The History of Middle-earth stutters to a very non-profound ending with Christopher Tolkien's final notes on "Tal-Elmar" at the end of The Peoples of Middle-earth. His role in the long meticulous process of organizing and publishing his father's notes and manuscripts ends quietly. So many questions remain unanswered by the twelfth volume of HOME that many people express considerable frustration. "Is that all there is to Middle-earth?" they ask.

The answer then in 1996 was both "yes" and "no". "Yes" because the megalithic understructure of the details had been carefully laid out, except for one minor area. "No" because Christopher paid scant attention to the development of The Hobbit, a task which had been delegated to the late Taum Santoski. Upon Santoski's death, the responsibility fell to John Rateliff, who has yet to produce the much anticipated, long desired history of The Hobbit (which at one time had the working title of Mr. Baggins).

Douglas Anderson's Annotated Hobbit, revised and updated in 2002, serves as the Tolkien community's primary resource for studying the development of The Hobbit. A vital secondary source is J.R.R. Tolkien: Artist & Illustrator, edited by Wayne Hammond and Christina Scull.  A few comments by Christopher scattered throughout the History of Middle-earth books round out the limited resources we have for studying JRRT's work on The Hobbit.

But much of Tolkien's remaining unpublished linguistic materials have been conferred to the editorial care of a small group of linguists working with Christopher Gilson (Parma Eldalamberon) and  Carl Hostetter  (Vinyar Tengwar). The strict conditions for use of these (photocopied - the original manuscripts have not been released) source materials are mired in dispute and recrimination within the relatively small Tolkien linguistic community. Some of the foremost Tolkien linguists have pressed hard for speedier access to the material. The conflict occasionally spills over into non-linguistic discussions, but has largely been contained within the circles of Tolkien linguistic studies.  Some additional materials from the Tolkien archives at Marquette University and the Bodleian Library at Oxford also provide the linguists with new information.

Many ardent Tolkien readers are no strangers to conflict. The worlds of Tolkien scholarship, both formal and informal, resound to the heated cries of inflammatory debate. I don't know any Tolkien scholars who haven't privately said to me, "You may find an answer with so-and-so, but don't mention my name as it won't open any doors for you." In fact, I've found myself saying that on a few occasions.

One might feel that, with Tolkien's death in 1973, sufficient time should have passed for everyone to have studied everything. The art of Tolkien analysis, if not Tolkien criticism, should by now be well-defined and considered almost scientific. But the magic of Tolkien's craft is that it continues producing new discoveries almost on a yearly basis. The last significant release of material regarding Middle-earth in Tolkien's life was probably the 1969 Pauline Baines map. The map included maybe half a dozen place-names no one had seen before (such as Edhellond, Lond Daer Ened, and Framsburg).

There were interviews Tolkien gave from about 1965 to 1971 in which he revealed small details about particular characters or aspects of Middle-earth. There was the famous comment in which he compared the Dwarven language (Khuzdul) to Hebrew. There was the interview in which he discussed the story of Tarannon Falastur and Queen Beruthiel, comparing them to the Norse god Njord and his giant-wife Skadi. But, really, after the publication of the official second edition of The Lord of the Rings and the official third edition of The Hobbit, Middle-earth became frozen for the remainder of Tolkien's life.

Only when Christopher Tolkien published The Silmarillion in 1977 (casually mentioning in the Foreword that it wasn't actually his father's Silmarillion) did information begin to flow freely. With Unfinished Tales of Numenor and Middle-earth (published in 1980), Christopher unleashed a torrent of information about the world of The Lord of the Rings. Yes, there was a great deal of information in The Silmarillion, but it was hard to read and digest. As one friend of mine has put it to me, "It seems like there are 20 names on every page that you have to remember for the rest of the book".

Tolkien's copious crafting of names, characters, and genealogies has inspired many a reference book, Web site, and FAQ. Most of them are not worth looking at, in my opinion, as the potential for error is so considerable that you almost have to have everything memorized in order to know whether the reference works are correct. They get fundamental details wrong often enough that they should not be trusted. Even Robert Foster's Complete Guide To Middle-earth, generally accepted as a trustworthy resource, is denounced as a source of errors and confusion, and he stopped documenting Middle-earth with The Silmarillion.

All of which is to say that, with each new release of previously unpublished material, the task of collating, organizing, and understanding everything actually written by J.R.R. Tolkien with respect to Middle-earth becomes more complex and more challenging with the release of each new book. Through the years, when I've seen people personally endorse a specific Tolkien reference work, I have probably been one of the worst offenders in immediately pointing out the short-comings of said work. And half the time people indignantly reply, "Well, then, why don't you create one yourself?"; and half the time earnest people plead with me to do the job right.

