Vampires, Werewolves, Cats, Ents and other creatures
 

A question:

Would all the magical or mysterious creatures of Middle Earth have disappeared with the beginning of the Fourth Age? For example, the Eagles, the Ents and other unnamed creatures?

Also, did the Vampires and Werewolves still exist by the Third Age or were they all vanquished?

I ask because I'd hate to think that all things magical and supernatural left Middle Earth with the rise of Men....

Well, I haven't encountered any giant talking eagles.... ;)

But let's see.

The decline of the Ents was foretold by Treebeard himself. Due the loss of the Entwives, there were no more Entings, and over time the Ents would either be destroyed by some accident involving fire, or simply grow "treeish".

The Eagles were a means Manwë the Elder King had of keeping an eye on things in Middle-earth, along with helping those who did good. I do think that as Men grew more and more numerous, they would have been recalled to Valinor, as a measure of their own protection.

As for vampires and werewolves, there was no specific mention of them after the First Age, but that doesn't mean creatures of that sort or similar weren't wandering around somewhere. They just weren't enough of them to have any sort of impact on the histories by that point.

It does appear that hobbits were around until about 12000 years ago - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homo_floresiensis ;)

But all in all everything "magical" would slowly fade and disappear during the Fourth Age.

By that logic, we still had Eagles until about 500 years ago

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haast's_Eagle

or perhaps even later

http://www.futilitycloset.com/2011/0...untain-hazard/

I thought that Middle Earth was supposed to be this earth, albeit during one of its mythic pasts.

Taking that line of thought, we have the Greeks with their plethora of creatures, as well as the Dark and Middle Ages, which still have werewolves, vampires, dragons, not to mention unicorns, hippocampi, basilisks, etc.

And I haven't seen any of those at the local zoo. ;)

Of course, there are thankfully some places in the world that are still largely untouched by civilization...Who knows what may be lurking in the unseen corners of the Earth still, what may have survived humankind. As far as the "Hobbits"--It's possible some still survive. There were accounts of little folk in Flores as late as the end of the 19th century--long before the "Hobbits" were discovered. I have no doubt that with at least SOME species of animals and even humanoids, there still exists some small, very isolated survivors. Those should be found and bred, so that they can be saved, in my opinion.

I would not mean to veer this off topic, but I do hope we someday clone many of the species which we hunted to extinction--Like the Giant Eagles mentioned above and others. Were it up to me, we would live a small, Agragrian lifestyle and the Earth would still have many of it's forests and animals running through it. It is depressing, but we humans are the most dangerous and destructive animal on this Earth. While we make beautiful things, we also destroy many more beautiful things at the same time.

Although we don't know if/when the magical creatures disappeared, we still have legends about them (seeing as we're discussing this), and legends are always more magical than proven fact. Once their existance, lifestyle, evolution and whatnot has beein studied and learned they become ordinary. So here you go - the truly magical ones are still around. ;)

If any survive, god forbid that they should be discovered and bred, in my opinion. They should be left alone, and hidden. I don't think they'd appreciate being watched over day and night. And as I was saying before, when legend becomes fact it is no magical story but plain history, and it loses the touch.

This is one big contradition: if you want magic to survive, you have to stop research and scientific and technological development, but you want to use these very means to regenerate the magical creatures.

Aye.

Unfortunately for the "magical" ones in Middle-earth, the inevitable march in that mythical time was clearly away from "magic" and toward the rational. Hence, the beginning of the Dominion of Men, and the decline of Elves, Dwarves, and Ents.

You can call that sad, in that all kinds could not permanently co-exist indefinitely, but it also seems apparent that such was the design of Arda's creator from the Third Theme.

The Vampire they are referring to is Thuringwethil, from the Silmarillion. She was (probably) a Maia who took the form of a Gigantic Vampire bat. Beren and Luthien Killed her, and then Luthien took her "shaping cloak" which she used disguise herself to get into Angbad (much as Beren used the skin of Dragluin, the Werewolf)