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Where Have All the Dragons Gone?

© Michael Martinez

I always thought the movie "Dragonslayer" was a bit goofy and slow in some places but there is one memorable scene that pretty much sells the movie, I think, to anyone who sees it. That's where the dragon's head rises up to dwarf the young magician who really has no clue about what he's up against. I think whoever came up with that scene must have read Tolkien. In the story of Turin Turambar in The Silmarillion, after Glaurung has destroyed Nargothrond and sent Turin north to Dor-lomin on a hopeless quest, Morwen and Nienor leave the safety of Doriath. They are overtaken by Mablung and a company of Elven horsemen who are nonetheless persuaded to accompany the women to Nargothrond. There by the river Narog Glaurung raises a mist and disperses Mablung's company. Morwen is carried off by her maddened horse and the Elves never hear of her again. But Nienor recovers her wits and retuns to Amon Ethir, the Hill of Spies, which stands directly east of Nargothrond (across the river). "And looking westward," we are told in the story, "she stared straight into the eyes of Glaurung, whose head lay upon the hill-top." Now, that is one big dragon. I think most fans would say that dragons and Tolkien go hand in hand. Tolkien definitely likes to tell dragon tales. Yet surprisingly he only told us two full stories about dragons. In 1954 Naomi Mitcheson asked Tolkien some questions about Middle-earth after she looked over the galleys for The Lord of the Rings. In Letter 144 he responded to a question about dragons with:

Some stray answers. Dragons. They had not stopped; since they were active in far later times, close to our own. Have I said anything to suggest the final ending of dragons? If so it should be altered. The only passage I can think of is Vol.I p. 70: 'there is not now any dragon left on earth in which the old fire is hot enough'. But that implies, I think, that there are still dragons, if not of full primeval stature....

Tolkien's first dragon tale is long since lost, and probably wasn't very long anyway. Of that story he could only recall one detail, years later, when writing to W.H. Auden in Letter 163: "I first tried to write a story when I was about seven. It was about a dragon. I remember nothing about it except a philological fact. My mother said nothing about the dragon, but pointed out that one could not say 'a green great dragon', but had to say 'a great green dragon'. I wondered why, and still do."

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