Sorry, folks. If I thought I could do better than everyone else, I would have tried by now. I know I would make mistakes, and those mistakes would haunt me endlessly, even if I were the only person to see them. Sometimes, you can do everything right and still be wrong.

For example, for several years after I first read The Lord of the Rings, I wondered who the Northmen were. Where did they come from? Why were they said to be related to the Dunedain of Arnor and Gondor?  When Unfinished Tales was published, I thought I finally had the answer.

In The Lord of the Rings, Faramir tells Frodo "it is said by our loremasters that they have from of old this affinity with us that they are come from those same Three Houses of Men as were the Numenoreans in their beginning: not from Hador the Golden-haired, the Elf-friend, maybe, yet from such of his sons and people as went not over Sea into the West, refusing the call."

Now that was a pretty specific statement, and during his lifetime it was the only real hint Tolkien gave us of where the Northmen came from. The Silmarillion indeed confirmed that some of the Edain returned to Eriador, and none of Hador's descendants were among them. The "sons" Faramir spoke of must therefore be assumed to be figurative, just as the Rohirrim referred to themselves as the Eorlingas (the sons or folk of Eorl).

Unfinished Tales mentioned the descendents of those Edain who returned to Eriador. They met with Veantur and the Numenoreans several hundred years later. About a thousand years afterward, Sauron invaded Eriador and drove off or killed all the Elves and Men. So, what happened to the Edainic peoples? For a long time, I guessed that they may have fled east over the Misty Mountains into the Vales of Anduin. It seemed plausible to me. And when I shared that idea with other people, many of them agreed.

However, in 1996, The Peoples of Middle-earth dispelled that speculation. In the essay "Dwarves and Men" we learned that the Edainic peoples had settled throughout Rhovanion and Eriador.  That is, before any Edain reached Beleriand, there were Edainic settlements from the Carnen (the Red River, which flows south out of the Iron Hills) westward to the Baranduin. The Three Houses of the Edain were in fact just sub-groups of those larger peoples. The Northmen of the Third Age were simply descended from the easternmost groups of early Edainic settlers.

Faramir's words are consistent with both my interpretation of the texts and the canonical "Dwarves and Men" essay. It is canonical in the sense that it offers J.R.R. Tolkien's own explanation of the facts presented by Faramir to Frodo (and the reader). Middle-earth is his creation, so he gets to decide where things go. I don't. Of course, in a note attached to the "Dwarves and Men", Tolkien specifically refers to Faramir's discussion with Frodo. The essay, which he wrote sometime around 1969, thus dates to a period in the late 1960s when Tolkien was doing a great deal of "backwriting". He was filling in the gaps and in some cases changing his mind about what had been published 15 years before.

One of the curious ironies of Tolkien's work is that Christopher Tolkien stresses, especially in The Peoples of Middle-earth, that his father felt compelled to abide by what had been published. Hence, when he had written at great length about the meaning of "-ros" in Elros' name, J.R.R. Tolkien had to catch himself and stop.

But Alas! This explanation fell foul of a small fact that my father had missed; and it was fatal. He noted on the text that most of this fails, because of the name Cair Andros (a Sindarin name, as were virtually all the place-names of Gondor), the island in the Anduin north of Minas Tirith, of which it has been said in Appendix A (RK p. 335, footnote) that it means "Ship of Long-foam"; for the isle was shaped like a great ship, with a high prow pointing north, against which the white foam of Anduin broke on sharp rocks. So he was forced to accept that the element -ros in Elros must be the same as that in Cair Andros, the word must be Eldarin, not Atanic (Beorian), and there could be no historical relationship between it and the Numenorean Adunaic Rothinzil. (The Peoples of Middle-earth, p. 371, HMCo)

Tolkien found himself navigating the perilous waters of backwriting much sooner than 1969. In fact, soon after he began work on the Appendices for The Lord of the Rings in 1950 (he had finished the primary text in 1948), Tolkien set down notes about the history of the Dwarves. And then his publisher, George Allen & Unwin, surprised him with the galley proof for a second edition of The Hobbit. In 1947, Tolkien had written to Allen & Unwin to suggest that if a second edition of The Hobbit should ever be produced, he felt it would be best to revise it to match The Lord of the Rings, which though begun as a sequel to The Hobbit (at the publisher's request) had evolved into a consolidation of many previously unassociated stories and myths (Hobbits, the Eldar, the Numenoreans, etc.).

