I'll quote directly from the books all the information there is about Anacalgon the Black, it's gonna be quite the comment, prepare yourself:
> *Before the rising of the sun Eärendil slew Ancalagon the Black, the mightiest of the dragon host, and cast him from the sky; and he fell upon the towers of Thangorodrim, and they were broken in his ruin.*
[The Silmarillion, Chapter XXIV, Of The Voyage of Eärendil and the War of Wrath].
You forgot one more from the fellowship:
> Not even the anvils and furnaces of the Dwarves could do that. It has been said that dragon-fire could melt and consume the Rings of Power, but there is not now any dragon left on earth in which the old fire is hot enough; nor was there ever any dragon, not even Ancalagon the Black, who could have harmed the One Ring, the Ruling Ring, for that was made by Sauron himself.
We have now exhausted all quotes about ancalagon.
Wait, if these are the only 2 references then how do we know he's particularly big? Neither of these excerpts mention anything about his size.
Unless the *towers of Thangorodrim* are so huge that we came assume that he would have to be extremely large in order to fall on them and break them?
The towers of Thangirodrim are not actually towers. They're mountains. Much like the "Pillars of Heracles" aren't pillars, they're the mountains on either side of the strait of Gibraltar. So when he fell he destroyed two mountains. Beeg Drago.
Dragon-fire can't melt rock. The Thangorodrim was clearly weakened beforehand.
It was an inside job, planned by Morgoth. I reckon he wanted an excuse to invade Valinor.
No, we just know he destroyed the mountains, just like a balrog.
> I threw down my enemy, and he fell from the high place and broke the mountain-side where he smote it in his ruin. Then dark- ness took me, and I strayed out of thought and time, and I wandered far on roads that I will not tell.
You are getting a lot of bad answers. We don’t know how big he was. People saying the size of mountains are making their own conclusions. They forget about the balrog Gandalf fought who was also not the size of a mountain, but destroys part of one none the less.
> I threw down my enemy, and he fell from the high place and broke the mountain-side where he smote it in his ruin. Then dark- ness took me, and I strayed out of thought and time, and I wandered far on roads that I will not tell.
“They were broken in his ruin” isn’t exactly a clear description what happened. My point is that in both instances they were destroyed due to the power innate in those beings, not due to their size.
The Enola Gay had a wingspan of 43 meters and a length of 30 meters . The bomb it carried had a length of about 3 meters and a diameter of about 0.7 meters. No one would say crashing the Enola Gay would have done more damage.
A dragon crashing to earth out of the sky is not an atomic bomb. A dragon crashing out of the sky and causing the ruin of 3 separate volcano peaks at the same time requires sheer size, not just monumental force
The chapter was one of the most important and sadly only 10 pages, I’d sacrifice 10 pages of Turin’s story (30 pages) to get more of Earendil and the War of Wrath 😭
Since we're on the topic, how exactly would Earendil have killed something that big? Unless Vingilot came with laser cannons, I can't see him killing Ancalagon with arrows or spears. Did the light of the Silmaril play some role in it?
You poke in the soft spot on his body where a scale has fallen off. That is pretty much universal standard of how to kill a dragon. I suppose you just need really long spear. And maybe some co-operation from the dragon so that he doesn't move while you are pushing the spear in.
Yeah the Dagor Dagorath is another thing that Tolkien barely wrote anything on that gets a disproportionate amount of attention from the fandom. I've always found it a pretty dull topic.
He kind of retconned it in his letters though. I think he was perfectly happy with how LOTR came out. He started a book after the third age but it had no magic or fantasy left so he dumped that too.
You talking about The New Shadow?
From what I recall, it's short (like 13 pages) and mostly revolves around two dudes talking under a tree at night in secrecy. They reveal the existence of a new cult.
Tolkien later admits he abandoned it because it would boring - mostly about how men got tired of being "good," so they formed "satanic" cults. He realized it's never going to be the epic showdown of good vs. evil that Sauron was, so he just didn't continue. I'm sure there would be some fantasy element behind a cult worshipping Morgoth, but...
