A more recent essay, written in response to comments made by Wayne Hammond and Christina Scull in their 2005 book, The Lord of the Rings: A Reader's Companion, has been published at MERP.COM. Read Flying away on a wing and a hair ... for a slightly different approach to explaining the Balrog Wings controversy. The following essay was reprinted in revised and expanded form in Michael's book, Understanding Middle-earth.

Tolkien used the word "Balrog" to describe a terrifying type of warrior he invented for THE BOOK OF LOST TALES, the first story of which was written in 1916/1917. This was "The Fall of Gondolin". There were hundreds or even thousands of them. In some battle descriptions Tolkien wrote about 1,000 Balrogs riding across the field (they were a cavalry force).

THE BOOK OF LOST TALES was Tolkien's attempt to create a mythology for England, and he abandoned the project in 1925, about the time he decided to create a wholly new mythology which reused the themes and many characters from THE BOOK OF LOST TALES. So this new mythology, which he called the "Silmarillion", was a very primitive version of the collection of stories Christopher published as THE SILMARILLION in 1977, but it wasn't directly related.

The "Silmarillion" mythology retained the Balrogs, and in the 1930s Tolkien rewrote it, producing the fullest version of "Quenta Silmarillion" that he would ever write. Christopher actually used some portions of this text for the book, and that unfortunately has contributed to the confusion many people experience about Balrogs.

A New Balrog Emerges
When Tolkien began work on THE LORD OF THE RINGS he really wanted to get his "Silmarillion" published (now conceived of as THE SILMARILLION, but still only very little in concept like the final book). He had no real inclination to write any more books about hobbits, but as he got rolling on the new hobbit story the idea of marrying the world of the hobbits to the world of the "Silmarillion" appealed to him, and he believed it would eventually help him publish THE SILMARILLION.

So Tolkien began creating what we today know as Middle-earth (it did not exist before then, and Tolkien had only rarely used the name "Middle-earth" in the 1930s, and it does not appear in any published text from before the 1930s). As part of that world he needed a series of perils that Frodo and his companions would encounter, and one of them was set in the ancient mines of Moria, which THE HOBBIT had established was now abandoned and in the possession of Orcs (or had been).

The peril in Moria started out as something other than a Balrog (Tolkien wasn't sure of what it should be at first), and when he decided it SHOULD be a Balrog he became dissatisfied with the way he had portrayed Balrogs in the past. Tolkien had already begun the process of transforming the Balrogs into fallen Maiar but this decision would not be put into written form until 1948. Nonetheless, he changed the physical description of the Balrog in Moria and altered its abilities substantially from those assigned to the Balrogs of earlier (now abandoned) stories.

This Balrog had wings, and was capable of exercising great power, and was nearly invincible. The Balrog detected Gandalf's spell as he tried to block the exit from the Chamber of Mazarbul, and the Balrog itself began a counter-spell, according to Gandalf. So the wizard used a Word of Command to break the down, and the result was a partial cave-in which buried the Chamber of Mazarbul and apparently the Balrog with it.

The Balrog survived the cave-in and rejoined its army, which converged with the Company of the Ring in the Second Hall of Khazad-dum by an alternate route. There the Balrog revealed itself fully, and the darkness with which it cloaked itself expanded. The wings were either shielded by the darkness or formed by the Balrog on the spot or else the darkness (or part of the darkness) was reshaped by the Balrog to take on the form of wings (and thus BECAME wings).

Objections to Balrog wings
Here is where many people make their first mistake. They argue that since Tolkien introduces the wings with a simile, saying, "the shadow around it reached out LIKE two vast wings", the wings cannot be real. But the argument is flawed, because Tolkien also introduces the darkness (the "shadow") with a simile as well: "what it was could not be seen: it was LIKE a great shadow, in the middle of which was a dark form, of man-shape maybe yet greater". If Tolkien's use of the word "like" here means that there were no wings, then it follows that there was no shadow, and if there was no shadow then it could not possibly have "reached out like two vast wings".

