Main Narrative: The Eagles of Manwe

"I was sent to bear tidings not burdens."

With those words, spoken to Gandalf after bearing him from Saruman's tower, Gwaihir the Windlord revealed something essential about the Great Eagles of Middle-earth. They are not a rescue service. They are not aerial cavalry waiting to be summoned. They are messengers first and foremost - emissaries of the Lord of the Valar, sent to watch, to witness, and only in the most desperate moments, to act.

Today we're examining these magnificent creatures who appear at the most crucial moments in Tolkien's legendarium - from the deliverance of Maedhros in the First Age to the salvation of Frodo and Sam from the slopes of Mount Doom. Along the way, we'll answer the question that haunts every fan who's thought too hard about The Lord of the Rings: why didn't they just fly the Ring to Mordor?

The answer lies in understanding what the Eagles truly are - and more importantly, what they are not.

SECTION: Spirits from Taniquetil

In the uttermost West, upon Taniquetil the highest mountain in Arda, dwells Manwe Sulimo, Lord of the Breath of Arda and King of all the Valar. From his throne he gazes across the world, but even his sight has limits. And so he sends forth eyes that can travel where he cannot.

The Silmarillion tells us that "spirits in the shape of hawks and eagles flew ever to and from his halls; and their eyes could see to the depths of the seas, and pierce the hidden caverns beneath the world."

These are the Great Eagles. Not merely giant birds with impressive wingspans, but beings of intelligence and purpose, capable of speech and loyalty, serving as the eyes and voice of heaven in Middle-earth.

When Morgoth, the first Dark Lord, established his fortress of Angband in the far north and the Noldorin Elves pursued him from Valinor, Manwe faced a dilemma. The Valar had forbidden themselves from directly intervening in the affairs of the exiled Elves. Yet Manwe still had pity for them.

His solution was the Eagles. They were sent to dwell in the mountains north of Beleriand, to watch upon Morgoth, and - crucially - to help the Noldor "in extreme cases" only.

That phrase matters immensely. "In extreme cases." The Eagles were never meant to be a standing army or a reliable relief force. They were observers first, with permission to intervene only when all other hope had failed.

"The Eagles brought news of much that passed in those days to the sad ears of Manwe," the texts tell us. Intelligence gathering. Reconnaissance. Bearing tidings, not burdens.

This is why Gwaihir's words to Gandalf are so telling. When the wizard asked to be carried to Edoras, the Eagle replied that he could bear him "many leagues, but not to the ends of the earth." The Eagles have limits - not of strength, but of mandate. They are emissaries, not servants. They come when heaven sends them, not when mortals call.

SECTION: Thorondor and the Wars of the Jewels

Yet when the Eagles did act in those early ages, they acted with devastating power.

Thorondor, King of Eagles, was the mightiest of all his kind - so vast that his wingspan measured thirty fathoms, approximately one hundred eighty feet from tip to tip. To put that in perspective, a Boeing 747 has a wingspan of around two hundred feet. Thorondor was nearly the size of a modern jetliner, and unlike a machine, he possessed intelligence, will, and talons that could rend the face of a god.

The deliverance of Maedhros stands as one of the Eagles' first great interventions in the wars of Beleriand. When Morgoth captured the eldest son of Feanor and hung him by his right hand from a precipice of Thangorodrim, hope seemed lost. No army could scale those peaks. No power in Middle-earth could challenge Morgoth's fortress directly.

But when Fingon, Maedhros's cousin, prayed to Manwe for aid, Thorondor answered. The great Eagle bore Fingon up the cliff face to where Maedhros hung. Unable to free the shackle, Fingon cut off his cousin's hand - and Thorondor carried them both back to safety.

This was not the Eagles' most dramatic moment, however. That came during Morgoth's duel with Fingolfin, High King of the Noldor.