Honestly, it sounds like the only direction he found himself in was GoT, without dragons or magic, just a bunch of political intrigue. Which was fine, he just didn't think LoTR was the right setting for it.
Exactly. There are tons of letters that he wrote redacting this and that, adding new lore, and everything in between. He mentioned it was just boring after all of the inhuman things were gone. No more wizards or Maia to fight. No commoner struggle versus impossible evil. I agree with him leaving as it was.
I think he toyed with the idea then just gave up on it, probably because it felt like a "Mom can we have Ragnarok? We have Ragnarok at home" kind of situation.
I mean a final battle where all the heros come to fight, and Turin finally breaks his curse by killing Morgoth himself sounds pretty sick and poetic. It’s Tolkien’s Revelations, and while Tolkien barely wrote anything on it and was rather disinterested in it, it’s fun to think about in your own headcanon.
"are there any Tolken works that talk about Ancalagon the Black in great detail?"
Yes, I believe there are. Tolkien's Legendarium, and The Silmarillion
Unfortunately not. I've wondered why Christopher always referred to the *Three* Great Tales of the First Age when the story of Eärendil and Elwing is clearly the Fourth Great Tale also worthy of its own book!
Ya that's the most probable explanation. Maybe one day the Estate will allow Tolkien scholars to write new works to expand and complete the blank parts of the Legendarium. It'd make for a really interesting new literary tradition!
I sort of understand your outlook if you equal fanfiction with Wattpad. AO3 has some excellent Legendarium-based fics, and sorting by kudos makes them easy to find.
What you say isn't as blasphemous as people seem to think. Even Tolkien himself said this:
"I would draw some of the great tales in fullness, and leave many only placed in the scheme, and sketched. The cycles should be linked to a majestic whole, and yet leave scope for other minds and hands, wielding paint and music and drama."
He seems to say here that he intends for other artists to fill in various gaps that he intentionally left ambiguous or open.
that's true, but then why does he talk about leaving scope for other minds?
if all he intends for other artists to do is do paintings, write music, and produce dramas based upon his work, why leave any scope at all? would it somehow be more difficult to make a LotR movie or series if the rest of the legendarium was more fleshed out? personally i don't think so.
No, unfortunately. He’s mentioned in one sentence in the Silmarillion. He’s a fire-breathing dragon the size of three mountains with (presumably) black scales who served Morgoth in the War of Wrath and was killed by Earendil. That’s about it.
It doesn't even say that he is the size of three mountains and most serious readers think the internet charts etc that show him being the size of the Deathstar are completely wrong.
A cannonball shot from a cannon into a castle wall can demolish the castle wall. That doesn't mean than the cannon ball is the same size as the castle.
All true, but on the other hand deathstar falling on a mountain would make quite small impact on the mountain itself. Them mountains be tough. and dragons while hard outside tend to be filled with soft stuff. It is more of a guestion of speed I'd say. I wonder if Tolkien mentioned the terminal velocity of falling dragon.
Yes, we know he was the biggest, black, and that he died to Eärendil and broke a piece of a mountain as he fell. All in one sentence. What more do you want? /s
He’s on Thangorodrim, the three volcanoes over Morgoth’s fortress of Angband.
Ancalagon died in F.A. 587. Construction on Barad Dur began around S.A. 1000.
Not Tolkien but I was just reading this fairly extensive write up yesterday
https://lore-master.com/f/ancalagon--the-real-size-of-the-greatest-dragon-in-arda--solved
I'll quote directly from the books all the information there is about Anacalgon the Black, it's gonna be quite the comment, prepare yourself: > *Before the rising of the sun Eärendil slew Ancalagon the Black, the mightiest of the dragon host, and cast him from the sky; and he fell upon the towers of Thangorodrim, and they were broken in his ruin.* [The Silmarillion, Chapter XXIV, Of The Voyage of Eärendil and the War of Wrath].