After reading the galley proof, Tolkien realized he would have to change the material in his Appendices, rather than struggle to have substantial changes made to The Hobbit.

The galley proof stage is considered too late for substantial rewriting (although Tolkien is reported to have made considerable edits to galleys for several books). The LoTR Appendices are thus the first post-LoTR text to be substantively influenced by a non-LoTR source. They are not the last such text by any means.

"The Hunt for the Ring" is another post-LoTR text that was, in fact, composed (or at least begun) prior to the publication of The Lord of the Rings itself. Christopher Tolkien suggests it was begun after the first volume of The Lord of the Rings had been published in 1954 but prior to the publication of the third volume (which he deduces because of conflicts in dating between "The Hunt for the Ring" and the book). "The Hunt for the Ring" was probably intended for inclusion in a "specialist volume" Tolkien alluded to in a letter from 1956 (No. 187, The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien). His original intent was to produce an index of place-names from the book, supplemented by linguistic notes.

But the problems (delightful if I had time) which the extra volume will set, will seem clear if I tell you that while many like you demand maps, others wish for geological indications rather than places; many want Elvish grammars, phonologies, and specimens; some want metrics and prosodies not only of the brief Elvish specimens, but of the translated verses in less familiar modes, such as those written in the strictest form of Anglo-Saxon alliterative verse (e.g. the fragment at the end of the Battle of the Pelennor, V vi 124). Musicians want tunes, and musical notation; archaeologists want ceramics and metallurgy. Botanists want a more accurate description of the mallorn, of elanor, niphredil, alfirin, mallos, and symbelmyne; and historians want mor details about the social and political structure of Gondor; general enquirers want information about the Wainriders, the Harad, Dwarvish origins, the Dead Men, the Beornings, and the missing two wizards (out of five). It will be a big volume, even if I attend only to the things revealed to my limited understanding!

Clearly, in producing Unfinished Tales of Numenor and Middle-earth, Christopher Tolkien hoped -- at least in some measure -- to fulfill his father's desire to publish a companion volume to The Lord of the Rings. But Unfinished Tales could not be the book his father would have written any more than The Silmarillion proved to be. Both books were only rough approximations of what might have been produced, had Time and Thought not drifted away from JRRT. Whereas with The Silmarillion Christopher attempted to construct a complete narrative, he dispensed with such extensive editorial intrusion in compiling Unfinished Tales. The second book lay the groundwork for Christopher's extraordinary scholarship in the History of Middle-earth series. Unfinished Tales proved that Christopher could, to some extent, separate his voice from his father's and successfully engage the readers in both the sub-creative process and the editorial analysis.

Christopher made mistakes along the way. No one could have produced these 14 books and not have made mistakes. He often noted his errors in the opening comments of each volume, or in concluding remarks to special sections. Sometimes, Christopher was extremely hard on himself, as when on page 141 of The Peoples of Middle-earth, after citing himself from a previous volume, he wrote:

This last remark is patent nonsense. The great extension of the line of the Numenorean kings, which entered in the course of the development of the Akallabeth, was present in Appendix A (and a mere glance through the texts of the work is sufficient to show, simply from their appearance, that they could not conceivably date from so late a time)....

The burden of Having To Be Correct is only increased for someone like Christopher or Wayne Hammond by the implorations of readers around the world to produce conclusive evidence pro or con on various issues. As Tolkien's most highly respected, most thorough, and most well-known bibliographer, Hammond has earned a place in Tolkien scholarship which nearly approaches Christopher's own level of authority. Few people are willing to challenge a Hammond-given point, although neither Christopher Tolkien nor Wayne Hammond ever claim to be the final voice of authority. Both freely acknowledge the contributions and corrections of others.

Nonetheless, Hammond was the authority I appealed to not so long ago when someone asked me why I often said that J.R.R. Tolkien had translated the Book of Job for the Jerusalem Bible. After all, "everyone knows it was the Book of Jonah". Well, my source was an unchallenged bibliographical note Wayne Hammond and Douglas Anderson had published. The information had not been successfully contested in some 30-odd years. It seemed very reliable. But for the sake of completeness I asked members of the Mythopoeic Society if there were contrary evidence. Wayne Hammond himself replied with an extensive summation of his recent meticulous research into the topic. His conclusion is that JRRT did not translate Job as an editor claimed. His reasoning, too lengthy to cite here, convinced me (and others) to offer a public retraction.

