J.R.R. Tolkien Features

Do Balrogs Have Wings? Do Balrogs Fly?

A more recent essay, The Truth About Balrogs (Again), on the Tolkien Studies on the Web blog, explains Michael's position more concisely. You can also read the very in-depth Flying away on a wing and a hair ..., 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 at MERP.COM.

Do Balrogs have wings? Do Balrogs fly?

No questions seem to incite greater fear in online Tolkien fandom than these two, because the Great Balrog wings debate began innocently enough in late 1997 and has raged ever since, each time someone just discovers a new discussion group, or they work up their courage to ask the question again and again. Why the great fear? Because few people ever give in and change their minds. And those who do change their minds may do so more than once. The Balrog wings debate has led to a great deal of name-calling and casting of slurs. It all becomes very childish too quickly.

And, unfortunately, recent efforts to portray the debate in a "fair" and non-judgmental way have been spectacular failures because the third-parties don't present all the facts. It is difficult to condense a discussion which roars over 2 or 3 weeks before dying down to a concise summary. It is difficult to be sure of which points are proven and which are discarded. The Great Metaphor and Simile debate arose out of the Great Balrog wings debate, and if nothing else provided much evidence that people cannot agree on anything. Many who had stood firmly together on the wings issue fell to bickering over what constituted metaphor and simile, and how they are normally used, and how they should be used, and how J.R.R. Tolkien used them.

This page is concerned only with the original questions. Did Balrogs have wings? Did Balrogs fly? And the answers are...

Yes, Balrogs had wings...from about 1940 onward.

Yes, Balrogs flew...from at least 1940 onward, maybe from 1948 onward, or possibly from 1952 or thereabouts onward.

The Origins of Balrogs

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).

Continued in Part 2 of Do Balrogs Have Wings? Do Balrogs Fly?.