Fell beast (Middle-earth)
In J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, "fell beast" is the author's description of the flying carrion-eating pterosaur-like creatures on which the Nazgûl rode after being unhorsed at the Ford of Bruinen. The creatures are especially prominent during the Battle of the Pelennor Fields, where the Witch-king of Angmar, the Lord of the Nazgûl, rides his in battle against King Théoden of Rohan.
"Fell beast" is merely a description of the creature given in the book, fell being applied in its archaic sense of "evil". Though Tolkein referred to them as Nazgûl-birds outside of his novels,[1] he never actually named the creatures, so the "fell" description is often used for lack of a better label.
Description and origin
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In book V, chapter 6 of The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien describes it thus:
"...it was a winged creature: if bird, then greater than all other birds, and it was naked, and neither quill nor feather did it bear, and its vast pinions were as webs of hide between horned fingers; and it stank. A creature of an older world maybe it was...."[2]
A few paragraphs later it is said to attack with "beak and claw".[2] It and the others that served the Nazgûl as steeds were taken by Sauron who raised them in such a way that they grew to an unnatural size.
This most closely resembles a very large hairless pterosaur-like animal, although its wing structure resembles that of a bat. Tolkien once wrote that he "did not intend the steed of the Witch-king to be what is now called a 'pterodactyl'", while acknowledging that it was "obviously ... pterodactylic and owes much" to the "new ... mythology of the 'Prehistoric'", and might even be "a last survivor of older geological eras."[3] The differences in the beast's anatomy from pterodactyls or any other species of pterosaur makes it doubtful he intended the fell beast to belong to any group of real creatures.
Despite each of these theories, any claims as to the nature, anatomy, and physiology of fell beasts is based on speculation. It is possible to approximate what these beasts might have looked like, but real-world analogies are ultimately insufficient to describe them.
Appearances in the book
In The Fellowship of the Ring, at the River Anduin, Legolas shoots one down in the night as it approaches them.
In The Two Towers Gollum sees the Witch-king and his mount while guiding Frodo and Sam, and refers to the Ringwraiths as "Wraiths on wings".
In The Return of the King the Witch-king shot a black dart at Snowmane, the steed of king Théoden, while riding upon a fell beast. The horse crushed Théoden as it fell. Dernhelm (who soon revealed herself as Éowyn) defended the dying Théoden by standing between the Witch-king and the King of Rohan. She killed the fell beast, then challenged and defeated the Witch-king with the help of Meriadoc Brandybuck.
All of the remaining Nazgûl were mounted on fell beasts at the Battle of the Morannon, and were suddenly dispatched to Orodruin by Sauron in response to the imminent destruction of the One Ring. The beasts are presumably destroyed along with their riders in the resulting eruption of Mount Doom.
In adaptations
1978 cartoon
In Ralph Bakshi's 1978 animated version of The Lord of the Rings, one of the Nazgûl (possibly the Witch-king, for he carries a mace), is shown riding a fell beast. However, Bakshi's film only covers events up to the Battle of the Hornburg, so that is the last we see of the fell beasts and their riders.
1980 TV special
In the Rankin-Bass 1980 animated version of The Return of the King, the Nazgûl ride winged horses, although the Nazgûl Lord does ride a bird like creature when he confronts Éowyn.
Live-action movies
In Peter Jackson's film trilogy based on The Lord of the Rings, the fell beasts are depicted as being pterosaur-like creatures, and all nine Nazgûl are visible onscreen riding them.
Their features in the movies are in most cases similar to that of actual species of pterosaur with three major differences: The bone structure of their wings, which are much more bat-like than pterosaur-like; their size, as no known pterosaur was as large as the fell beasts in the movies;Template:ME-fact and their facial anatomy, as they lack the elongated jaw of pterosaurs. These differences are likely attributable simply to the fact that it had to serve as a believable mount for the Nazgûl and the production team wanted the fell beasts to appear physically capable of flying if they actually existed.Template:ME-fact This necessitated having the wingspan of a Jumbo Jet, or approximately 65 meters. The decision to use a bat-like wing structure was based on the fact that the pterosaurs wing support (an extremely long fourth finger) would be far too weak to support the weight of a wing that large, as the largest known pterosaurs believed to be capable of flight have been found with wingspans of up to only 18 meters. In any case, the ability of such a large creature to fly stretches the limits of credulity. This reservation also applies to Tolkien's eagles.Template:ME-fact
The film version of the beasts differ from Tolkien's description in that they do not have beaks.
In the audio commentary, it is rather definitively stated that the design of the fell beasts was based largely on illustrations by the popular Middle-earth artist John Howe.
The fell beast is also similar to (and possibly loosely based on) wyvern, a creature appearing in medieval legends and several fantasy games, like Heroes of Might and Magic III.
Although the mistake is never made in the films, the actors on the commentary tracks sometimes refer to the fell beast as a Nazgûl; this is incorrect. The fell beast is the creature that the nine Nazgûl ride, and the mistake probably arose because fell beasts are always seen with a Nazgûl atop them, and because ambiguous references are made to them that could apply either to the Ringwraith or the fell beast. Billy Boyd does refer to them correctly.
References
- ^ Letters #100
- ^ a b Tolkien, J. R. R. (1955). The Return of the King. The Lord of the Rings. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. OCLC 519647821.
- ^ Carpenter, Humphrey, ed. (2023) [1981]. The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien Revised and Expanded Edition. New York: Harper Collins. #211. ISBN 978-0-35-865298-4.