In the year 456 of the First Age, after the disastrous Battle of Sudden Flame had broken the siege of Angband, Fingolfin rode alone to the gates of Morgoth's fortress. There, in single combat, the Elven king challenged the mightiest of the Valar - and though Fingolfin wounded Morgoth seven times and lamed him forever, the king at last fell.

Morgoth would have defiled the body. He would have thrown it to his wolves or displayed it as a trophy of his victory.

But Thorondor descended upon the Dark Lord himself.

The King of Eagles "stooped upon Morgoth and marred his face" - one of the only beings in all of Arda's history to physically wound the Dark Enemy after his corruption. Thorondor then bore Fingolfin's body away, beyond Morgoth's reach, to a mountain peak where Turgon the Hidden King built a cairn over his father's remains.

The Eagles' greatest battle, though, came at the end of the First Age. When the Valar finally broke their silence and sent the Host of the West against Morgoth, Earendil the Mariner sailed out of the West in his blessed ship Vingilot, accompanied by "a myriad of the Eagles of Manwe led by Thorondor."

Above Angband, they met the dragons of Morgoth in aerial combat - the greatest air battle in the history of Arda. And when Ancalagon the Black, mightiest of all winged dragons, fell from the sky, his body was so vast that it broke Thangorodrim itself.

These were the Eagles at the height of their power, fighting alongside the armies of heaven.

SECTION: The Watches They Kept

But between the dramatic interventions and apocalyptic battles, the Eagles performed a quieter duty - one often overlooked in the tales of heroism.

They watched.

When Thorondor moved his eyries from Thangorodrim to the Crissaegrim - the "Cleft Mountain Peaks" that formed part of the Encircling Mountains around Gondolin - he established the first great Eagle observation post. From those inaccessible heights, the Eagles kept constant vigil over the Hidden City and reported all movements in the surrounding lands to Turgon.

It was this watchfulness that saved Hurin and Huor, two young men of the House of Hador who became lost in the wilderness of Dimbar. Thorondor spotted them from above and, recognizing their noble lineage, sent two great birds to carry them over the mountains into Gondolin. The brothers spent nearly a year in the Hidden City before returning home - sworn to secrecy about its location.

This surveillance role continued into the Second Age, taking on an even more explicitly sacred dimension in Numenor.

Upon Meneltarma, the "Pillar of Heaven" that rose at the center of the island kingdom, three Eagles maintained perpetual watch. The Numenoreans called them the "Witnesses of Manwe" and believed they had been sent directly from Aman to oversee the holy mountain.

Whenever anyone approached the summit of Meneltarma, the three Eagles would appear and alight upon three rocks near the western edge. During the Three Prayers ceremonies - offerings made at the changing of the seasons - the Eagles did not descend but hovered above the gathered worshippers, silent witnesses to the covenant between Numenor and the Valar.

As Numenor fell into shadow under the influence of Sauron, the Eagles became harbingers of warning rather than blessing. Before the Downfall, when the faithless King Ar-Pharazon prepared to assault the Undying Lands themselves, Manwe sent "Eagles of the Lords of the West" - vast storm clouds shaped like eagles - as a final portent.

The Numenoreans ignored the warning. And the island sank beneath the waves.

SECTION: The Three Rescues of Gandalf

The Third Age saw the Eagles diminished in number and power, as was true of all great things in that fading era. Gwaihir the Windlord and his brother Landroval were the "mightiest of the descendants of old Thorondor" - still formidable, but explicitly lesser than their ancestor.

Yet their role remained vital, particularly in their relationship with Gandalf the Grey.

The bond between wizard and Eagle Lord offers a rare glimpse of cooperation between two types of divine emissaries. Both Gandalf and the Eagles served the Valar; both operated under strict constraints on how much they could intervene in mortal affairs. And three times, their paths crossed at moments of desperate need.

