ANCALAGON, THE WINGED FIRE-DRAKE

As Tolkien acknowledged, the First Age comes to its cataclysmic end in “a final battle which owes, I suppose, more to the Norse vision of Ragnarök than to anything else”. Ragnarök is to be the final battle in the war between the gods and the giants that ends with the destruction of Midgard. This is comparable to the Great Battle in the War of Wrath between the Valar and Morgoth that ends with the destruction of Beleriand. And just as the final battle of Ragnarök will begin with the sounding of the Horn of Heimdall, the Watchman of the Gods, so Tolkien’s Great Battle begins with the blast of the Horn of Eönwë, the Herald of the Valar. At its sounding, the fiery demons, the Balrogs, join the final battle in the War of Wrath with their whips and flaming swords, just as the fire giants of Muspelheim will join in the last battle in Ragnarök with fire and flaming swords. In both great battles, all the legions of good and evil – and all creatures, spirits, demons and beasts – meet in one final, terrible conflict.

In Tolkien’s version of Ragnarök, Morgoth releases one last great horror. This is Ancalagon the Black, the first and greatest of a vast legion of Winged Fire-Drakes. Ancalagon is the greatest dragon to ever enter the world. “Rushing Jaws” is the meaning of his name, and in his ravening majesty he looses terrible withering fire down from the heavens.

The attack of Ancalagon in the Great Battle has precedence in the Old Norse poem Völuspá’s account of the Norse Ragnarök, in which there is “the flying dragon, glowing serpent” known as Nithhog (meaning “malice striker”), a flying monster that emerged from the dark underworld of Niflheim. And then, too, in the Prose Edda’s account of Ragnarök, we also have Jörmungandr, the world serpent, rising up with the giants and monsters to do battle with the gods, and bringing about the destruction of the world.

It is also worth noting that the appearance of Ancalagon in Tolkien’s Great Battle may owe some of its inspiration to the New Testament’s account of the war in heaven fought between the angelic forces of good and evil. Instead of an ultimate duel between Eärendil the Mariner and Ancalagon the Black Dragon, we have, in the Book of Revelation, a duel between the Archangel Michael and the “Red Dragon”:

“Then war broke out in heaven. Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, and the dragon and his angels fought back. But he was not strong enough, and they lost their place in heaven. The great dragon was hurled down – that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray. He was hurled to the earth, and his angels with him.”

Winged Fire-drakes in the War of Wrath

And so, just as the Red Dragon’s downfall marked Satan’s defeat, so the Black Dragon’s downfall marks the defeat of Morgoth in Middle-earth. The Host of the West prevails, and with the uprooting and destruction of Angband, Morgoth is discovered cowering in its deepest pits. No mercy or forgiveness is now granted to the Dark Enemy in this final defeat, and he is cast forever after into the darkness of the Eternal Void.

Ancalagon the Black departing in the War of Wrath

A Great Eagle of Manwë attacks a Winged Dragon of Morgoth in the final battle of the War