But this is why I don't write Tolkien encyclopedias. I strive to use only the most credible sources, and in addition to whatever mistakes I make on my own, I am occasionally forced to live with the consequences of their mistakes. Other people may feel it's worth their best shot, and if someone complains or criticizes them, they can say "At least I made the effort". Perhaps, but making the effort doesn't justify the errors. Neither Christopher Tolkien nor Wayne Hammond (nor others whose work I respect) back themselves into a corner and justify their mistakes with such an awkward rationalization.

But compounding errors of scholarhip through secondary or tertiary texts is both its own reward and its own punishment. I find it's easier to review the works and provide the clarifications. At least, when taken with the clarifications, these works are more useful than if no one says anything simply because "they made the effort". Karen Fonstad's Atlas of Middle-earth is, in my opinion, the best of the several books which attempt to document the cartography of Middle-earth.

Nonetheless, I haven't agreed with all of her conclusions, and she made several seriously wrong placements on a few of the maps (she even gave two locations for Rhosgobel). In private correspondence, a member of Fonstad's family (who felt my review of the Atlas was too harsh and critical) complained that Fonstad had hoped to publish a revised and corrected atlas, but that the publisher killed the idea because they didn't want to change an obviously popular (and now highly profitable) book.

So, when someone makes the effort to document something as complex and as chronologically diverse and multi-faceted as Tolkien's mythologies, there is no guarantee that corrections will be published. Or, worse, they may be voiced by a critical third party. There is an old proverb: choose your battles carefully, for the next one may be your last. Or, worse, judging by my own experience, it may be the battle that never ends.

Let's take a look at Wayne Hammond and Christina Scull's newly published The Lord of the Rings: A Reader's Companion. Many people are curious about what the book is. I'll tell you what it is not: it is not the definitive answer to every question ever asked by Tolkien readers. Hammond and Scull don't pretend their work should be treated that way, but they do seem aware of the inevitability of earning that singular distinction. In their Foreword, they invite people to share feedback and corrections with them (and acknowledge the efforts made by many people whose names and work I have enjoyed).

The Reader's Companion provides an informed, authoritative annotation to The Lord of the Rings. It seeks to clarify and explain many words and allusions which are generally obscure to the average reader. The book is a much better companion work than many others I have read or browsed through, but it doesn't do much in the way of synthesizing details. Including the index, my paperback copy is almost 900 pages long. The authors confess that it is about twice as long as it was originally intended to be.

To help readers understand what lies beyond the mere words in the book, Hammond and Scull engage in some of the most serious, thoughtful, detailed research I have seen published to date. The scope of their work goes well beyond the usual brief notes and page references. Some topics earn several paragraphs of detailed discussion and citation. And Tolkien researchers will be pleased to note that many previously unpublished texts are referred to, in some cases cited. Unfortunately, those texts themselves remain beyond the public's reach, and it is my sincere hope that someone one day will be allowed to publish them with a minimum of editorial manipulation.

Editors have to manipulate texts. As an author who has worked with more than one editor, I understand the process. Sometimes, the author just doesn't make the point as well as he could. But Tolkien's manuscripts and notes are being used as authoritative resources for some of the most obscure and intricate studies one can possibly associate with Middle-earth. Middle-earth itself is not valued nearly as much by the formal research as the creation of Middle-earth, and yet most people want to know more about Middle-earth and less about where things come from and what they might signify in the author's life. There is just so much yet to be discerned in those unpublished texts that whole generations of Tolkien scholars and commentators have yet to be born, who will have things to say that were never given voice before. I'm not sure the Tolkien community fully appreciates the depth of his legacy.

To be honest, there are some topics covered in the Reader's Companion where I have come away with a new perspective. I fully expect to require about two years to really get into the depth of this work, not simply because of the new citations and references, but also because they have rephrased some older points of view better than I have seen them expressed. But, of course, the new material will provide considerable food for thought for years to come.

For example, I was surprised to realize that "Earendil was a mariner" (Bilbo's song in Rivendell, published in "Many Meetings" in The Fellowship of the Ring) has never appeared in The Lord of the Rings in the form in which J.R.R. Tolkien intended it to appear. There have been so many editions of the book, I have assumed (wrongly) that every effort has made to make each new edition faithful to Tolkien's intent. That has not been the case, however.

