Did Morgoth feed Carcharoth his OWN hand?
 

I've always found this sentence to be kinda questionable, and personally, I don't believe that Morgoth fed Carcharoth his actual hand, but what do you guys think? I think it'd be cool as hell if he REALLY fed him his hand. :p

Then Morgoth recalled the doom of Huan, and he chose one from among the whelps of the race of Draugluin; and he fed him with his own hand upon living flesh, and put his power upon him.

Now doesn't it KIND OF sound like Morgoth def Carcharoth his own hand? And upon living flesh COULD mean that upon Morgoth's actual living flesh, and I'm aware Morgoth was a Valar, BUT he could do whatever he wanted with his appearance, and I assume if he wanted to, he could feed the beast his hand if he thought it would impower it.... So what do you guys think?

It was I who put the emphasis on 'with,' for obvious reasons.

What it means is that Morgoth himself fed the wolf out of his own hand, as opposed to having one of his servants do it for him.

But Son, what if I said this-

"My mother fed me chicken with beef."

Does it mean that she fed me chicken and beef or does it mean she used beef to feed me chicken (eg serving the chicken on a plate made of ground beef and using utensils made from beef jerky)? It could be either one, however silly the second option may be.

Now consider the Morgoth quote. When he "fed him with his own hand upon living flesh" perhaps Morgoth merely had his hand resting upon living flesh while he fed the beast and was actually feeding him apple pie. Of course I don't believe this to be the case and I certainly don't think that Morgoth was feeding the brute his own hand (sorry Twilight), but I don't think we can toss aside Twilight's idea simply by pointing out the word "with" in the text. :p

Don't bite the hand that feeds ...
 

Quite so, Firefoot. In other words, the intention is to show that Morgoth took a personal interest in raising Carcharoth.

Anyway, I doubt that just one hand, even Morgoth's, would have gone too far in feeding a beast of Carcharoth's stature. :D

That would be a weird thing to say, & I would assume the latter of the two meanings you provided. That is a rather different scenario.

Ty, I agree. I was simply asking if anyone felt different, no need to try and make me look foolish, Phantom. I didn't believe myself that he fed him with his own hand. Just an interesting topic I thought to post about, and the English language (if you know it well enough) makes it hard to determine what EXACTLY someone means. (And if it wasn't we wouldn't have half the topics we do now.)

Okay, then how about "My mother fed me chicken nuggets with a side of french fries". That doesn't sound as weird and I could still do my silly little illustration with it. And actually, french fries make much better eating utensils than beef. ;)
Isn't that the truth.
Oh, Twi, I hope you don't think I was trying to do that. I just like trying to give people a license to believe something others view as silly so that maybe they'll support me when I believe something silly on another thread.

And also, what about my theory that Morgoth was feeding his wolf apple pie while his hand was upon living flesh. That technically works, doesn't it (aside from the text not mentioning apple pie)?

In that case, I think you're right! All except the apple pie part... I think it was cherry pie. :p

I shudder to think about a beast of any kind being hand raised by Morgoth. My goodness even a hampster would be frightening!