Ancalagon The Black

From the One Wiki to Rule Them All, the Lord of the Rings Encyclopedia.

Though Glaurung was named Father of Dragons, the greatest Dragon that ever entered the world was Ancalagon The Black. Rushing Jaws is the meaning of his name, and his ravening majesty halted the Host of Valinor in the War of Wrath at the end of the First Age of the Sun. Ancalagon was the first of the winged Fire-Drakes, and he and others of that breed came out of Angband like a mighty storm-cloud of wind and fire as a last defense of Melkor's realm. This was the first the world had seen of winged Dragons and for a time Melkor's armies were advancing. Yet the flying ship Vingilot and the warrior Eärendil came out of the west. The battle of these beings lasted for a long while, but in the end, Eärendil was victorious. Ancalagon the Black was cast down and the other Dragons fled or were slain. So the War of Wrath ended and Melkor's power was broken, and Ancalagon's death marked the decline of Dragons. Ancalagon was huge beyond imagining, his wings able to blot out the light of the sun even from afar, and large enough to crush the volcanic Thangorodrim, the tallest peaks in Middle-Earth (about 6,000 feet higher than Mt. Everest). How a monster so huge was killed has not been stated.

However, the Silmaril likely played a part, as with the Eagles. Eärendil might have tried to rip the dragon's wings, letting him crash onto the sharp peaks below, but even this would have been extremely difficult.

Dragons of Middle-earth

Ancalagon | Glaurung | Scatha | Smaug