Right. He also says that Sauron fed the creatures on “fell meats.”
Translation error. Should have been stated that they were fed on fewmets. But as Sir Pellinore wasn’t able to clear out prior commitments to appear in the LotR, no one noticed.
Oh yes, many times. Fell men, fell voices, the Fell Winter, fell riders on fell steeds and their fell chieftain, a fell light, a fell weapon, a fell name, a fell sign, etc. One of the things I loved about reading Tolkien was his use of archaic language. There’s a nice glossary of them here. Some more archaic than others I suppose.
Fair enough. It was technically possible for the Eagles to carry Frodo before he went to Rivendell or Weathertop had it been arranged, but no plans or discussions were made as to the disposition of the Ring until then, so that should be considered the earliest possible starting point of any likely Eagle ride.
That’s not a small thing - the wound was grave and affected him greatly the rest of his life - but he still would have endured much less physical and mental stress had the Eagles carried him. My assertion that we could not know if Frodo would, or would not, have the strength of will to destroy the Ring after an Eagle ride is weakened, but not eliminated. Instead of months of trudging through rough terrain carrying supplies while the Ring works on him, instead of many days or weeks in Sauron’s toxic land enduring the weight of his will, hunger, thirst, and Shelob’s sting, he’d endure what? A day or 2 of flying, and an hour or 2 in Sauronland? It’s been a couple years since my last reading, and I didn’t focus on the Eagle’s recovery of the hobbits. ISTR that was only covered in a paragraph or 2 anyway.
Here’s another thought: if they weren’t so damn locked into Frodo carrying the Ring, they COULD have given poor pincushion Frodo a freakin’ break, and passed it to Sam for the Eagle flight. Sam, unwounded and lacking the desire for what the ring offered might have fared quite well with a quick flight, and Bill Ferny can attest to his throwing arm, so I’d like his chances. But much of the story centered on predestined roles, and Sam’s role was that of loyal second and friend.
I just bought a Kindle Paperwhite to replace my dead Kindle Touch, and I keep finding books to read while I wait for it to arrive. I think a re-reading of the Lord of the Rings might soon be in order as well. That thing better ship soon, or I’ll be ‘booked up’ until summer!
The glossary is most interesting – though as you intimate, some of the words in it would appear thoroughly unremarkable, and in modern daily use.
My attention was caught by the entry “dwimmer-crafty: skilled in arts of magic, especially having powers of illusion”. The “dwimmer” element there, or a closely-related usage, shows up several times in the work. In a verse at one point, Lothlorien is referred to as “Dwimordene” – the wood of magic. And – at the risk of my beginning to seem obsessed with the Witch-King’s dinosaurian steed – in the confrontation on the Pelennor Fields, Eowyn says: “Begone, foul dwimmerlaik, lord of carrion ! Leave the dead in peace !” (It would seem that she’s addressing the beast, rather than its rider; though I find the text a little bit ambiguous.) Early in my acquaintance with the book, “dwimmerlaik” gave me some puzzlement for quite a long time; but I think I have it figured out to mean something like “sport or freak of sorcery”. “Laik” meaning sport or play, still occurs in Northern English dialect.
I take issue just a little, with one element in the glossary: where “gaffer” is defined as “word meaning ‘old man’ or ‘foreman’ – use as nickname of Ham Gamgee is probably intended to combine both meanings”; and “gammer” is defined as “old woman”. All of which is accurate enough; but I could wish that the compiler had added that they are contractions respectively, of “grandfather” and “grandmother” – though often used generally to denote aged-ness, rather than referring specifically to a parent’s parent.
Back in the early days of Dungeons & Dragons, Gary Gygax (creator of the game) frequently used the term “dweomer” to describe a magical aura. Having already ready LotR by the time I started playing D&D, I recognized the term. 
and 100000 orc arrows.
Probably, although I always read it as a cognate of “lich” - probably because the Afrikaans word for corpse is similar: lyk So “dwimmerlaik” was “magically-animated corpse” to me.
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Orcs aren’t everywhere, even in Mordor.