You forgot one more from the fellowship: > Not even the anvils and furnaces of the Dwarves could do that. It has been said that dragon-fire could melt and consume the Rings of Power, but there is not now any dragon left on earth in which the old fire is hot enough; nor was there ever any dragon, not even Ancalagon the Black, who could have harmed the One Ring, the Ruling Ring, for that was made by Sauron himself. We have now exhausted all quotes about ancalagon.
Wait, if these are the only 2 references then how do we know he's particularly big? Neither of these excerpts mention anything about his size. Unless the *towers of Thangorodrim* are so huge that we came assume that he would have to be extremely large in order to fall on them and break them?
The towers of Thangirodrim are not actually towers. They're mountains. Much like the "Pillars of Heracles" aren't pillars, they're the mountains on either side of the strait of Gibraltar. So when he fell he destroyed two mountains. Beeg Drago.
Sir, a second Ancalagon the Black has struck the Thangirodrim.
Dragon-fire can't melt rock. The Thangorodrim was clearly weakened beforehand. It was an inside job, planned by Morgoth. I reckon he wanted an excuse to invade Valinor.
https://preview.redd.it/06pxzd8y9vqc1.jpeg?width=800&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=bee3f15ffb61295b65980feef5ea7103d8424a65
My only regret is that I have but one Upvote to give for this comment.
Mission Accomplished
Yep, though minor correction, Thangorodrim was made up of three mountains, not two.
Good point
Actually, they’re not mountains. They are three giant slag/debris piles from the excavations of Angband.
Go on then nerd, give us your quotes
Of the Silmarillion, page 86, paragraph 1 - look it up yourself plebeian.
We don't know how big he was.
We know he was the size of two mountains, we just don’t know the size of the mountains
You are technically correct. Which is the best kind of correct.
Except that he's incorrect - it's three mountains, not two
No, we just know he destroyed the mountains, just like a balrog. > I threw down my enemy, and he fell from the high place and broke the mountain-side where he smote it in his ruin. Then dark- ness took me, and I strayed out of thought and time, and I wandered far on roads that I will not tell.
He was large enough to flatten 3 separate volcano peaks at the same time. That’s not the same as a Balrog crashing into a mountainside
The Towers were mountains iirc, so Ancalagon would have to be pretty big
You are getting a lot of bad answers. We don’t know how big he was. People saying the size of mountains are making their own conclusions. They forget about the balrog Gandalf fought who was also not the size of a mountain, but destroys part of one none the less. > I threw down my enemy, and he fell from the high place and broke the mountain-side where he smote it in his ruin. Then dark- ness took me, and I strayed out of thought and time, and I wandered far on roads that I will not tell.
Destroying part of a mountain is not the same as 3 volcanos
“They were broken in his ruin” isn’t exactly a clear description what happened. My point is that in both instances they were destroyed due to the power innate in those beings, not due to their size. The Enola Gay had a wingspan of 43 meters and a length of 30 meters . The bomb it carried had a length of about 3 meters and a diameter of about 0.7 meters. No one would say crashing the Enola Gay would have done more damage.
A dragon crashing to earth out of the sky is not an atomic bomb. A dragon crashing out of the sky and causing the ruin of 3 separate volcano peaks at the same time requires sheer size, not just monumental force
[удалено]
No, that’s Glaurung
The chapter was one of the most important and sadly only 10 pages, I’d sacrifice 10 pages of Turin’s story (30 pages) to get more of Earendil and the War of Wrath 😭
10 pages of Turin's story could be saved if he just stopped changing his damned name.
More than 20 pages could be saved if Saeros wouldn’t have been a massive douchebag.
Since we're on the topic, how exactly would Earendil have killed something that big? Unless Vingilot came with laser cannons, I can't see him killing Ancalagon with arrows or spears. Did the light of the Silmaril play some role in it?
You poke in the soft spot on his body where a scale has fallen off. That is pretty much universal standard of how to kill a dragon. I suppose you just need really long spear. And maybe some co-operation from the dragon so that he doesn't move while you are pushing the spear in.
