I’ve not had an opportunity to read
Children of Húrin. It has been a rather interesting past several months in the real world. However, the passages sound strikingly similar to those in
Silmarillion and
HoME, and I have partially formed an opinion.
We know from other passages that
Morgoth (and
Sauron) used
spirits of various sorts for his own purposes. His “best” (we would say, “worst”) work was when he corrupted not some mere animal, but another spirit or soul: this was eternally damning (he hoped), and tied that spirit to himself, that he might dominate it, or at least ruin it. In the essay “On Motivations” in
Morgoth’s Ring,
Tolkien noted that Morgoth was a nihilist, and ruining or damning other
creatures fits nicely into that mindset, I think.
Many
Maiar had followed
Melkor Morgoth at the outset, in the
Ainulindalë. Others fell by the wayside in
Arda. (
Saruman “fell by the wayside,” and while he might not have been a “follower” of Morgoth, he seems resolutely to have chosen to follow the path of rebellion against
Eru. The same might be said of
Ungoliant: while not a servant or slave of Morgoth in the sense the Sauron or the
balrogs or Boldog of the
Lays of Beleriand, she also had all eight feet firmly set in the path of rebellion, ruin, and deprivation.)
Carcharoth the
Red Maw was filled with an
evil, consuming spirit.
Glaurung was filled with a spirit of malicious evil. Both were tended to and reared by Morgoth, so that both may have been demon-possessed; and if not inhabited by the spirits of Maiar, perhaps then of fallen
Elves. But I do not think that it was Morgoth’s own, subdivided spirit that was in them, though his evil will and his malice was upon them: I think the context of the story is that they were separate wills in accord with Morgoth’s own madness.
That leaves open the question of subsequent
dragons: was
Smaug a
kelvar? or
Scatha the Worm? I’ve no idea.
Trolls spoke; but trolls were generally stupid (Sauron bred smarter ones in
the Third Age, perhaps by interbreeding the stock with Elves or
Men or – horrors! –
Entwives; just as Sauron or Saruman or both bred a half-Man, half-Orc
race that was stronger than normal
Orcs and could tolerate the sun) and could not tolerate the sun. Smaug was clever, quick, cunning, resourceful, full of guile, and seems to have tolerated the sun right well: was he an entrapped spirit? I cannot account for how that might have been accomplished without the intervention of Sauron or Morgoth (though perhaps someone would like to venture a bid for the
Witch-king; I shall pass on that opportunity), and my strong
impression, though it is only an impression, is that Smaug was bred during the Third Age without intervention from anyone other than a mommy
dragon and a daddy dragon who loved each other very much, or at least found one another tolerable enough long enough to produce a clutch of eggs. (Although Smaug is an evil enough character to warrant live birth, like a pit viper…)
Glaurung does not seem to me strong enough to be a
Maia, though perhaps I am mistaken: maybe
Turin was able to kill a Maia-inhabited
hröa because he got the drop on him; and Turin is, after all, accounted the most powerful of the Mortal heroes of the
First Age, is he not? Killing a Maia-Glaurung would put him in the esteemed company of
Ecthelion and
Glorfindel in terms of combat prowess, and that does seem to be the context in which Tolkien frames
Turin Turambar. (Poor Turin comes up a little on the short end of the wisdom stick, but perhaps that might be attributable to the ill intent of Morgoth, who was, according to the
tales, constantly (more or less) on the watch to bring to naught or (more to Morgoth’s liking) subvert Turin’s good intentions.)
I suppose I am going to have to vote for “Maia” after writing this post. Spirit-inhabited most certainly Glaurung was. The spirit of a fallen
Elf? That cannot account for Turin’s stature in the tales, but it would certainly account for Glaurung’s apparent weakness at the beginning. “Maia” for me: lesser Maia.
