On What Glorfindel Fought

The fight between Glorfindel and the Balrog, and the fact that the Glorfindel of The Silmarillion and the Glorfindel of The Lord of the Rings are one and the same, has often been used to demonstrate the great might of Glorfindel. For if Gandalf struggled for ten days against Durin's Bane, the swiftness of the fight between Glorfindel and the Balrog, and the manner in which Glorfindel held the upperhand throughout, must mean that he was mighty indeed.

Unfortunately, this does not take into account that Gandalf fought Durin's Bane decades later in Tolkien's life than Glorfindel fought his Balrog. In 'The Fall of Gondolin' in The Book of Lost Tales II, Balrogs die by the score and by the hundreds. Tuor kills fives. Etchelion manages three, and then later Gothmog while himself injured. The number of Balrogs the House of the Hammer of Wrath kills is 'a marvel and a dread', and the King's Guard slays forty. These Balrogs are not the same Balrogs as Durin's Bane. Durin's Bane, like Gandalf, was a Maia, and these Balrogs were a race of creatures created, one and all, by Morgoth. Things changed.

Let me take a brief aside to point out that there are not two sorts of Balrogs. A popular but misguided idea to reconcile this and other issues surrounding Balrogs is to treat there as being 'greater' and 'lesser' Balrogs. This would be a melding of ideas, one which replaced another rejected one. Just as Frodo Baggins replaced Bingo Bolger-Baggins, just as Sauron (or Thu) replaced Tevildo, Prince of Cats, just as Maiar replaced (in part) the Children of the Valar, Balrogs as Maiar replaced Balrogs as a race of creatures. They stand apart in time, not side by side. Tolkien had multiple ideas of what Balrogs were over the years, but only ever one at a time.

Things changed. One of these things that changed, with Balrogs becoming spirits from before the World, was their power. Another was number. In early writings, near the end of the Battle of Unnumbered Tears Melkor looses his reserves, which include a thousand Balrogs. Melkor did not have a thousand Maiar under his control; in the Annals of Arda, written after The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien made a note in a margin where he had copied over his old words about a 'host of Balrogs', at Melkor's disposal. The note reads:

There should not be supposed more than say 3 or at most 7 ever existed.

This note in the margin is at odds with what came before, where when necessary, for effect, Balrogs not only existed but were killed in droves, at the Breaking of Utumno, at the Fall of Gondolin, and during the War of Wrath.

Likewise, it has seemed at odds with what came after, though to a far lesser degree. Tolkien's words in Letter 144, where it appears he is suggesting Durin's Bane was the last Balrog, the only to escape from the War of Wrath, still uses language that is troubling if there were seven, and is almost logically impossible if there were three. There he says that the Balrogs were all supposed to have been destroyed in the War of Wrath, but we see that Durin's Bane fled and persisted, a transferral of evil from one age to the next, like Shelob from Ungoliant (and, the reader can fill in, like Sauron from Morgoth). At this point, much as we see in The Silmarillion, two have died at Gondolin, which means there would be between one (who must be Durin's Bane) and five Balrogs in the War of Wrath. If they were all supposed to have been destroyed there, it seems we must accept there to have been more than three initially, as there could have zero certified kills. With the lower bound of the note not possible given the ideas at the time, and with the issue never truly raised again, this has led many (myself included) to disregard the specific numbers presented and take it as an indication that Tolkien was moving from vast numbers of Balrogs to a number a child might easily count up to.

However, I propose that Tolkien did address the issue further. This brings us back to Glorfindel.

Glorfindel is the subject of a short pair of essays by Tolkien late in life. These are where Tolkien affirms that Glorfindel of Rivendell is the same Elf as Glorfindel of Gondolin (which is untrue of many names he recycled from 'The Fall of Gondolin', such as Legolas and Galdor). While Tolkien spends most of this time talking about Glorfindel's return from death and the mechanics and timeline of his return to Middle-earth, it is the only post-LotR source that takes more than a passing regard to his role in the Silmarillion. And it mentions his fight with the Balrog, in a fashion.