The first rescue came in September of the year 3018. Saruman had betrayed the order of Istari and imprisoned Gandalf atop the pinnacle of Orthanc. With no apparent escape from that smooth tower, Gandalf was saved by Gwaihir, who happened to be flying over Isengard bearing news from Radagast the Brown.

The second rescue followed Gandalf's battle with the Balrog of Moria. After pursuing the demon through the depths of Khazad-dum and up to the peak of Zirakzigil, Gandalf finally destroyed his enemy - but at the cost of his own life. When he was sent back to Middle-earth by powers beyond the world, he lay naked and transformed upon the mountaintop, his old life burned away.

Galadriel sent word to the Eagles. And Gwaihir found him there.

"A burden you have been," the Eagle told the reborn wizard, "but not so now. Light as a swan's feather in my claw you are. The Sun shines through you. Indeed I do not think you need me any more: were I to let you fall you would float upon the wind."

These words suggest that Gwaihir recognized the transformation that had occurred - that Gandalf was no longer merely a wizard in a mortal guise, but something closer to what the Eagles themselves might be: a spirit whose true nature shone through physical form.

The third and final rescue came at the Black Gate, when Gandalf called upon Gwaihir to save Frodo and Sam from the destruction of Mount Doom.

"Twice you have borne me, Gwaihir my friend," Gandalf said. "Thrice shall pay for all, if you are willing. You will not find me a burden much greater than when you bore me from Zirakzigil, where my old life burned away."

"The North Wind blows," Gwaihir replied, "but we shall outfly it."

And so three Eagles - Gwaihir, Landroval, and young Meneldor the Swift - flew through ash and fire to pluck two hobbits from the ruin of Sauron's realm.

SECTION: Why Not Fly to Mordor?

It is the question that follows Tolkien's Eagles like a shadow: if they could save Frodo and Sam from Mount Doom at the end, why not simply fly the Ring to Mordor at the beginning?

Tolkien himself addressed this criticism directly. In Letter 210, he wrote: "The Eagles are a dangerous 'machine'. I have used them sparingly, and that is the absolute limit of their credibility or usefulness."

His use of the word "machine" is telling. Throughout his letters, Tolkien used that word to describe narrative devices that shortcut genuine struggle - and he was deeply suspicious of them. The Eagles could not be relied upon because relying upon them would undermine everything the story was meant to achieve.

But beyond the narrative reasoning, there are sound theological and practical objections to the "fly to Mordor" plan.

First: secrecy was essential. The entire strategy of the Quest depended on Sauron not knowing that his enemies intended to destroy the Ring rather than use it against him. A flight of Great Eagles carrying passengers toward Mordor would have been spotted immediately. Sauron's eye, his spies, his Nazgul on their fell beasts - all would have converged on such a visible approach.

Second: the Nazgul themselves presented an aerial threat. The Ringwraiths on their winged mounts could engage Eagles in combat. At the Battle of the Morannon, the Eagles fought the Nazgul directly - and while they prevailed, it was only because Sauron's attention was fixed entirely on the Ring's destruction. A flight to Mordor with the Ring intact would have faced the full might of Sauron's air defenses.

Third, and most fundamentally: the Eagles' mandate forbade such direct intervention.

Remember the phrase: "in extreme cases" only. The Eagles were permitted to assist when all other options had been exhausted - when Fingon could not climb higher, when Gandalf lay helpless on a mountaintop, when Frodo and Sam were dying in the volcanic waste after the Ring had already been destroyed.

They were never meant to accomplish the Quest FOR the mortals of Middle-earth. They were meant to provide grace at the moment of greatest need - unearned, unplanned, and unpredictable.

This is why the Council of Elrond never even proposed using the Eagles. The Wise understood instinctively that the great birds were not a resource to be deployed but agents of a providence that could not be commanded.

SECTION: Angels or Animals?

What exactly are the Great Eagles? This question troubled Tolkien himself, and he never fully resolved it.

