Eagles in Middle-earth

• 1. Spirits in Eagle Form

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  In the first Age of Middle-earth, spirits took the shape of hawks and eagles to carry news from the world below to the halls upon Taniquetil. These messengers flew to Manwë, the ruler of the sky who sat atop the highest mountain in Valinor. Thorondor ruled over these great birds as Lord of the Eagles. He was said to be the mightiest of all birds that had ever existed. When Turgon built the Hidden City of Gondolin, the eagles of Thorondor became his allies. They brought him news and kept spies and Orcs away from the secret city. The watch of the eagles grew stronger after Tuor arrived. This allowed Gondolin to remain hidden longer than any other Elvish kingdom in Beleriand. When the city finally fell, the eagles protected fugitives from ambushing Orcs. During the War of Wrath at the end of the First Age, the Eagles fought alongside the army of the Valar, Elves, and Men. Winged dragons appeared later, but all the great birds of heaven gathered under Thorondor's leadership. They destroyed the majority of the dragons in a fierce aerial battle.

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• 2. From Spirits To Taught Beasts

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  Tolkien wrote the first tale about Middle-earth called The Fall of Gondolin in the late 1910s. In these early writings, the eagles were distinguished from common birds by their ability to fly beyond the lights of heaven. Christopher Tolkien found an illustration by Archibald Thorburn for his father in Thomas Coward's book The Birds of the British Isles and Their Eggs published in 1919. The author based his own painting of an eagle on this image of an immature golden eagle. Scholars note that Tolkien faced hesitation regarding the nature of the Great Eagles throughout his writing career. He initially imagined many lesser spirits entering Eä upon its creation. These sapient creatures like Huan the Hound were lightly adopted from less serious mythologies. After completing The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien moved toward a more carefully defined system of creatures. For some time he considered the Eagles as bird-shaped Maiar. He realized that statements about Gwaihir and Landroval's descent from Thorondor had already appeared in print. In notes dated to the late 1950s, Tolkien decided that the Great Eagles were animals taught language by the Valar. They were raised to a higher level but still possessed no souls.

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• 3. Odin And The Winged Rescue

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  The Norse god Odin escaped from Jotunheim back to Asgard as an eagle according to ancient mythology. A bracteate from Funen in Denmark shows a bird with a hooked beak named houaz standing beside Odin. Marjorie Burns remarks on the similarity between Gandalf repeatedly escaping by riding on an eagle and Odin's flight. She comments that Tolkien's Eagles signal Norse influence alongside his Dwarves, Dragons, and Trolls. The scholar Paul Kocher noted that the narrator provides a firm moral framework in The Hobbit. Good elves exist while evil goblins lurk nearby. Other peoples like dwarves and eagles sit somewhere in between these extremes. Tom Shippey remarked that the eagles are not kindly birds in euphemistic words. The threat of being eaten is so dominant that Bilbo fears he will become their supper. He is relieved when they serve rabbit for supper instead of him.

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• 4. Sudden Salvation And Audience Shock

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  Marjorie Burns notes that Tolkien uses the Eagles three times to save his protagonists throughout the stories. They rescue Bilbo and company in The Hobbit. They lift Gandalf from imprisonment by Saruman in the tower of Orthanc. Finally, they save Frodo and Sam from Mount Doom after the One Ring has been destroyed. Jane Chance describes these interventions as a deus ex machina mechanism to bring about eucatastrophe. Screenwriter Brad Johnson argued in Script magazine that this last instance is a complete surprise to the audience. He found the sudden appearance of the Eagles undesirable because it takes the audience out emotionally. Tolkien was aware of this problem and recognized the risky nature of the mechanism. In one of his letters, he wrote about the difficulty of balancing narrative tension with divine intervention. The scholar E. L. Risden described the rescuing bird as a symbol of the spirit performing a ritual rebirth.

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• 5. Psalm 24 And Spiritual Rebirth

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  Shippey noted that throughout The Lord of the Rings Tolkien carefully avoided direct reference to Christianity. He did not want to make the story an allegory for modern religious beliefs. Revelation seems very close and allegory does all but break through during the eucatastrophic moment. An Eagle-messenger sings to Faramir about Frodo and Sam's destruction of the One Ring. Shippey writes that this passage is specifically in the style of Psalm 24 in the King James Version of the Bible. Phrases like Lift up your heads appear within the text alongside references to everlasting doors. Iconography from Kazan Cathedral in St. Petersburg shows John the Evangelist with an eagle as his traditional symbol. E. L. Risden describes the Eagles' rescue of Frodo and Sam as a ritual rebirth. The rescuing bird serves as a symbol of the spirit within the Christian framework of the work.

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• 6. Wingspan And Digital Sculptures

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  The first scenario for an animated motion-picture of The Lord of the Rings was proposed to Tolkien in 1957. Humphrey Carpenter recorded that virtually all walking was dispensed with in the story. The Company of the Ring were transported everywhere on the backs of eagles in that early draft. Fantasy artist Larry Dixon stated that digitally animated eagles in Peter Jackson's film trilogy were based on a stuffed golden eagle provided to Weta Workshop. Two large sculptures of the eagles from the trilogy were installed at Wellington Airport in 2013. Each sculpture had a wingspan of several meters and weighed thousands of pounds. They remained on display until they were removed in 2025. In the video game The Lord of the Rings: War in the North released in 2011, an eagle named Beleram acts as a supporting character. He aids players in battle throughout the digital adaptation of the source material.

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