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How does Tolkien use language to describe Balrog wings?

Radaghast said:
"Of the Flight of the Noldor"
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Not the passage in view.
Look to SIL where Ungoliant nearly has Melkor trapped and is about to snack on him, and he cries out for help. (After they destroy the trees and he won't give her what she wants.)

The Balrogs are said to "fly to his aid' or language very similar to that hearing his cry.

This is the passage most people cite saying 'they have to have had wings.' But it's figurative language, as is pointed out above someplace by someone else.

I believe the exact passage was even cited for us. Don't have time to look back up, sorry..
 

I took an albeit sloppy screenshot from the video. Metaphor!
 
Reactions: Ent
Glorfindel Goldtress said:
I would stand to say they are fallen Ainur. Just like Sauron.
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It is true Maiar are of the Ainur. However, they are of 'lesser power'... a lower order.
So "From a certain point of view"... (Obi-wan Kenobi).... they were Ainur, yes.

Now I'm searching my heartwood for mention of any Ainur, upper or lower 'class', 'flying'.... added to my research list.
 
"The Flight of the Noldor" is from The Silmarillion. It contains the only text that refers to the Balrogs coming to his aid, which I quoted.
 
Radaghast said:
It contains the only text that refers to the Balrogs coming to his aid,
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Indeed, I just checked my current digital version of SIL and you are correct as cited.
"Passing over hithlum" is the way it reads now without the reference to 'winged speed'.

Yet @Glorfindel Goldtress' post is what's in my memory.
I wonder if there have been multiple versions of SIL published and this was changed....I had an older one but just let it go the way of books made from trees. This is the reading in my mind.
I'll put this on my research list too.

And I'll need to adjust the contents of my memory.

Either way, neither "with winged speed" or "passed over hithlum" imply wings.
I'll resolve the multiple publications issue later.
 
Ent said:
(cough) Balrogs aren't Ainur.
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They 100% are. Balrogs are Maiar. Maiar are Ainur.
Ent said:
I'm digging through my sapwood cells, and can't find any place where the Maiar 'flew' in there. (Though this is not 'proof of concept' by any means.)
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I mean they descended from beyond the circles of Arda. That's...kind of like flying.

Balrog Wings

Continued from Part 1 of Do Balrogs Have Wings? Do Balrogs Fly?. NOTE: Once again the forces of inflammatory prose have risen up to make false claims about this essay (Other Minds issue 10). At no …
www.xenite.org
"What J.R.R. Tolkien actually wrote was “swiftly they arose, and they passed with winged speed over Hithlum, they came to Lammoth as a tempest of fire.” Unfortunately, only part of this text was used by Christopher Tolkien in THE SILMARILLION. What he wrote “and now swiftly they arose, and passing over Hithlum they came to Lammoth as a tempest of fire.”

Why did Christopher change the text? He doesn’t say. It may only have been an error of omission. But it’s not simply a matter of omission, he changed the verbal phrasing completely from “they passed with winged speed over Hithlum” to “passing over Hithlum”."

Michael Martinez further clarifies his explanation here. Basically they HAVE "wings" in the sense that the "shadow" extending out from the Balrog were described as such. Just like a mansion has "wings".
 
Sauron turned into a Vampire and flew away, if memory serves but I'd need to read the passage again.
 
Correct. What JRRT wrote is not what was published in Christopher's amalgamation of a book.
 
Reactions: Ent
ZehnWaters said:
Correct. What JRRT wrote is not what was published in Christopher's amalgamation of a book.
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If you look at HoMe volumes 6 to 9, JRRT wrote a lot there that was not published by himself in LotR. As Tom Shippey points out, these volumes are a cautionary tale for some all-too-romantic ideas about how (some) authors' works hailed as strokes of genius in their final form actually came about.
 
So you see? There is ample reason whether Balrogs have wings or not will always remain in the Great Halls of Speculation, handy on the first floor, first row of shelves, right next to Tom Bombadil, and just when we think it has died down and been returned to its resting place, it will be requested and trotted out* before the public again for another rehash.

Time to move on to why the Eagles didn't fly the ring to Mordor?

*p.s. - the term 'trotted out' here does not intend to mean, nor imply, the topic actually has four legs like a horse. it is strictly figurative language.
 
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Winged Speed

For myself, I'd only use "winged speed" to refer to things without wings. Not that I represent every writer who ever lived, but just sayin.

Of The Flight of the Noldor
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Nice try Tolkien, but you already published: " . . . not that any of the Quendi ever possessed wings of the body, as unnatural to them as to Men." JRRT, The Return of the King, Appendix F

Nice try Elthir, but one doesn't necessarily need wings to fly.
 
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