’s Orcs appear to have been derived from the evil demons known in Anglo-Saxon texts (especially in Beowulf) as the “Ornaceas”, meaning “walking corpses”, the zombie-like living dead motivated by evil forces. The word “orc” is derived from the Latin word orcus found occasionally in sixteenth-century English as “orc”, meaning a devouring monster. In Tolkien’s First Age of the Years of the Sun, the Orcs of Angband provide Morgoth with the greater part of his vast legions of fierce warriors. They are a cannibal race, ruthless and terrible, spawned as thralls to the Master of Darkness.

  Boldog the Orc High Captain of Angband

  Orcs have about as much independence as domestic dogs or horses from their human masters. However, those whose business it is to direct them often appear to take on Orkish shapes, although they are greater and more terrible. Certainly, this is likely the case with the great Boldog, the Orc captain who leads the Host of Angband against King Thingol, as told in The Lays of Beleriand. This formidable Boldog is sent out by Morgoth himself, and might very well be a Maia in Orkish form. Tolkien himself once hinted this by suggesting that “Boldog” might actually be a title given to Maiar spirits who chose to assume an Orkish hroa, or body. This may also be true of the terrible Orc chieftain Gorgol the Butcher, who is slain by the Edain warrior Beren in retaliation for the murder of his father. The only other Orcs named in any of Tolkien’s histories of the First Age are Lug, Orcobal and Othrod, all slain in battle in The Fall of Gondolin.

  Tolkien once revealed something of the nature of his Orcs in a letter to a fan: “[…] since in my myth at any rate I do not conceive of the making of souls or spirits, things of an equal order if not an equal power to the Valar, as a possible ‘delegation’, I have represented at least the Orcs as preexisting real beings on whom the Dark Lord has exerted the fullness of his power in remodelling and corrupting them, not making them […]”

  This is an important point because Tolkien’s system of thought did not countenance the possibility of evil being able to truly create some form of life. Therefore Melkor/Morgoth has to corrupt other spirits and creatures. Some spirits he corrupts, such as the Balrogs, are great and powerful; others, such as Orcs, prove to be lesser demons. Most Orcs were plainly (and biologically) a corruption of Elves – and probably later also of Men.

  Orcs in Tolkien’s tales provide a counterbalance to the Elves in every way. Elves are fair; Orcs are hideous. Their function within the wider creative scheme of Tolkien’s tales is to show what the effects of Morgoth’s fatal pride have in establishing a pattern of evildoing with ever-widening and ever more disastrous repercussions. On a more straightforward narrative level, though Orcs provide the necessary, innumerable and terrifying soldiery for the armies of the Enemy in the many battles with the far less numerous forces of Good.

  All of Tolkien’s descriptions of Orcs create a sense of vast anonymous numbers: they are likened to innumerable swarms or devastating black waves. They come pouring out of caverns and caves with impersonal, insect-like inexorability, and are often compared by the author to flies or ants. In battle, they have a mindless strength and commitment but also a dangerous weakness. If something shakes that ferocious concentration, then the whole cohort stops in their tracks, suddenly uncertain, directionless and vulnerable. Elves, Men and Dwarves are capable of thinking on their feet, but the Orcs for the most part can only follow directives or commands.

  The concept and nature of Orcs, as demonic underlings programmed to do the bidding of their evil masters, has resonance with numerous myths and tales from around the world – most especially in the Old and New Testaments, where demons are depicted as innumerable and often invisible. This comparison between Orcs and demons is most evident in Revelation 12, where the dragon (the Devil or Satan) fights the archangel Michael, each with their horde of angels/fallen angels. Visible demons prefer to live in isolated, unclean places such as deserts and ruins, and they are to be greatly feared, especially at night. They attack animals as well as humans, and are the cause of physical ailments and mental illnesses. They also provoke wild passions and rage, and are the cause of jealousy, lust and greed.

  Morgoth’s dark sorcery in the Orc-breeding pits brings forth a constant flow of soldiery in each of his campaigns, until at last his victory in the Battle of Sudden Flame breaks the long Siege of Angband. Then the Orkish hordes, combined with a vast army of Dragons, Balrogs, Trolls, Wolves and Werewolves, overrun Beleriand. In battle after battle and siege after siege, all the Elven kingdoms are destroyed. No great city remains in the West and the greater part of Elves and Edain are slain.