There is no published LoTR text that is completely faithful to Tolkien's intent. The final version of the poem is published in both The Treason of Isengard (pp. 103-105, HMCo) and in The Lord of the Rings: A Reader's Companion, but not in any edition of The Lord of the Rings itself. Nonehteless, this poem is very revealing about a number of small details in Tolkien's history and with respect to his writing style.  For example, one of the most interesting stanzas is the following:

In might the Feanorians
that swore the unforgotten oath
brought war into Arvernien
with burning and with broken troth;
and Elwing from her fastness dim
then cast her in the waters wide,
but like a mew was swiftly borne.

There is more to the stanza, but let me stop at the "like a mew" line and make a point. Anyone familiar with the story as told in The Silmarillion knows that when Elwing casts herself into the sea, Ulmo (one of the Valar) saves her from certain death and transforms her into a bird. In bird-form she flies across the seas and eventually finds Earendil's ship (he is her husband). By this act of sacrifice, and through Ulmo's intervention, Elwing saves the Silmaril that Beren and Luthien had recovered from Morgoth's crown from the clutches of the surviving sons of Feanor.

Tolkien's decision to recast this part of the poem using "like a mew" from a more literal reference to the transformation may not seem significant to most people; yet I could not help but recall when someone asked a question about Elves: do Elves have wings? The question, I think, is related to the Balrog Wings War, in which some people argue that Balrogs have wings and others argue that they don't. By asking if Tolkien's Elves have wings, the questioner underscores how truly unimportant the debate itself is to Tolkien scholarship.  But it rages on unperturbed by the amused looks and comments it elicits from the sidelines.

So, "like a mew" reminds me of the Balrog Wings Debate, of which one of the crucial arguments made against the wings hinges on Tolkien's use of the word "like":

The Balrog reached the bridge. Gandalf stood in the middle of the span, leaning on the staff in his left hand, but in his other hand Glamdring gleamed, cold and white. His enemy halted again, facing him, and the shadow about it reached out like two vast wings. It raised the whip, and the thongs whined and cracked. Fire came from its nostrils. But Gandalf stood firm. (From "The Bridge of Khazad-dum", The Fellowship of the Ring)

"The shadow about it reached out like two vast wings" is usually cited as the proof that the Balrog didn't have wings. The argument holds that "like" creates a simile, and similes (in their strictest usage) compare one thing to another thing unlike itself in order to emphasize a particular aspect. Well, that's about as concise as the explanation of simile gets at 3:00 AM in the morning.

Let's say I have a yellow car. I could say my car is yellow like a bannana. Does that mean my car is really "bannana yellow"? Not necessarily, but when you think of that color on a car, you'll envision something close to my yellow car.

The problem with the simile argument, however, is that it assumes that "like" is always used as a simile. If that is the case, then Tolkien has a real problem. For, earlier in the text, he wrote:

Legolas turned and set an arrow to the string, though it was a long shot for his small bow. He drew, but his hand fell, and the arrow slipped to the ground. He gave a cry of dismay and fear. Two great trolls appeared; they bore great slabs of stone, and flung them down to serve as gangways over the fire. But it was not the trolls that had filled the Elf with terror. The ranks of the orcs had opened, and they crowded away, as if they themselves were afraid. Something was coming up behind them. What it was could not be seen: it was like a great shadow, in the middle of which was a dark form, of man-shape maybe, yet greater; and a power and terror seemed to be in it and to go before it. (Ibid.)

Here Tolkien uses "like" to introduce the simile "like a great shadow". That is, the Balrog, when it first appears, is so dark that the members of the Fellowship of the Ring can barely discern it from the surrounding darkness at all. It's only barely less dark than the darkness of the shadowy reaches of the cavernous hall through which it approaches them.

If the rule of simile is to be applied fairly and consistently, then we must conclude that there is no shadow (or darkness) because it is only like a shadow or darkness. Hence, if there is no such thing, then the non-existent shadow cannot be likened (via simile) to two vast wings. Well, that is plainly absurd, so the wings must be there, but that doesn't mean the issue is settled so neatly. For if they are wings, what sort of wings are they?

As the Balrog comes closer, it leaps over a fiery fissure and it reveals that it is immune to fire when flames leap up to engulf it. In fact, the Balrog's presence diminishes the light of the fire:

It came to the edge of the fire and the light faded as if a cloud had bent over it. Then with a rush it leaped across the fissure. The flames roared up to greet it, and wreathed about it; and a black smoke swirled in the air. Its streaming mane kindled, and blazed behind it. In its right hand was a blade like a stabbing tongue of fire; in its left it held a whip of many thongs. (Ibid.)

