The Dwarves “delved too deep” in Moria and ended up waking a Balrog of Morgoth. IIRC (and it’s quite possible I don’t. Please to correct.), the usual explanation I read is that after the fall of Angband and the shattering of Thangorodrim, the Balrogs ran off with their tails between their legs and hid themselves deep beneath the earth (with no particular emphasis laid on where they hid.) However, re-reading Lost Tales, I note that the precursor to the idea of Angband (Iron Prison) was Angamandi, the Iron Hells. I don’t have the text in front of me, but I seem to remember that Angamandi was originally described as an extremely extensive underground dwelling place of Morgoth located under the Misty Mountains. This corresponds, of course, to Angband - but Angband is a scaled-down version of Angamandi. Angamandi, in its original form, must have been very nearly as enormous as Utumno.
But I’ve always kind of wondered if the idea of the larger Angamandi sort of hung around in the Professor’s mind, and he envisioned that it extended a long, long way down the spine of the Misty Mountains, and that, ultimately, part of it lay under Moria, the Balrog hid there, where the Dwarves eventually broke through.
I dunno. Probably an unanswerable question, but interesting nonetheless.
I hadn’t considered it. It’s an interesting idea, but for some reason, I prefer to think that the Balrog’s lair was a place beyond all knowledge rather than just Level X42-J of Angband. That whole “the world is gnawed by nameless things… even Sauron knows them not” idea was always one of the more powerful images in LotR for me. I guess it’s that whole technique of hinting at things beyond the borders.
I think that Angband and its narrative predecessors were always localized in the far north. I don’t think the Misty Mountains themselves even existed before the War of Wrath, so Angband certainly couldn’t have been beneath them.
Yeah, I should say “located under where the Misty Mountains would eventually be.” I don’t know that Angamandi couldn’t still have been under there, even with the cataclysm. Also, I’m thinking that simply because the gates of Angband were located in the far north, that doesn’t necessarily mean that the Iron Hells couldn’t have extended much further.
I can see that. Makes you wonder if the Tolkien mythos and the Lovecraft mythos intersect somewhere under there.
The Misty Mountains pre-dated the War of Wrath. Melkor raised them to hinder Oromë’s riding.
I just ran through my searchable copy of HOMES (V I-XII) and all the references to Angamandi that I found were not associated with the Misty Mountains. Indeed, they all fit right in with the concept of Angamandi being the precursor name for Angband. Beren met Tevildo there, Beren & Luthien stole the Silmaril from Melko there, Urin was captive there, etc. I see no correlation with the Misty Mountains.
Dagnabbit, you’re right. I don’t know why I’d always assumed that Angband was located at the far north of the Misty Mountains. Maybe I got it conflated with Angmar, and assumed that since the Withered Heath was right over yonder from there, it would have been logical for the dragons to retreat there after Thangorodrim was shattered.
remember that aule created the dwarves even before the first elves came out. aule secreted their five lords in different hiding places. moria is the realm of durin, the oldest of the dwarf fathers.