  Yet the terror of that age finally comes to an end when the Valar and Maiar, with the High Elves of the Undying Lands, come to Middle-earth in the War of Wrath. Angband is destroyed and all the mountains of the north are broken. Melkor is cast out into the Void for ever more, and the Orcs of Angband exterminated as the ruined lands of Beleriand sinks into the boiling sea.

  Again, this is comparable to Revelation 12, where Satan and his “angels” are said to have “lost their place in heaven [… and were] hurled to the earth”.

  Orc Legions and Trolls of Angband gather for the Battle of Sudden Flame

  TROLLS OF ANGBAND

  Just as Tolkien’s Balrogs were inspired by the legends of the fire giants of Muspelheim, the Norse region of fire, so we find Tolkien’s Trolls were inspired by the stone and frost giants of Jotunheim (Old Norse: Jötunheimr), the Norse region of darkness and cold. In the inhabitants of this “Land of the Giants” – known as jötnar (jötunn is the singular) – we see the recognizable characteristics of the powerful but frequently outwitted trolls and ogres of later Germanic and Scandinavian legends and fairy tales.

  Huge humanoid monsters, trolls and ogres can be discovered in folklore and legends in every region of the world. They have left their footprints all over the landscape, moved mountains and changed the courses of rivers. In many folk tales, large standing stones are believed to be trolls that have been turned to rock after being exposed to sunlight. Like Tolkien’s Trolls, they are creatures of darkness, preferring to live in mountain caverns or forest caves, where they often prey on lost children and unwary travellers.

  In traditional fairy tales, trolls and ogres are mostly solitary monsters lurking in dark places. This is also true of many of Tolkien’s Trolls, who are simply content with random and brutal acts of mayhem and mischief. However, Tolkien’s many epic tales of armies of Trolls allied with Balrogs and Dragons in cataclysmic battles with the Valarian “gods” found much more inspiration in the Norse legends of armies of jötnar allied with fire giants and dragons in cataclysmic battles with the Norse gods of Asgard.

  The word “troll” comes from an Old Norse word meaning fiend, demon or jötunn. The origin of trolls is not known, although it should be noted that, in Beowulf, the monster Grendel is a “water-haunting troll” who is descended from the cursed clan of the biblical murderer Cain. Tolkien’s Trolls appear to have been bred from captured and tortured giant Tree-herds. However, the resulting slow-witted and cursed offspring prove to be a mockery of the wise and noble Ents. In many of their aspects, Tolkien drew his creatures from the trolls of the darker Scandinavian fairy tales, where they are manifestations of the giant spirits of mountains and forests. Even if some extraordinary Scandinavian trolls are taller than mountains and have fir trees growing out of their heads, most are closer to Tolkien’s conception – brutal giants measuring roughly twice the height and three times the bulk and weight of humans. In Tolkien, these creatures are described as having a rock-hard skin of green scales. In common with fairy-tale trolls and ogres, Tolkien’s Trolls are cannibals who feast on human flesh – although, on Middle-earth, one must assume that Dwarf and Elf flesh was also a staple of the Troll diet.

  Stone Troll

  Fairy-tale trolls are not immune to the vice of avarice, and hoard the treasures and trophies taken from their victims. Troll hoards also appear relatively frequently in Middle-earth, where, beyond furnishin
g adventurers with fabulous wealth, they also opportunely provide several of Tolkien’s heroes with ancient Elven swords and daggers. Similar discoveries frequently appear to have provided many German and Norse epic heroes with their own magical weapons.

  The stupidity of trolls is all but universal in legends and fairy tales. This is consistent with Tolkien’s Trolls: many, we learn, could not be taught speech at all, while others could learn only the barest rudiments of the Black Speech of Orcs. A frequent theme in traditional fairy tales and trickster folklore – and repeated in Tolkien’s writing – involves a clever hero tricking or swindling a dull-witted troll out of his treasure. If it were not for their little faults – like murder and cannibalism – one might almost feel sorry for these mentally challenged creatures.

  GLAURUNG, “FATHER OF DRAGONS”

  Glaurung, the Father of Dragons