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Originally Posted by Alfirin
I'm going by the words of my A-Z of Tolkein (which is not always all that accurate)
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David Day's "A to Z of Tolkien" or Robert Foster's "Complete Guide to Middle-earth" which is sometimes introduced with the line "Tolkien's world from A to Z"? Because the former (David Day) is not to be trusted. This is to a degree accurate, but it's just general advice about Day. He as good as claims outright that Sauron was literally a big eye (which he wasn't) and that Bombadil was a Maia (which he almost certainly wasn't).
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Sauron was lucky to find the nest of Fell Beasts in the Mountains of the Moon
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I believe the phrasing that the winged steeds of the Nazgūl derived from "forgotten mountains cold beneath the Moon" is a figure of speech rather than an item of geography.
I always considered those creatures to be birds rather than reptilian in any event. I know birds are descended from reptiles, but in any event they do not seem like close relations of dragons to my mind.