Shadow is the absence of light in an area surrounded by light. When you bring a light close to an area that is "wrapped in shadow", the shadows will shift away from the new light source, and they may vanish completely. And yet, when this Balrog that is "like a great shadow" approaches the clearly visible flames, the light from the fire is dimmed, rather than the darkness receding as happens with a normal shadow. So, even though Tolkien clearly uses the word "shadow" to refer to the darkness that accompanies and is presumably an extension of or emanation from the Balrog, he is not speaking of a normal shadow that is created by something which blocks light.

The people who object to winged Balrogs insist that if it really had wings the Balrog would fly. The problem with that argument is that it assumes first that winged Balrogs can fly, secondly that if they can fly they must use their wings, thirdly that there was room for the Balrog to fly, and fourthly that it had somewhere to fly to.  In fact, the assumptions go on at some length.  None of these assumptions are borne out by the text, mind you.  They are simply faux objections raised in the form of rewriting the story as it should appear according to an arbitrary standard of correctness conveniently arranged to disallow the possibility that the Balrog's wings are in any sense of the word real.

In fact, a further assumption is that the wings must be wings of substance. That is, people seem to feel that if Tolkien really meant for the Fellowship to see "wings" on the Balrog, then those wings must be a physical part of its body. This objection is the most unrealistic, given the fact that the Balrog snorts flame, its "mane" catches fire (so, is this a mane of hair or something else?), and it takes a very long time to reach the bottom of the chasm when it falls. How long is "very long"? Tolkien doesn't say. But whether it's a distance measured in miles or only in thousands of feet, a man would not fall for a "long time". Gandalf tells Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli that he and the Balrog fell for a long time before they hit water, and while they fell Gandalf hacked at the Balrog with his sword.

It's interesting to note that people don't ask if Balrogs bleed. Wouldn't a normal living creature cry out in pain and bleed a great deal if someone were hacking at it with an Elven sword?  So why did Gandalf not mention that the Balrog was bleeding, or otherwise reacting to the impact of his sword?

On the other hand, people do insist that the dead or dying Balrog should have saved itself when Gandalf cast it down from the mountantop, where "it smote the mountainside in its ruin". But they don't have a problem with either Smaug or Ancalagon the Black, both of whom were indisputably winged and flying dragons, being incapable of saving themselves as they smote mountains and lakes in their ruins.  It seems rather unfair that the Balrog should have to prove it is indeed capable of flying at the moment of its death.  Not that the ability to fly or slow one's descent through the air should necessarily be contingent upon wings for a creature that has already had tons of rock dropped on it (by Gandalf in the Chamber of Mazarbul, when the Balrog attempted to follow the Fellowship through the door they used as an exit).

To say this is an argument based on semantics is inaccurate and quite misleading. It's an argument based on personal preferences and arbitrary exclusions. The lengthy debates about Balrogs and their wings or lack of wings have ranged through a variety of texts, including The Silmarillion. Unfortunately, due to Christopher's editorial work, The Silmarillion (by his own admission) does not accurately portray his father's original texts, or intent. One passage in particular which has been singled out by both sides is often referred to as "the Hithlum passage". This is the paragraph where the Balrogs come to Morgoth's aid when he is struggling with Ungoliant:

...Deep in forgotten places that cry was heard. Far beneath the runed halls of Angband, in vaults to which the Valar in the haste of their assault had not descended, Balrogs lurked still, awaiting ever the return of their Lord; and now swiftly they arose, and passing over Hithlum they came to Lammoth as a tempest of fire....(The Silmarillion, "Of the Flight of the Noldor", p. 81, HMCo)

There is no mention of wings in this text of wings, but an earlier version of the text includes the words "winged speed":

But the cry of Morgoth in that hour was the greatest and most dreadful that was ever heard in the northern world: the mountains shook, and the earth trembled, and rocks were riven asunder. Deep in forgotten places that cry was heard. Far beneath the halls of Angband, in vaults to which the Valar in the haste of their assault had not descended, the Balrogs lurked still, awaiting ever the return of their lord. Swiftly they arose, and they passed with winged speed over Hithlum, and they came to Lammoth as a tempest of fire. ("The Later Quenta Silmarillion II", Morgoth's Ring)

"Winged speed", however, is not really the clue to the Balrogs' mode of travel. The above passage is taken from a text dated by Christopher Tolkien to the mid-1950s. It is a post-LoTR text, although it has a long and colorful history, as it is based on a typed copy of a pre-LoTR text. JRRT made hand-written notes and changes on that copy. In the original version (published in The Lost Road and Other Writings), the Balrogs merely show up: "To his aid there came the Balrogs that lived yet in the deepest places of his ancient fortress, Utumno in the north. With their whips of flame the Balrogs smote the webs...."

