MORGOTH, “THE DARK ENEMY”
Melkor’s transformation into Morgoth, the “Dark Enemy of the World”, coincides with his return to Middle-earth and his subterranean fortress in the “Iron Hell” of Angband in Beleriand. Like the fallen Lucifer, transformed into Satan on his throne in Hell, Morgoth in Angband gathers about him other fallen rebel beings and a multitude of evil and twisted forms of life. Among Satan’s great allies were Mammon, Beelzebub, Belial and Moloch, while about Morgoth are Balrogs, Orcs, Trolls, Werewolves and Serpents. Both Satan and Morgoth are loud in their defiance, and the spirit of that defiance is beautifully captured in Satan’s proclamation in Paradise Lost that he would “rather rule in hell than serve in heaven”.
We might admire these rebel angels if we believed that their defiance was (as they claim) truly in the name of liberty – however, both lie. Their rebellions are truthfully provoked by envy and the usurpers’ desire to become tyrants themselves. As Milton confirmed, Satan’s true motive was to “set himself in glory above his peers”. Never were there two more natural tyrants than Satan and Morgoth.
Morgoth on the Iron Throne of Angband
Oromë the Hunter slaying Morgoth’s monsters
In Morgoth, Tolkien tells us, “we have the power of evil visibly incarnate”. This warrior king is like a great tower, iron-crowned, with black armour and a shield black, vast and blank. He wields the mace called Grond, the Hammer of the Underworld, which strikes down his foes with the force of a thunderbolt. The fire of malice is ever in Morgoth’s eyes, his face is twisted and battle-scarred, and his hands burn perpetually from having come into contact with the phosphorescent fire of the stolen Silmarils.
Aspects of Morgoth’s dreadful nature can also be found in the tales of the ancient Goths, Germans, Anglo-Saxons and Norse, where similar demonic entities come into conflict with the Gods. The result of this struggle inevitably results in a cataclysmic end of the world known to the Norse as Ragnarök and to the Germans as Götterdämmerung (“Twilight of the Gods”).
Certainly, Morgoth can be compared to the figure of Loki in Norse myth, the trickster and transformer and the embodiment of discord and chaos. Loki is also quite literally the father of the monstrous beings who will join him in the final battle at the end of the world: Jörmungandr, the world serpent; Hel, the goddess of the Underworld; and Fenrir, the wolf who will devour the sun and the moon. Morgoth is also a master deceiver and creator of discord, and furthermore engenders the great evil of fire-breathing Dragons and winged Fire-drakes in preparation for the final Great Battle with the Powers of Arda at the end of the First Age.
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”.