It was intended to mean 'Golden-tressed', and was the name given to the heroic 'Gnome' (Ñoldo), a chieftain of Gondolin, who in the pass of Cristhorn ('Eagle-cleft') fought with a Balrog [>Demon], whom he slew at the cost of his own life.

The editing marks [>______] are used by Christopher Tolkien to show amendations to the text. In this case, it means that 'Balrog' was replaced with 'Demon'. This combat is mentioned twice more in the texts, first in the writing and then in a note to the second mention, that Christopher Tolkien determines occurred at the same time, not in later revision.

More important: Glorfindel had sacrificed his life in defending the fugitives from the wreck of Gondolin against a Demon out of Thangorodrim, and so enabling Tuor and Idril daughter of Turgon and their child Eärendil to escape, and to seek refuge at the Mouths of Sirion.

The duel of Glorfindel and the Demon may need revision.

Why would the duel of Glorfindel and the Demon need revision? Several reasons immediately come to mind. First, Balrogs of 'The Fall of Gondolin' in BoLT II were physically very distinct from Balrogs as of LotR and beyond. Apart from being far more killable in the early writings, they were also larger (the passage where Glorfindel fights his mentions it being twice his height, whereas the first draft of the encounter between Gandalf and the Balrog has Durin's Bane being 'no more than man-high') and had gained the clouding shadow that became a feature defining them as much as their fire.

Second, the situation that arose would need to be altered. Glorfindel encounters the Balrog leading a pack of Orcs as the refugees from Gondolin are fleeing by an even-more-secret way out the vale of Gondolin than the secret ways Morgoth was told about by Maeglin. It is suggested that there are many such roving bands of Balrog-led Orcs (such arrangements are frequently mentioned in the fight within the city).

Third, which the first two points might subtely suggest, it could very well not have been a Balrog anymore. It is curious that Tolkien amends the word 'Balrog' to 'Demon', and then uses 'Demon' for every following occurrence in the writing. This could just mean he was wanting to use words he didn't get to use much in the published versions; he refers to Glorfindel as a Gnome here, a word he specifically did not use for Noldor in The Lord of the Rings, where you will also not find Balrogs being termed 'demons', as they are throughout the Silmarillion (which Tolkien never prepared for publication).

But 'demon', especially in the later writings like those we are dealing with, has another broader meaning. Seeded even back in the lays, where Thu, an early name for Sauron (note the phonetic similarity, and the retention in later names for Sauron, like 'Gorthaur'), shifted back into during his frantic attempt to wrest free of Huan's grip. In Text VIII of 'Myths Transformed', Tolkien has made it quite clear that 'demon' is a word to be generally applied to evil Maiar, using 'demon-form' to reference the individually-chosen forms foregone by lesser Maiar who took the shape of Orcs. It also stands as a contrast to his use of 'angelic' when talking about Maiar (and Valar) who have not fallen to evil.

It is curious, then, that Tolkien would choose the word Demon over Balrog, with such a strong preference on his part to actively amend, in the process of writing, away from 'Balrog' and to 'Demon'. But it would explain much.

If Tolkien was considering having Glorfindel fight, still a Maia, but not something as potent as a Balrog, it would fix many of the issues in the text. With only one Balrog slain in Gondolin (Gothmog by Ecthelion), the post-LotR quotes surrounding Balrogs in the War of Wrath can still be reconciled with the lower bound of the marginal note on numbers. With Glorfindel's opponent not being a Balrog, Melkor is free to have his Balrogs attacking Gondolin, rather than roaming about the far edges of the battle, which is considerably less ridiculous.

Alas, the Glorfindel writings are believed by Christopher Tolkien to have been from the last year of his father's life, so there was never the chance for further enquiry. But I would propose that the great feat of Glorfindel would not, had Tolkien been able to continue his works, have been the slaying of a Balrog, but something else, a Demon of not-quite Might.