Quote:
Originally Posted by Ardent
Well Saruman was not the only one with the power of the Voice. What kind of beings were dragons in the creation song?
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The dragons were something rather interesting, I would say similar to the ents or eagles or werewolves (or even possibly Barrow-Wights): it is said, or in some cases hinted at, that there were some "spirits" inhabiting the bodies of those creatures, or in other words, the way to e.g. create a werewolf was apparently to call an evil spirit (what exactly do these mean remains a question - it is said about the eagles and ents that the Valar "called spirits from afar" in the account of Aulė and Yavanna, so whether that's supposed to mean some lesser Ainur who had remained outside the world before, or who knows) and trap it in a wolf's body, just like the Barrow-Wights were evil spirits who had entered the tombs of old kings, and so dragons most likely were some similar spirits placed into the bodies of beasts (it is hinted at in the descriptions of Glaurung, the forefather of dragons, concerning "the spirit inside him"). At least when it comes to the "first generations" - later, the breeding of dragons seemed to continue normally - just like the spiders of Mirkwood were simply offspring of Ungoliant, resp. Shelob, and did not need any special "spirits" to inhabit their bodies, it seems. They were simply already "born" that way, just like, excuse the parallel, Melian's daughter also was no longer a Maia, but had her own life.
But I guess all this is a bit outside the scope of this thread...