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Where Have All the Dragons Gone? - Page 9

© Michael Martinez

Dragons have an affinity for gold. They like to gather it up in a huge mound and lay upon it. Tolkien's reasoning may be that they are thus nourished by the Morgoth-element which is present in gold, indeed which is stronger in gold than in other substances (such as silver and water). This could explain how dragons are able to go for long periods of time without actually eating anything. The gold sustains them, and is thus as important to them as food would be to a starving man on a desert island. It could also explain why the dragons experienced a period of decline. Their power would be diminished without Morgoth to control them, and until they could accumulate new hoards they would be very weak. It may be that the dragons, when they fled from Beleriand, had to flee into the northern wastes because they were simply too weak to deal with the Dwarves, Elves, and Men any more. They had spent themselves on Morgoth's behalf and only barely survived. And a dependence upon gold and the spirit of Morgoth might explain why there seemed to be so few dragons until late in the Third Age. They might need gold to breed. Morgoth certainly wouldn't have lacked for it in Angband, where he could mine the depths of the earth for whatever minerals and metals he required. And as Elvish treasures were brought to him he would be able to breed yet more dragons, greater and more powerful than the earlier generations. Dragons would thus essentially be living artifacts. People speculate on how Morgoth could breed dragons. That is, what creatures would he have brought together in a controlled breeding program to produce dragons? I don't think that is quite what Tolkien intended, either. Rather, it may be that he envisioned Morgoth starting out with a couple of creatures, say lizards or snakes, exerting his will upon their bodies. His goal would have been to produce offspring which would be dragons. Glaurung was therefore an experiment, a prototype, and Ancalagon was the final production model. Each brood of dragons thus produced would have been infused with part of Morgoth's power. They had "wills" but not necessarily independent wills. They were more than puppets but less than true sentient creatures. Without the aid of Morgoth's direct intervention, breeding for dragons may have become a great and onerous task. In fact, left to themselves, the dragons seem to have been less efficient than when leading Morgoth's armies. Glaurung took a long time to make his way from Nargothrond to Brethil. He apparently blazed a path across the landscape, burning trees and everything else, but every now and then just laid down to sleep. The burning rampage would just be an expression of the dragon's malice, although it also probably ensured that no one stayed around to trouble him during the naps. But it must have represented an incredible expenditure of energy. In "Narn i Chin Hurin", Glaurung sent an army to attack Brethil and Turin destroyed the army. The dragon waited several months before moving out against the woodmen himself. He may have been charging his batteries, so to speak, building up his energy reserves.

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