In the Annals of Aman, composed during the 1950s, Tolkien wrote that "Manwe however sent Maia spirits in Eagle form to dwell near Thangorodrim." This suggests the Eagles were divine spirits who had taken animal bodies - Maiar, like Sauron or Gandalf, who had clothed themselves in flesh.

A text from around 1970 is even more explicit: "The most notable were those Maiar who took the form of the mighty speaking eagles that we hear of in the legends of the war of the Noldor against Melkor."

But this creates a problem. Maiar do not reproduce biologically. They are immortal spirits who may take physical form but do not breed and bear young. Yet the texts speak repeatedly of Gwaihir and Landroval as "descendants of old Thorondor" - implying generations of Eagles, father to son, across thousands of years.

In later writings, Tolkien proposed an alternative: that the Eagles were "common animals that had been 'taught language by the Valar, and raised to a higher level - but they still had no fear.'" The word "fear" here is significant - it's Tolkien's term for a soul, the animating spirit that grants true personhood. This would make the Eagles intelligent beasts, elevated above their kind but still mortal creatures without immortal spirits.

Perhaps the ambiguity is intentional. The Eagles exist at the boundary between the natural and supernatural, between heaven and earth. They are neither fully angelic nor fully animal - or perhaps they are both, depending on which Eagle and which age we examine.

Thorondor, who wounded Morgoth and fought Ancalagon, may well have been a Maia spirit in eagle form. Gwaihir and Landroval, his descendants thousands of years later, may have been elevated animals blessed with speech and long life. The texts do not force us to choose, and perhaps we should not try.

What matters is their function: to serve as the hands of Manwe in Middle-earth, whatever the ultimate nature of those hands might be.

SECTION: The Sudden Joyous Turn

In 1947, Tolkien wrote a letter to his son Christopher in which he coined a word: "eucatastrophe."

"I coined the word 'eucatastrophe,'" he explained, "the sudden happy turn in a story which pierces you with a joy that brings tears."

This was not merely a literary device for Tolkien. It was a reflection of his deepest Christian faith. "The Birth of Christ is the eucatastrophe of Man's history," he wrote. "The Resurrection is the eucatastrophe of the story of the Incarnation."

The Eagles are eucatastrophe made visible.

When Bilbo cried out "The Eagles! The Eagles are coming!" at the Battle of Five Armies, Tolkien later identified this as the moment that gave The Hobbit its worth. Not the dragon's death, not the battle itself, but that sudden arrival of salvation when all seemed lost.

This is what the Eagles represent in Tolkien's mythology: grace. Unearned, unplanned, arriving at the moment of greatest darkness to bring what the characters could never have achieved themselves.

There is another dimension worth considering. In Anglo-Saxon and Germanic literature, eagles appear frequently - but as "beasts of battle," gathering with ravens and wolves to feast upon the slain. They are omens of death, harbingers of carrion to come.

Tolkien, the great scholar of Old English literature, deliberately inverted this tradition. His Eagles arrive not to profit from death but to prevent it. They are harbingers of hope, not of doom. The transformation represents Tolkien's broader project throughout his work: taking the pagan imagery he loved and suffusing it with Christian meaning.

The Eagles are no longer omens of the battlefield. They are messengers of providence.

What remains, then, is the question that haunts all grace: why these moments and not others? Why did Thorondor save Fingolfin's body but not his life? Why did Gwaihir bear Gandalf from Orthanc but not the Numenoreans from their folly?

The answer lies beyond the narrative. Grace cannot be commanded. Providence cannot be scheduled. The Eagles come when they come, and mortals cannot plan for their arrival.

This is why the Quest of the Ring could not rely on them. To plan for eucatastrophe is to misunderstand its very nature. The sudden joyous turn must be sudden, or it loses its power to pierce us with tears.

And so the Eagles remain what they have always been: watchers in the high places, bearers of tidings, and - in those extreme cases when all mortal hope has failed - the wings of salvation descending from an empty sky.