So, in order for there to be a shadow there must be wings, because later on Tolkien writes "it stepped forward slowly on to the bridge, and suddenly it drew itself up to a great height, and its wings were spread from wall to wall." The Company of the Ring clearly saw the wings by this point, and what Tolkien was doing with the two similes (and other parts of the passage) was providing a transition from vagueness to clarity. Nothing more.

Objections to Flying Balrogs
People then ask, "Why didn't the Balrog fly over Gandalf if it could fly?"

The answer is that the author gives no indication that the Balrog wanted to do anything other than attack Gandalf. It never once tries to go after Frodo and the Ring. Many people assume it wanted the Ring, but there is no basis for making such an assumption. The closest indication we have that anything other than Sauron and Saruman might have been actively pursuing the Ring is when the Watcher in the Water grabs Frodo. But there is no obvious connection between the Watcher and the Balrog.

And if the Balrog COULD have flown with those big cavern-spanning wings, how was it to do so inside the Second Hall of Khazad-dum anyway? There were two rows of HUGE carven pillars, reaching from floor to ceiling, marching down the center of the hall. The Balrog could not have flown toward the Company of the Ring with those wings fully extended.

Then people ask, "Well, why didn't it try to save itself when it fell into the chasm?"

The answer here begins with another question: "Why should we assume it would want to save itself?" The Balrog had just crawled out from under tons of rock which would have killed Gandalf, Aragorn, Boromir, and all the rest of the Company. What, exactly, did it have to fear? Why should it have tried to "save" itself when the author has just shown the reader that Balrogs don't die so easily?

Furthermore, the first thing the Balrog does is lash out at Gandalf and drag him downward. Clearly its foremost thought is to continue the attack on Gandalf. Even if there were room in the chasm for the Balrog to fly out, why should it drag Gandalf down with it if it intends to get out of the chasm anyway? Why not just "save" itself and let him fall with the bridge? Because Tolkien didn't write it that way. Obviously he envisioned the Balrog as an active creature, not a reactive one.

Gandalf's description of the battle with the Balrog also makes it clear that they fought all the way down, and that they fell for a long time. So the Balrog was at the very least encumbered with Gandalf and more likely was actively trying to burn him to death (Gandalf does say he was burned).

And then we have to turn to the question of why it took so long for them to reach the water. Some people have argued that it was a LONG way down. Maybe, but if Tolkien knew anything about the rate of falling bodies (and he probably did), then he would understand that Gandalf's words wouldn't make any sense if the wizard and the Balrog really fell at a normal speed.

So it seems apparent that their rate of descent was slowed, probably by the Balrog, but clearly these were both beings of great power who, if they wished to, could move through the universe at will. Their existence and ability to affect the universe did not depend on their physical bodies (although it has been noted that late in his life Tolkien decided many of the fallen Maiar probably became trapped in their bodies due to engaging in biological activities).

Hence, there is little reason to ask why the Balrog didn't fly out of the chasm. It obviously had other things on its mind, and the battle Gandalf describes is not the kind of battle that any normal flesh-and-blood creature would be expected to survive (and he himself was not a normal flesh-and-blood creature). The battle lasted for 11 days, and it culminated with the clash of powers on the mountaintop.

Could a Flying Balrog Save Itself?
There one more objection is raised: "Why didn't the Balrog save itself when it fell from the mountainside?" The answer is that dead and dying Balrogs, like dead and dying dragons, don't fly. When Earendil cast Ancalagon from the sky the dragon was finished and it smote Thangorodrim in its ruin just as the Balrog of Moria smote the mountainside in ITS ruin. And when Bard's arrow pierced Smaug's breast, the great dragon fell from the sky and hit the ruins of Laketown in HIS ruin.