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The Eagles could fly high enough to easily evade orc arrows on the entire route until they reached Mt. Doom. References say the maximum range of an English longbow was up to 400 yards (1200 feet) but the accurate range was well below that. A Ruppell’s Vulture has been observed flying as high as 37,000 feet; the Eagles could no doubt go even higher. The limitation on how high they could carry a passenger would be the effects of the cold and the thin air on the passenger. Altitude sickness for humans begins to kick in at around 8,000 feet. The Eagles could fly a bit below that and still be far outside the range of any arrow. At that altitude they probably wouldn’t even be noticed unless a specific watch was kept for them.
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Mt. Doom itself wasn’t guarded. Sauron couldn’t imagine that anyone would want to destroy the ring rather than use it themselves, so there was no reason to defend Mt. Doom.
The Eagles could have flown into Mordor at high altitude, then dropped down once they reached Mt. Doom to allow a rider to toss the ring in.
Of course once the Nazgul had winged mounts they could provide a defense, but those weren’t known at the time of the Council of Elrond.
There were plenty of good reasons not to use the Eagles, but defense by orc archers wasn’t one of them.
Mt Doom will certainly be guarded once the Eye of Sauron spots the Eagles coming in.
This is why the Hobbits succeeded- stealth.
Less than a day, probably more like half a day. It’s about 700 miles from Rivendell to Mt. Doom as the Eagle flies. Normal horizontal flight speeds of large eagles and falcons is between 30-50 mph. Even at 30 mph it would take less than 24 hours. No doubt Eagles could go much faster. They could leave after breakfast and be back before dinner. They would certainly be fast enough to be there and back before a defense could be mounted by anything but flying Nazgul.
Even if seen by the Eye of Sauron, there wouldn’t be enough time to march orc archers to Mt. Doom to defend it. IIRC the Eye of Sauron isn’t shown seeing anything farther away from Barad Dur than the Falls of Rauros, which is around 250 miles away. Probably 2 or 3 hours flight time for an Eagle. But even if the Eye of Sauron could see all the way to Rivendell it still wouldn’t be enough time to mount a defense.
It appears there were marching orcs not far away.
And, how fast are Nazgul on their fell beasts?
There were because Sauron was marshaling his armies for the Battle of the Black Gate and the route passed near Mt. Doom. We don’t know the disposition of any forces five months earlier at the time of the Council of Elrond, and there is no reason to suppose any would have been near Mt. Doom at that time.
We don’t know. But it’s irrelevant. There are much better reasons for the Eagles not to be used than any defenses of Mordor, whether by orc archers or flying Nazgul.
If Tolkien had wanted to transport the ring via Eagles, and have that succeed, then he would make the Eagles faster and stronger than flying Nazgul. If not, not.
I think there were lots more eagles than Nazgul, so two or three eagles to run interference for each Nazgul and still plenty of eagles left to carry a hobbit. If the eagles were willing, they could also form a shield barrier between the orcs (if any) and the eagle who was carrying the hobbit, so that at a minimum the hobbit could be set down at the entrance to the mountain and its lava pool. Possible eagle casualties, of course, but I think it would take a lot of arrows to bring down one eagle. It would depend in large part on whether the eagles thought the whole enterprise was worth the price.
Well – a possibility, which I hadn’t thought of; and for sure, I’m no linguistic scholar. In the more northerly parts of Great Britain, the word “lyke” or close equivalents indeed means, dialect-wise, a corpse. There is a well-known folk ballad over here – associated particularly with the moors in the north-east of Yorkshire – the Lyke-Wake Dirge. Link to Wiki on same (hopefully) follows – mentioned there, the word for corpse in Dutch – cousin of Afrikaans – lijk.
The Professor would of course have known precisely, from where he got “dwimmerlaik”; but unfortunately, he’s no longer around to enlighten us.
From The Hobbit, in the account of the Battle of the Five Armies:
The Eagles were one of the Five Armies. The account suggests there were at least hundreds of them. Certainly more than enough to take on nine Nazgul (at most).
I found this:
It sure would have been nice to have seen it mentioned at the Council of Elrond but my personal [del]explanation[/del]fanwank is to agree with the posts above that you lose all stealth and that even if the eagles can be trusted to resist the ring and are strong/numerous enough to overpower the Nazgul and whatever other flying things in Mordor, it’s still going to be a huge melee after which someone still has to land, dismount and enter Mt. Doom on foot, and face whatever defense Sauron has put there assuming he realizes the plan. (Remember that he could not fathom anyone wanting to destroy the ring but rather try to use it for themselves.)
