Great Eagles

Sent by Manwë

The Great Eagles are the birds of Manwë, King of the Valar, whose particular love is for the winds and all that flies. When Yavanna feared for the creatures of her making, Manwë promised that the eagles of the Lords of the West would dwell in the mountains and hear the voices of those who called on them. That promise is the key to their role in every age: they are watchers first, rescuers second, and warriors only at the last extremity. They speak the tongues of Elves and Men, they know the affairs of the wide world, and they answer to no lord in Middle-earth, though they will help those whom Manwë favours.

When the Noldor returned to Middle-earth, Manwë sent the eagles to nest in the crags of the North so that they might watch Melkor. Their king was Thorondor, mightiest of all birds that ever were, whose outstretched wings spanned thirty fathoms. He first made his eyrie on the very peaks of Thangorodrim, and when Morgoth's power grew too great he withdrew to the Crissaegrim, the sheer southern peaks of the Encircling Mountains above Gondolin, where no Orc could climb.

Thorondor in the First Age

The eagles' great deeds in the Elder Days are Thorondor's. Soon after the Noldor came, Fingon went alone into the mountains to find Maedhros, whom Morgoth had hung by the wrist from a precipice of Thangorodrim. Fingon could not reach him and had drawn his bow to end his cousin's torment when Thorondor came down and carried him up to the cliff. Fingon cut off Maedhros's hand to free him, and the eagle bore both away. It was the first of many rescues, and it healed the feud between the houses of Fëanor and Fingolfin.

When Fingolfin rode to the gates of Angband after the Dagor Bragollach and fell beneath Morgoth's mace, Thorondor stooped on Morgoth himself, tore his face with his talons, and carried the king's body out of reach of the Orcs to a mountain-top north of Gondolin, where Turgon raised a cairn. Two years later, in F.A. 458, the eagles found Húrin and Huor lost in the hills and carried them to Gondolin at Turgon's wish. Ever after Thorondor's eagles guarded the hidden city, driving away any spy of Morgoth who came near the Encircling Mountains. When Morgoth released Húrin in his old age and he came to the feet of those mountains crying out for Turgon, it was the eagles who saw him and told Turgon; the king first refused him and then relented too late, and Húrin's grief was seen by the spies of Morgoth, who thereby learned the region of the hidden city. Thorondor was also present at the escape of Beren and Lúthien, coming with two of his kindred to carry the wounded Beren from the gates of Angband to Doriath.

At the fall of Gondolin in F.A. 510 the eagles came again. As the survivors fled through the pass of Cirith Thoronath and Glorfindel fought the Balrog, Thorondor's eagles stooped on the Orcs and drove them shrieking from the heights, and Thorondor himself brought up Glorfindel's body from the abyss so that it could be buried. At the end of the Age, in the War of Wrath, Thorondor led all the great birds of heaven beside Eärendil against the winged dragons of Morgoth.

The Second Age

In Númenor the eagles of Manwë nested on the summit of the Meneltarma and on the roof of the King's House in Armenelos; the Númenóreans held them to be the Vala's witnesses. In the last days of the island, when Ar-Pharazôn turned toward Sauron, great clouds shaped like eagles came out of the West as a warning that the Númenóreans did not heed.

The Third Age

The eagles of the Third Age dwelt in eyries on the eastern side of the Misty Mountains, north of the High Pass. They were proud and strong and no friends of Goblins, and they held the Woodmen and the Dwarves in wary regard, for the Northmen sometimes shot at them. Their lord, unnamed in The Hobbit, had once been healed of an arrow-wound by Gandalf, and in return his eagles snatched Thorin's company out of the burning pines above the Warg moot and carried them to the Carrock. Later that same year they came to the Battle of Five Armies, sweeping the Goblins from the slopes of Erebor, and the Lord of the Eagles was given a golden crown and fifteen of his chieftains golden collars.

Gwaihir the Windlord, a descendant of Thorondor and the swiftest of the great eagles, was the friend of Gandalf in the War of the Ring. Sent by Radagast with news, he found Gandalf a prisoner on the pinnacle of Orthanc and carried him to Rohan. After the fight with the Balrog he found Gandalf lying on the peak of Zirakzigil and bore him to Lothlórien. At the Battle of the Morannon he came with his brother Landroval and the young Meneldor at the head of all the eagles of the North, fell on the Nazgûl, and then flew with Gandalf to the ruin of Mount Doom to lift Frodo and Sam from the lava.

Fate

The eagles are last seen at the Field of Cormallen. They remain in the Misty Mountains, but with the passing of Gandalf and the Elves there is no one left in Middle-earth to whom Manwë's birds will speak.

Far larger than any bird of the later world. Thorondor's wingspan was thirty fathoms, and even the eagles of the Third Age could carry a Dwarf or a Man in their talons or on their backs. They are brown or golden, keen-eyed beyond measure, and able to see a moving thing from miles above. Their talons could rend the face of Morgoth and their onset could scatter an army of Orcs on a mountainside.

The eagles are ruled by a king or lord, with chieftains beneath him. They speak with courtesy to the Wise and with disdain to lesser folk, and they are not beasts of burden: they help whom they choose, when they choose, and both Thorin's company and Gandalf had to ask rather than command. They keep the memory of favours and of injuries, and they hold aloof from the quarrels of Men except where the Shadow is concerned.

Manwë sent the eagles to Middle-earth to dwell in the mountains and watch Morgoth, in answer to Yavanna's plea that her creatures have protectors. Thorondor was their first king. Gwaihir and Landroval, mightiest of the eagles of the Third Age, were his descendants.

Still dwelling in the Misty Mountains at the end of the Third Age; nothing later is recorded.