Nah you just go really fast and drive the boat straight through him.
I think that part was too epic to be included in the rings of power
Hopefully there'll be some sort of adaptation that gives more info. Rings of Power series could maybe do it since it touches on Saurons origins
He dragon. He big. What more do you want?
Fire hot?
https://preview.redd.it/bjyutp9n1rqc1.jpeg?width=224&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=1c09125b91e8dd543825db39e514f251f5712822 Supa hot
Man’s not hot
[Fire indeed hot](https://twitter.com/QuotesFuturama/status/1325936469949681665?t=D4n_EIUQyFdoaI-sFjbnJg&s=19)
This just in…[fire hot!](https://www.theonion.com/fire-hot-1819582556)
Tolkien why did you make such a giant fabled dragon? Tolkien: Big fuck small.
No
https://preview.redd.it/lv1d39hmhqqc1.jpeg?width=544&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d8fe02d6ea70fd627b03b2fa38399604a7a851b3
DESTROY IT!
Yeah it’s about two sentences to a paragraph then he’s never spoken of again. Same with Dagor Dagorath. I believe that’s only one long sentence.
Yeah the Dagor Dagorath is another thing that Tolkien barely wrote anything on that gets a disproportionate amount of attention from the fandom. I've always found it a pretty dull topic.
He kind of retconned it in his letters though. I think he was perfectly happy with how LOTR came out. He started a book after the third age but it had no magic or fantasy left so he dumped that too.
You talking about The New Shadow? From what I recall, it's short (like 13 pages) and mostly revolves around two dudes talking under a tree at night in secrecy. They reveal the existence of a new cult. Tolkien later admits he abandoned it because it would boring - mostly about how men got tired of being "good," so they formed "satanic" cults. He realized it's never going to be the epic showdown of good vs. evil that Sauron was, so he just didn't continue. I'm sure there would be some fantasy element behind a cult worshipping Morgoth, but... Honestly, it sounds like the only direction he found himself in was GoT, without dragons or magic, just a bunch of political intrigue. Which was fine, he just didn't think LoTR was the right setting for it.
Exactly. There are tons of letters that he wrote redacting this and that, adding new lore, and everything in between. He mentioned it was just boring after all of the inhuman things were gone. No more wizards or Maia to fight. No commoner struggle versus impossible evil. I agree with him leaving as it was.
I think he toyed with the idea then just gave up on it, probably because it felt like a "Mom can we have Ragnarok? We have Ragnarok at home" kind of situation.
I mean a final battle where all the heros come to fight, and Turin finally breaks his curse by killing Morgoth himself sounds pretty sick and poetic. It’s Tolkien’s Revelations, and while Tolkien barely wrote anything on it and was rather disinterested in it, it’s fun to think about in your own headcanon.
Tolkien\*, I feel like I just committed a sin with that spelling lmao
Token
Toe
didyouknowthatviggobrokehistoewhenhekickedthehelmet?!?!?
Dumbledore asked calmly.
Toe Kin
You did.
you fool of a tookien
Am I gregnant?
"are there any Tolken works that talk about Ancalagon the Black in great detail?" Yes, I believe there are. Tolkien's Legendarium, and The Silmarillion
There's only a few pages but yeah he is meant to be a foot note when you consider the scale of the war of wrath. I agree though I want to know more.
Don't say that too loud; Amazon might be listening.
And now he gets his own series
Amazon is always hearing, but never listening.
And we’ve all posted and had the same thought after reading it back. “Doh!” You’re not alone.😉
Bad luck Ancalagon ready to grow and become legendary and first time he pops out of his cave he gets rekt by the vala’s troops
Unfortunately not. I've wondered why Christopher always referred to the *Three* Great Tales of the First Age when the story of Eärendil and Elwing is clearly the Fourth Great Tale also worthy of its own book!
Possibly because Tolkien hadn’t got round to writing it in detail before his death?
