Where Have All the Dragons Gone? - Page 6
© Michael Martinez
The only two dragons to be named in the Third Age were Scatha and Smaug. Smaug, as noted, is featured prominently in The Hobbit. We can read lots about him. Scatha, on the other hand, merits barely more than a footnote in an appendix and one comment from Eowyn in the main text of The Lord of the Rings. What's up with that? Scatha didn't even enter the canon until Tolkien was reviewing the galley proofs for The Lord of the Rings. So, unfortunately, there just isn't much of a story to tell there.
But we know that Fram was the son of Frumgar, and it was Frumgar who led the Eotheod north in the year 1977 to claim the eastern lands of what had once been the realm of Angmar. The Eotheod must not have known there were dragons in the area, or else they just felt they had no choice but to get up there. If Frumgar was a man in full vigor in the year 1977 then he probably died sometime around the year 2000. But when did Fram die? My guess is probably sometime after the year 1981. That was the year the Dwarves fled Khazad-dum, and many of them settled in the Grey Mountains, which ran eastward from the Misty Mountains.
With Dwarves and Men moving into the region, and with the demise of Angmar, the handful of dragons in the north may have been stirred up. But why would there have been only a few dragons? One would think the Witch-king of Angmar would want to keep one or two broods on hand to help out in the wars. And yet there is no mention of dragons troubling the Dunedain in Eriador. There isn't even a dragon in the final war with Gondor and the Elves. Tollkien's love for the great monsters seems to have been tempered with caution. Like the Eagles, which he felt should not have been abused as literary devices, the author seems to have refrained from tossing a dragon into the mix every time a nasty old monster was required.
The dragons may have been to Melkor what the Eagles were to Manwe: special emissaries with a specific mission. But Melkor was removed from the world and his evil will diminished. Some aspect of Melkor (or Morgoth) remained in Arda, and Middle-earth in particular, because he had infused a part of his strength, his spirit, throughout the world and its creatures. Dragons, in particular, must have had a pretty large share of this evil spirit. It would make them both "magical" creatures and very powerful (as well as quite evil -- so there is no hope of finding a good dragon in Middle-earth). Tolkien does seem to imply as much in "Narn i Chin Hurin":
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