Gandalf threw down his enemy. That expression is one of Tolkien's pseudo-archaisms, and clearly refers to Gandalf's vanquishing the Balrog. It was either too physically exhausted after having been whacked on with an Elvish sword and blasted with lightning bolts for 11 days or it was dead or in the process of dying when it took that fall off the cliff. If the Balrog could have acted to save itself at all by that point, it would at least have taken Gandalf with it, if not actually turn the tables on him. How many times during their 11 days together did either Gandalf or the Balrog NEARLY kill his opponent? Tolkien doesn't say. He leaves it to the reader to imagine how terrible the battle must have been. But he makes it clear that Gandalf won because the Balrog could no longer attack him.

But Can Balrogs Really fly?
Then we turn to the question of whether Balrogs really CAN fly. The short answer is that they were Maiar and that Maiar can whatever they please. The long answer is that Tolkien DOES provide one example of flying Balrogs, and that is when they flew over Hithlum to rescue Morgoth from Ungoliant.

Here many people raise objections by dissecting a single sentence and taking specific phrases out of context. "winged speed", they say, can be used as a metaphor. Yes, it can, but there is no indication in the text that Tolkien used it so. "Arose", they say, can refer to the act of flying up into the sky or simply climbing out of an underground abode, and the Balrogs were indeed underground when they heard Morgoth scream. Yes, that is so. But there is no indication in the text that this is what Tolkien meant to imply without also implying flight.

"Passed over" doesn't necessarily mean flight, either, they say. Fingolfin's horse passed over the plain of Anfauglith after the Dagor Bragollach, and the horse obviously was not flying. True, but "passed over" must be given a context to have any meaning.

What J.R.R. Tolkien actually wrote was "swiftly they arose, and they passed with winged speed over Hithlum, they came to Lammoth as a tempest of fire." Unfortunately, only part of this text was used by Christopher Tolkien in THE SILMARILLION. What he wrote "and now swiftly they arose, and passing over Hithlum they came to Lammoth as a tempest of fire."

Why did Christopher change the text? He doesn't say. It may only have been an error of omission. But it's not simply a matter of omission, he changed the verbal phrasing completely from "they passed with winged speed over Hithlum" to "passing over Hithlum".

The key phrase in both versions of the sentence, however, is the metaphor "tempest of fire". A tempest is a storm. Some people have argued that a tempest can simply refer to a disturbance, but Tolkien doesn't use "tempest" that way. He uses it to refer to things coming out of the sky. When Morgoth unleashed the winged dragons on the Host of the Valar at the end of the War of Wrath, they erupted like a "tempest of fire". Clearly the winged dragons were flying and spewing flames.

Tolkien's "tempest of fire" in Lammoth dates from the 1950s, AFTER Tolkien had reached the conclusion that Balrogs were winged fallen Maiar. Furthermore, it works with "swiftly they arose, and they passed with winged speed over Hithlum" to denote a passage through the sky. There were Elves in Hithlum at the time (Sindar) who noted this passage (that is how Tolkien justifies his histories -- either someone witnesses it or infers it). Hithlum itself was not burned, nor suffered any kind of damage from flame and smoke. Tolkien doesn't say the flaming Balrogs ran through Hithlum, and they in their fiery state could not have ridden through it as in the older stories.

Some people nonetheless argue that these are only words, and that it can be shown they mean something other than flight. However, when I have asked people in many forums to try, no one has succeeded. You must use all four parts of the sentence. You cannot drop any part. It is simply not possible to rewrite the sentence so as to show something other than flight. Hence, there is no ambiguity in the passage concerning the Balrogs' mode of travel.

Glaurung's Train of Balrogs
But one last objection is raised, and that is that in describing the Dagor Bragollach, THE SILMARILLION says "in the front of that fire came Glaurung the golden, father of dragons, in his full might; and in his train were Balrogs, and behind them came the black armies of the Orcs in multitudes such as the Noldor had never before seen or imagined."