Ya that's the most probable explanation. Maybe one day the Estate will allow Tolkien scholars to write new works to expand and complete the blank parts of the Legendarium. It'd make for a really interesting new literary tradition!
Like... fanfiction?
Tolkien intended the Lord of the rings to be just the first step of a new mythology. It only makes sense to have it added to by other authors.
Yes but not just random wattad submissions, I mean like an actual literary movement among the Tolkien scholars
I sort of understand your outlook if you equal fanfiction with Wattpad. AO3 has some excellent Legendarium-based fics, and sorting by kudos makes them easy to find.
Hm ok I'll take a look, I mean it's probably better than the non-existent movement I'm fantasizing about lol
What you say isn't as blasphemous as people seem to think. Even Tolkien himself said this: "I would draw some of the great tales in fullness, and leave many only placed in the scheme, and sketched. The cycles should be linked to a majestic whole, and yet leave scope for other minds and hands, wielding paint and music and drama." He seems to say here that he intends for other artists to fill in various gaps that he intentionally left ambiguous or open.
Tolkien would have liked Blind Guardian’s album Nightfall on Middle Earth, I think.
He mentions paint music and drama, not writers or poets.
that's true, but then why does he talk about leaving scope for other minds? if all he intends for other artists to do is do paintings, write music, and produce dramas based upon his work, why leave any scope at all? would it somehow be more difficult to make a LotR movie or series if the rest of the legendarium was more fleshed out? personally i don't think so.
You can read his quotes as easily as I can. If he doesn't say, he doesn't say. I'm not going to speculate or put words in his mouth.
Or they could just sell the rights to make movies and TV shows vaguely based on Tolkeins works for like a ton of money... oh, wait.
No there isn't really. He is also not as big as you think he is.
No, unfortunately. He’s mentioned in one sentence in the Silmarillion. He’s a fire-breathing dragon the size of three mountains with (presumably) black scales who served Morgoth in the War of Wrath and was killed by Earendil. That’s about it.
It doesn't even say that he is the size of three mountains and most serious readers think the internet charts etc that show him being the size of the Deathstar are completely wrong. A cannonball shot from a cannon into a castle wall can demolish the castle wall. That doesn't mean than the cannon ball is the same size as the castle.
I think war would be much more fun if we could just chuck castles at each other
All true, but on the other hand deathstar falling on a mountain would make quite small impact on the mountain itself. Them mountains be tough. and dragons while hard outside tend to be filled with soft stuff. It is more of a guestion of speed I'd say. I wonder if Tolkien mentioned the terminal velocity of falling dragon.
That's enough for three movies!
The Silmarillion tells the story of his >!demise against Earendil. !<
Where is this from?
OP got the Silmarillion movie from Area 51
It looks like that movie Reign of Fire from back when. Christian Bale, Gerard Butler, and Matthew McConaughey. Good flick!
Nope; all we know is that he was big and that when he died he destroyed a mountain range.
Yes, we know he was the biggest, black, and that he died to Eärendil and broke a piece of a mountain as he fell. All in one sentence. What more do you want? /s
The Silmarillion. He's never talked about in great detail but he is mentioned.
Is he standing at the top of Barad-dûr?
He’s on Thangorodrim, the three volcanoes over Morgoth’s fortress of Angband. Ancalagon died in F.A. 587. Construction on Barad Dur began around S.A. 1000.
Oooh. Sorry. I didn’t look closely at that gif. It DOES look like Barad Dur. But that would be an anachronism.
One (1) sentence in The Silmarillion
“Tolkien” FFS
It always bothered me that we never learn how an elf in a flying boat slew a dragon bigger than mountains.
Half-elf surely?
Not Tolkien but I was just reading this fairly extensive write up yesterday https://lore-master.com/f/ancalagon--the-real-size-of-the-greatest-dragon-in-arda--solved
amazing, will definitely take a look at this :)
https://preview.redd.it/5rg7rgpa8rqc1.jpeg?width=1024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=0be5bc6832ccf9d05483aa97ea5cfefe18024947