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While the content of this article is based on official information, the actual name of the subject is conjectural, and is yet to or cannot be officially named.
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"There came great beasts, like moving houses in the red and fitful light, the mûmakil of the Harad dragging through the lanes amid the fires huge towers and engines."
The Return of the King, "The Siege of Gondor"

On March 14, the Witch-king had sent many great siege beasts alongside the mûmakil to pull huge siege-towers and great engines of war[1] to the City Wall of Minas Tirith.[2]

History[]

Siege of Gondor by John Howe

"Siege of Gondor" by John Howe

Near the end of the Third Age, great siege beasts were used by Sauron's armies as beasts of burden during the War of the Ring. On the twenty-ninth day[1] of the Siege of Gondor, These great beasts were required to pull many instruments of war for the siege. The most notable of these were the beasts specifically tasked with pulling the huge battering ram Grond to Minas Tirith's Great Gate to destroy it.[2]

While the arrows shot from the swan-knights of Dol Amroth did little to halt Grond, occasionally one or two of the great beasts "would go mad and spread stamping ruin among the" many Orcs which guarded Grond. Even as the bodies of the Orcs were thrown and tossed about by some of the rogue beasts, new Orcs replaced the fallen ones just as quickly.[2]

Speculation[]

In the Days before days long before the First Age began, Melkor's interference in Eru's ordered world caused the appearance of monstrous beasts of "horn and ivory" that fought with other beasts and were forever marred by his evil influence[3]. These creatures are a likely progenitor of the 'great siege beasts', but it is unknown.

In adaptations[]

The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King[]

In Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King the great siege beasts were depicted as gigantic rhinoceros-like or other prehistoric beasts-like creatures with horns protruding from their heads. The special features of the film's extended edition reveal that their design was modeled after the extinct Megacerops.

The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-earth II[]

The great siege beasts were are as cattle by Mordor Orcs in Electronic Arts' The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-earth II; they were descended from some smaller and fatter "great beasts" which were used by the Dwarves of the Misty Mountains as beasts of burden. They were given the name "yurgs" by the Dwarves.

The Lord of the Rings: Conquest[]

In The Lord of the Rings: Conquest, dead great siege beasts can be seen on the maps Weathertop and Pelennor Fields.

The Lord of the Rings Online[]

In the Mordor expansion pack of The Lord of the Rings Online, the great siege beasts were given the name Sulokil. They were depicted as being horned, stony-skinned beasts that were a local subspecies of Aurochs. Despite living in the "Dor Amarth" region of Plateau of Gorgoroth and being used as beasts of burden by Sauron, the Sulokil were docile unless provoked.[4] According to Ingold, their meat was "rather good when cooked and seasoned".[5]

In Minas Morgul expansion, it is revealed that in the late Second Age, their ancestors, the Sûlokil, wandered the Plateau of Gorgoroth, then named "Mordor Besieged".[6] During the Siege of Barad-dûr by the Great Alliance, the Sûlokil were hunted for food since they provided the nourishment that smaller animals did not provide.[7]

Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor[]

In the Lord of the Hunt DLC from Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor, there is a memory about great beasts. Torvin describes how the great beasts were enormous quadrupeds that were capable of growing to a height of thirty-five feet. They were a "distant cousin to the Mûmakil" and were unrivaled as the Dark Lord's beasts of burden. They were strong enough that it was skeptical that even a Graug or a huge Caragor pack had any hope of taking one down.

Translations[]

Foreign Language Translated name
Afrikaans Groot dier
Albanian Bisha e madhe
Amharic ታላቁ አውሬ
Arabic الوحش العظيم
Armenian մեծ գազան
Azerbaijani Böyük heyvan
Basque Piztia handia
Belarusian Cyrillic Вялікі звер
Bengali গ্রেট পশুর
Bosnian Velika zvijer
Bulgarian Cyrillic Страхотен звяр
Burmese ဂရိတ်သားရဲ၏
Cambodian ដែលមានទំហំធំសតវតិរច្ចាន
Catalan Gran bèstia
Cebuano Dakong nga mananap ?
Chinese 伟大的野兽
Cornish best Meur
Croatian Velika zvijer
Czech Veliká bestie
Danish Store belejringsbæster
Esperanto Granda besto
Estonian Suur metsaline
Filipino Mahusay na hayop
Finnish Suuri peto
French Grande bête
Frisian Grut bist
Dutch Groots beest
Galician Gran besta
Georgian დიდი მხეცი
German Große Bestie
Greek Μεγάλο θηρίο
Gujarati ગ્રેટ પશુ
Haitian Creole Gwo bèt
Hausa Babban dabba
Hawaiian Nui na holoholona
Hebrew חיה גדולה
Hindi महान जानवर
Hungarian Nagy fenevad
Icelandic Mikill dýrið
Igbo Nnukwu anụ ọhịa
Indonesian Besar binatang
Italian Grande Bestia
Japanese
Kannada ಗ್ರೇಟ್ ಬೀಸ್ಟ್
Kazakh Ұлы жануар (Cyrillic) Ulı janwar (Latin)
Korean 위대한 짐승
Kurdish Mezin teba (Kurmanji Kurdish)
Kyrgyz Cyrillic Улуу айбан
Latin Magna bestia
Laotian ສັດເດຍລະສານທີ່ຍິ່ງໃຫຍ່
Latvian Liels zvērs
Lithuanian Didelis žvėris
Macedonian Cyrillic големиот ѕвер
Malagasy Biby lehibe
Malay Binatang yang besar
Marathi ग्रेट पशू
Maori Kararehe kararehe
Mongolian Cyrillic Их араатан
Nepalese ठूलो जनावर
Norwegian Store beist
Pashto لوی ځناور
Persian جانور بزرگ
Polish Wielkie Bestie
Portuguese Grande besta
Punjabi ਮਹਾਨ ਜਾਨਵਰ
Romanian Fiara mare
Romansh Granda ?
Russian Великие Звери
Scottish Gaelic Bhiast mhòr
Serbian Велика звер (Cyrillic) Velika zver (Latin)
Sesotho Phoofolo e khōlō
Sicilian Gran armali
Sindhi وڏي حيوان
Sinhalese මහා මෘගයා
Slovak Skvelá bestie
Slovenian Velika zver
Spanish Gran Bestia
Sundanese Sato galak hébat
Swahili Mnyama mkubwa
Swedish Stor best
Tajik Cyrillic ҳайвони Бузург
Tamil பெரிய மிருகம்
Telugu గ్రేట్ మృగం
Turkish Büyük canavar
Ukrainian Cyrillic Великий звір
Urdu عظیم حیوان
Uzbek Буюк ҳайвон (Cyrillic) Buyuk hayvon (Latin)
Vietnamese Đại quái thú
Welsh Bwystfil mawr
Yiddish גרויס חיה
Yoruba Nla ẹhọnọn

References[]

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