It works for me.
No, not just anyone, but then not just anyone can even carry the ring.
But perhaps a Hobbit.
All a Hobbits, and Frodo’s specifically, unassuming qualities are what armored him against the ring and Sauron until the very end, and allowed him to enter Mordor, when even those finally failed.
(bolding mine)
Again, a question of character. There are some hobbits, e.g. the Sackville-Bagginses, with whom I would not trust the ring for a nano-second. Don’t forget the number of hobbit Quislings before the Scouring of the Shire.
I think the best answer to the OP’s question is simply as Tolkien had implied.
That would not be very much of a story.
It would avoid all kinds of pain and misery and sacrifice, sure.
It would also end with a blah story, with no heart.
FRODO - “I will take the ring to Mordor”
EAGLE1 - “Hop on Master Hobbit, i shall fly you”
– next page –
Frodo and the Eagle King arrive at Mount Doom
FRODO - “Ok wait here, i will be right back”
Frodo dashes into mount doom, and cast the One Ring into the flames.
Sauron dies and Mordor is destroyed
-The End
Did you ever get the feeling you’ve been cheated?
Not much of a story or a victory, it feels cheap.
There are no heroes really, nothing has been earned, no sacrifices made, no chances for redemption, no names forever in tearful remembrance.
I’m sure that would have been kind of a foreign way of thinking to Tolkien considering his life experiences.
And also, Gandalf is a Maia
He is forbidden to directly assault Sauron, or confront him as a Maia.
He can not fight force with like force, he has to counsel and inspire Men to find within themselves the will and means to do so.
I suppose, if they are to inherit the world after, then they must earn it.
I also suppose they have to, there is no other choice, because magic will be leaving the world afterwards. The Elves, Gandalf and any other Maia, and i would assume all the other old beings of Arda, the animals of the Valar etc?
The Eagles had a specific task already given.
They were to keep watch over the Noldor and watch what Morgoth was doing and eventually over Sauron. It never says they had a specific “do not directly interfere” order, but they also did not have an order to do anything else.
And the Eagles are after all simply animals that were taught language and made a bit smarter (1) , so it stands to reason they would continue to follow the command of their master, until the master changes it.
They also would not be remotely immortal and probably not be able to mask the fact that they are flying into mordor being that they are animals.
Also, flying them into mordor is risky because the eagles are with out fear (1).
No fear is not a good thing exactly, fear drives you to run and evade and hide and be undetected. Lack of is not healthy when you are carting around a very mortal hobbit with a very deadly ring, it could perhaps be a suicide.
I doubt the ring could actually affect the eagles because they are animals. But, because of what they are, and because they have carried out their masters command for a very long time, they may also be unable to grasp the urgency of time, and may only understand what is going on in a very limited scope.
And we can not give the ring to Tom Bombadil, myself i think not.
Could he destroy it? Yes easily, if he remembered how
Would he destroy it, maybe, when? what age?
I am sure he would not allow it to remain out of meanness, problem is would he remember such a small thing? When would he remember it?
He has no sense of urgency, because time does not exist for him.
The great evil of Sauron, and the years of abomination under him to Tom would be nothing, a small twinkle of light that passed in an instant.
Tom has no mortal concept of time or urgency, i dont think he has much concept of things in the physical realm outside of what immediately surrounds him at a given point of time.
Tom is not of the world, he is in it but he is not of it, he is not a part of it.
He was there before the world, and he will probably remain when the world is gone.
He is not any race of Valinor or Arda, he is some kind of physical embodiment of a natural force. Tolkien says several things in The letters of JRR Tolkien that allude to such. (2)
But Tom would simply see no importance of the ring good or bad, it would have 0 affect on him, and you could not trust he would remember to destroy it on any kind of mortal time line.
In fact he may even just lay it down someplace, walk off and completely forget about it.
Unfortunately, what his complete story is died with Tolkien, When you have a complete universe from creation to end inside your head, it takes a long time to get out all the details, sadly more time than we are allowed to live it would seem.
I think Tolkien knew exactly who Tom was, but simply did not get time to translate it into human words
(1) HOME Vol 10, Morgoth’s Ring
(2) Letter of JRR Tolkien begin from pg143