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Location
Minneapolis, Minnesota
Document Type
Paper
Event Website
https://www.mythsoc.org/mythcon/mythcon-53.htm
Start Date
4-8-2024 3:30 PM
End Date
4-8-2024 4:20 PM
Description
In this paper I will discuss Tolkien’s description of the mechanical dragons at the siege of Gondolin in a section of “The Fall of Gondolin” in The Book of Lost Tales that was omitted from the published Silmarillion. The rather strange description of the firedrakes and the bronze or iron serpents that besiege Gondolin is unique to the 1916 version of the Fall and very different from any of Tolkien’s other dragons and resemble more machines or engines of war like the tanks that Tolkien encountered in the WWI trenches. I will end by comparing Tolkien’s mechanical dragons in the 1916 “Fall of Gondolin” with some of the dragons described in Tolkien’s other stories.
Creative Commons License
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Included in
Tolkien’s Mechanical Dragons in The Fall of Gondolin (1916) and World War I
Minneapolis, Minnesota
In this paper I will discuss Tolkien’s description of the mechanical dragons at the siege of Gondolin in a section of “The Fall of Gondolin” in The Book of Lost Tales that was omitted from the published Silmarillion. The rather strange description of the firedrakes and the bronze or iron serpents that besiege Gondolin is unique to the 1916 version of the Fall and very different from any of Tolkien’s other dragons and resemble more machines or engines of war like the tanks that Tolkien encountered in the WWI trenches. I will end by comparing Tolkien’s mechanical dragons in the 1916 “Fall of Gondolin” with some of the dragons described in Tolkien’s other stories.
https://dc.swosu.edu/mythcon/mc53/schedule/52