One must ask where this sentence comes from, and the answer is surprising to many. It doesn't come from J.R.R. Tolkien. What JRRT actually wrote, in the last full "Quenta Silmarillion" from the 1930s, was "in the front of that fire came Glomund the golden, the father of dragons, and in his train were Balrogs, and behind them came the black armies of the Orcs in multitudes such as the Gnomes had never before seen or imagined."

These Balrogs were not the flaming, cloaked-in-shadow, wing-bearing, flying Balrogs of the 1940s and 1950s. In the same text, when Tolkien described the fight between Morgoth and Ungoliant, all he wrote was "so great had Ungoliante become that she enmeshed Morgoth in her choking nets, and his awful cry echoed through the shuddering world. To his aid there came the Balrogs that lived yet in the deepest places of his ancient fortress, Utumno in the North. With their whips of flame the Balrogs smote the webs asunder...."

No mention of passing over Hithlum, swiftly arising, or arriving as a tempest of fire here. These were not fiery flying Balrogs. These are still the mounted Balrogs of yesteryear. In the same "Quenta Silmarillion" text, when describing the Nirnaeth, Tolkien wrote "But even as the vanguard of Maedhros came upon the Orcs, Morgoth let loose his last strength, and hell was emptied. There came wolves and serpents, and there came Balrogs one thousand, and there came Glomund the Father of Dragons." The number of 1,000 Balrogs survived into the 1950s, but Tolkien soon made a note to himself in "Annals of Aman" that there should not be more than 7 at most.

In describing the outcome of the War of Wrath in this "Quenta Silmarillion", Tolkien wrote "the Balrogs were destroyed, save some few that fled and hid themselves in caverns inaccessible at the roots of the earth." This is the language that Christopher incorporated into the published SILMARILLION, because his father never finished rewriting "Quenta Silmarillion". Christopher adopted as much material as he could from "Annals of Aman" and "Grey Annals", but the latter material covered the history of the Eldar in Middle-earth after the return of the Noldor and it was unsuitable for use in the published text.

The entry in "Grey Annals" which describes the Dagor Bragollach is radically different from the 1930s description which Christopher used, reading, in part, "Rivers of fire ran down from Thangorodrim, and Glaurung, Father of Dragons, came forth in his full might. The green plains of Ardgalen were burned up and became a drear desert without growing thing; and thereafter were called ANFAUGLITH, the Gasping Dust."

Gone is all mention of Balrogs in the dragon's train.

The Final Word on Balrogs
Tolkien never again wrote a story about Balrogs. What we find in THE SILMARILLION, therefore, is virtually useless information, amalgamated from older, pre-LOTR (and thus incompatible) sources. And Tolkien fans often forget Christopher's admonishment in the foreword to THE SILMARILLION: "A complete consistency (either within the compass of THE SILMARILLION itself or between THE SILMARILLION and other published writings of my father's) is not to be looked for, and could only be achieved, if at all, at heavy and needless cost."

So, to learn about the nature and abilities of the Balrog of Moria one must dissect the various texts of THE HISTORY OF MIDDLE-EARTH, and the stories from THE BOOK OF LOST TALES and other pre-LOTR materials cannot be used to analyze the Balrog of Moria. Many people try to do so, but because Tolkien substantially changed the Balrogs while writing "Ainulindale" and THE LORD OF THE RINGS, the Balrogs of THE BOOK OF LOST TALES and the early "Quenta Silmarillion" are completely different creatures.

In the final analysis, one must accept that the Balrog of Moria had wings because J.R.R. Tolkien said it had wings, and that the Balrogs flew to Lammoth because the sentence cannot mean anything else. If one chooses not to accept these facts, then one is at variance with J.R.R. Tolkien, and there is nothing which can be said or done to counter an argument that refuses to accept the plain and simple facts.

A more complete version of this essay was published in the book Visualizing Middle-earth.