Tolkien Etchings

Graphite and Charcoal on Rives BFK

22 x 30 inches

Earendil in Vingliot, with the Silmaril on his brow, slaying Ancalagon, in the incredible aerial battle above the gates of Thangorodrim, from J.R.R.Tolkien’s The Silmarillion, is the subject of my latest drawing. It would have been an astonishing site to see the eagles and the other great birds in air to air combat with the dragons.

The moment just before Earendil slays Ancalagon, as dawn is breaking, seemed to me to be the the most intense moment of this sequence, and is what I have depicted. As there is no hint in Tolkien’s text as to what weapon was used to accomplish this feat, I spent a good amount of time trying to visualise exactly how he could have done it. I even wrote out a list of possibilities that included such things as:

bow and arrow;

Earendil attached to a rope leaps out from the ship with a sword in hand and stabs Ancalagon

or, sword in hand, leans out;

Earendil, on the very prow of Vingliot, with a lance or spear;

in the crows nest of the ship with a lance;

having a lightning bolt (a sort of silmaril powered photon torpedo) coming from Earendil’s hand;

as well as other, even more off the wall ideas. I finally decided on having him throw a very large spear, as this seemed the most plausible way a man could kill a giant dragon in mid-air. Earendil being half-elf and a great warrior, would be able to hurl this weapon with sufficient force; and the weapon, if it struck Ancalagon in the right spot, would be capable of killing him.