When reading The Lord of the Rings (the appendixes), The Hobbit, and The Silmarillion, lots of stories within them involve dragons and how they were in each tale. Dragons first originated from Melkor (or Morgoth) who made the dragons in order to strengthen his army and mainly do some chaotic business on Middle Earth. Every dragon or drake that existed from Middle Earth came because of Morgoth, though there were some dragons that have shown to be some of the deadliest and fearsome in Morgoth’s army next to the Balrog’s. Morgoth had many drakes and dragons in the first age when he still ruled as the Dark Lord of Middle Earth in Angband at Thangorodrim, but out of all the drakes that were seen especially during the War of Wrath and many wars before that, only four were named to show how deadly these dragons were. Smaug the Magnificent, Scatha the Worm, Glaurung the Father of Dragons, and of course Ancalagon the Black.

Out of all these dragons, Ancalagon the Black was one of the most strongest dragons to have ever existed on Middle Earth which was very strange, especially since the only time we as an audience ever see him in action was right near the end of The Silmarillion where it even states Ancalagon was the “greatest of the winged dragons of Morgoth”. Not only was Ancalagon the strongest, but compared to the sizes of the other named dragons, Ancalagon was the largest. Large enough for when he died, his body fell from the sky and crashed into many towers of Angband revealing Morgoth himself from inside the fortress. We never see much action that Ancalagon does but we do witness a battle between Earendil and Ancalagon which obviously leads to Ancalagon failing but within that small paragraph, it’s a rather anti-climactic way to end the War of Wrath and finally defeat Morgoth once and for all.

It would’ve been great if Ancalagon was given more time to really show its full potential but I guess Morgoth has only been saving Ancalagon as a last desperate attempt to protect Angband. Smaug and Scatha were most likely in that battle at the time but after the defeat of Morgoth, some escaped the battle and same as the balrogs after Angbands fall. However, Glaurung was never present since he was destroyed by Turin, Son of Hurin but Glaurung was pretty good at deceiving many people. If he had lived up to the War of Wrath, he most likely would’ve been able to trick most of the elves and men into giving up, or probably die by Earendil since he was the one who mainly carried the fight.

Dragons like Ancalagon though are what makes the history of Middle Earth very intriguing. The amount of fear, the terror, the dread most people must’ve felt within the sight of Ancalagon the Black until his death must’ve been powerful especially since he came out of the very pits of Angband with multiple drakes with him.

Glaurung also was most likely as dreadful as Ancalagon mainly because he was the first dragon to be created by Morgoth, and he was one of the dragons that usually lead some assaults on places like the Battle of Sudden Flame where he attacked Beleriand where the Noldor elves were which eventually lead to the destruction of the land. Glaurung performing these deadly attacks with his army of balrogs behind him shows how dreadful Glaurung was while Ancalagon being way bigger than Glaurung simply got destroyed the second he was finally introduced. What’s more fascinating was how Glaurung was a wingless dragon and couldn’t fly and yet many men and elves were afraid by the terror he brings.

Although Ancalagon didn’t get enough time to really show his potential, the dragons of Middle Earth hold some of the most interesting tales that really make the stories like The Silmarillion and The Hobbit and even the Appendixes of Lord of the Rings intriguing. These dragons help create a true fantasy world and Tolkien used his dragons in his world spectacularly. The descriptions about these dragons are also what makes them interesting to read about and it is through these tales that shows how truly special these dragons were to the story.

Images for:

Ancalagon: https://lotr.fandom.com/wiki/Ancalagon

Glaurung: https://lotr.fandom.com/wiki/Glaurung