Technically, the pre-LoTR Balrogs travelled a greater distance, but they were not on fire. That is, they did not become creatures of "flame and shadow" until 1940 or 1941, when Tolkien revised "The Bridge of Khazad-dum", abandoning the original long-armed Balrog for the dark, flame-snorting creature that threatens the Fellowship.  Christopher Tolkien discussed the dating of this chapter's development in The Treason of Isengard, for those who want to check my facts.

Why do Balrogs arrive as a "tempest of fire" in Lammoth? A tempest is a storm and storms naturally come out of the sky. The simile clearly implies that the Balrogs are flying, with or without wings. So, did the Balrog of Moria fly at any time? We don't know. But we do know that it took a long time to reach the bottom of the chasm. It may be that the Balrog was able to slow its descent. It wouldn't have to rely on physical flapping wings if its body were somehow insubstantial.  Or maybe it just cranked up the heat and used that as a sort of natural rocket thrust.  Tolkien doesn't dwell on the details of the Long Descent, but he provides some clues which may or may not lead us in the right direction of matching his thought.

But, clearly, the Balrog is not a creature of flesh and blood. No such creature can survive being consumed by fire, as the flames which leap up and ignite the Balrog's mane do. And this Balrog most certainly does burn:

The dark figure streaming with fire raced towards them. The orcs yelled and poured over the stone gangways. Then Boromir raised his horn and blew. Loud the challenge rang and bellowed, like the shout of many throats under the cavenous roof. For a moment the orcs quailed and the fiery shadow halted. Then the echoes died as suddenly as a flame blown out by a dark wind, and he enemy advanced again. (From "The Bridge of Khazad-dum", The Fellowship of the Ring)

Note how Tolkien describes the Balrog at this point in its advance toward the Fellowship of the Ring as a "fiery shadow". Whatever this is, it's not simply casting a shadow. It cannot possibly be casting a shadow since it is on fire. Hence, what is this darkness that Tolkien calls a "shadow"?

When the Balrog confronts Gandalf on the bridge, Tolkien writes:

You cannot pass, he said. The orcs stood still, and a dead silence fell. 'I am a servant of the Secret Fire, wielder of the flame of Anor. You cannot pass. The dark fire will not avail you, flame of Udn. Go back to the Shadow! You cannot pass.

The Balrog made no answer. The fire in it seemed to die, but the darkness grew. It stepped forward slowly on to the bridge, and suddenly it drew itself up to a great height, and its wings were spread from wall to wall; but still Gandalf could be seen, glimmering in the gloom; he seemed small, and altogether alone: grey and bent, like a wizened tree before the onset of a storm. (Ibid.)

Well, now that the flames die down, sure, one should expect the darkness to grow...except that the Balrog is now standing right in front of Gandalf, whose staff is emitting light (or else he is himself aglow as he is "glimmering in the gloom").  And there is still the fiery chasm behind it, so one should expect the Fellowship to be standing in the Balrog's shadow, not seeing it.

Gandalf speaks about the "dark fire", saying it won't help the Balrog, and he calls it "Flame of Udun". This creature is clearly associated with fire, and yet its darkness overwhelms all natural light and nearly blots out Gandalf's angelic light.

So, to treat the Balrog's darkness as anything like a real, natural shadow is as absurd as to insist that the "wings" (those extensions of the darkness which appear to be shaped like wings) must be physical wings, usable wings, or wings in any way capable of lifting and bearing the Balrog in flight. If we step back from the scene for a moment and reduce it to simple body language, we can see that the Balrog gradually enlarges itself by extending its dark exterior (what I have called an emanation, but we really don't know what it is) outward beyond its body.

The Fellowship retreats before the Balrog, but at one point Boromir stops and blows his horn. The sound is so daunting that even the Balrog hesitates. So Boromir has initiated a variation on schoolyard intimidation. The Balrog responds by approaching with a fully extended cloud of darkness that is so overbearing it almost engulfs Gandalf on the bridge. Despite the fires behind it, despite Gandalf's glimmering light before it, the Balrog creates and extends a wall of darkness that becomes the focus of attention for however brief a moment.

Natural shadows just don't work that way.

