Resilient Seeker Coaching | Ross Raymond Nunamaker

This year I presented A Brief History of Dragons, or in short, On Dragons at two conferences.

One of the biggest challenges with Tolkien’s dragons is their origin story. There is simply not much to go on.

We know Morgoth recognized he needed something more to defeat Elves and men in the First Age 155.  And we know Glaurung appeared in 355. We also know Glaurung was the Father of Dragons and that Morgoth could only corrupt in mockery as he had with orcs and trolls.

I acknowledged this and gave a few theories such as balrogs as they would account for fire breathing, or some fell beast imbued with malice and bred to great size and I concluded he created a mockery of himself, as he was a creation of Iluvatar and there fore he could be made a mockery of.

Then, in researching something else, after my presentation was made, I came across something of interest in the Lost Road.

The Lost Road is a volume title in the History of Middle Earth (vol V) and also the name of an incomplete story. In this story the history is summarized and states, “And there were evil things also upon earth, made by Morgoth in the days of his dominion, demons and dragons and mockeries of the creatures of Iluvatar.” (page 65).

As I read this break it down as: first, there were evil things on earth, second, the evil things were of four kinds, those made by Morgoth, those mockeries of Iluvatar’s creations, the demons, and the dragons.

This is the only place I’ve found where dragons are differentiated from other creatures in a classification of types. The idea that Morgoth created is a problem as we know he cannot.

The statement does reinforce dragons being on par with, but being differentiated from balrogs. It also distinguishes them from those creatures created in mockery.

What is mockery? To be a mockery a creature does not have a fea as that can only be given by Iluvatar through the Flame Imperishable.

Since Balrogs are fallen Maiar, and Dragons were differentiated from them and from those made in mockery and given their malice, evil, and god-like ego, I would contend that as a breed they were not  originated by Iluvatar or Morgoth.

Morgoth ‘considered’ Dragons to defeat Elves and Men in the beginning of the First Age. To consider them, they would have existed or been known in some capacity. Taken all of this together, I believe Dragons are more similar to Ungoliant than any other being we are aware of and therefore would be an ancient creature, as they were called, from the Void who were other worldly created and independent, but not as independent as Ungoliant of whom Morgoth had no control in the end.