Several years ago, when anticipation for Peter Jackson's "Lord of the Rings" movie was reaching a fever pitch, the Balrog Wings War reared its head. Out of curiosity, I ran a poll to see how many people felt the Balrog should have wings. Out of more than 3,000 responses, about 74% said the Balrog should have some sort of wings. There was not much agreement on what kind of wings they should be. The movie Balrog, as it turned out, had wings of "smoke and shadow", and perhaps more smoke than anything else. I think the smoke was supposed to convey the sense of darkness with which the Balrog in the book surrounds itself.

However, the question is so often argued one way or the other that many forums now forbid Balrog wing discussions. People who bring up the topic are treated with disdain in the hope they let go of it. After all, like Rudyard Kipling said, "East is East and West is West, and never the Twain shall meet". People just refuse to change their minds.

One should therefore, perhaps, not be too surprised to see the issue addressed, however briefly, in The Lord of the Rings: A Reader's Companion, where all of three sentences are devoted to the topic:

330 (I:344). the shadow about it reached out like two vast wings - This and the statement two paragraphs later, that it drew itself up to a great height, and its wings were spread from wall to wall, have led to much discussion among readers as to whether Balrogs have wings. Like two vast wings in the first describes the shadow surrounding the Balrog, and the second still seems applicable to its shadow: as the Balrog increases its height, so its shadow spreads wider. Other evidence cited for wings, such as that Balrogs arose, and they passed with winged speed over Hithlum (Morgoth's Ring, p. 297), can generally be interpreted as figurative.

Well, there are two errors in this passage. First, the statement that "as the Balrog increases its height, so its shadow spreads wider" is inconsistent both with a previous statement made by Hammond and Scull (where they acknowledge that "the Balrog in The Lord of the Rings is certainly a being of fire and darkness;...") and with the first passage in which "like two vast wings" occurs. The Balrog does not increase its height there, but the shadow nonetheless clearly extends outward. Secondly, as I pointed out above, the Hithlum passage doesn't depend on "winged speed" to show that Balrogs have wings, it depends on "tempest of fire" to show that they came out of the sky (in the post-LoTR version of events).

Tolkien only uses "tempest of fire" in one other (published) passage, when Morgoth unleashes the winged (flying) dragons against the Host of Valinor. Clearly, the dragons are flying and breathing fire, so the tempest comparison is very apt. It has been pointed out that "winged speed" is used to describe how swiftly Fingolfin rides across Ard-Galen after the Dagor Bragollach. So, "winged speed" doesn't have to denote the use of wings, but just because it has been used figuratively of horses (to denote speed in a metaphorical sense) doesn't mean it is used only that way of Balrogs -- unless one feels compelled to argue that Balrogs are "like horses" in some way.

Tolkien's use of simile to show a transition from vagueness to clarity was clever in that it left a great deal to the reader's imagination. He certainly devoted some time and effort to this passage. In 1998, another person who firmly believed that Balrogs did not and should not ever have wings appealed to the highest voice of authority. He wrote to Christopher Tolkien and asked a question which, to this day, has not been disclosed (to me). I inferred from what he openly shared of Christopher's reply that he did not simply ask whether the Balrog should or should not be viewed as winged. The letter was sent after a lengthy exchange over numerous textual changes Christopher had discussed in detail in The Treason of Isengard. Christopher's reply, as reported by the correspondent, was:

I was as a rule not sent the later material from Markette (sic) - the typescripts made by my father - and have never seen them in many cases...Thus the final typescript (following the fair copy manuscript C, (The Treason of Isengard pp 202-33) of The Bridge of Khazad-dum (Markette no. 3/3/25) I never saw. I presume that it was there that the mention of the Balrog's wings being spread from wall to wall entered. You could ask Chuck Elston, the infinitely helpful archivist at Markette, to look up 3/3/25 for you. But then it probably wouldn't be very helpful to you, without any precise knowledge of when my father typed it: although in a letter of 28 February 1949 he wrote that I am finding the labour of typing a fair copy of the "Lord of the Rings" v. great. I myself never thought that the second mention of the wings of the Balrog had any different signification from the first.

So, there you have an answer from a higher authority than either Michael Martinez or Wayne Hammond and Christina Scull. Make of it what you will.

Do get The Lord of the Rings: A Reader's Companion and add it to your collection, especially if you do any sort of Tolkien research (for yourself or others). It is a far better resource than many others you'll find either in the book stores or on the Internet. And just skip over the parts you don't like.

Michael Martinez (http://www.michael-martinez.com/) is the author of Visualizing Middle-earth (ISBN 0-7388-3408-4), Parma Endorion: Essays on Middle-earth, 3rd Edition, and Understanding Middle-earth (ISBN 1-58776-145-9).