Editing Nazgûl (section)

== Steeds ==

{{further|Tolkien's monsters}}

[[File:Extinct monsters BHL23904402 (cropped).jpg|left|thumb|upright=1.25|Tolkien stated that the "fell beasts" that the Nazgûl rode, while not intended actually to be [[pterodactyls]], were "obviously ... pterodactylic".<ref name="Letter 211" group=T/> 1897 reconstruction of pterodactyls shown]]

The flying steeds of the Nazgûl are given various descriptions but no name. The soldier of Gondor [[Beregond]] calls them "Hell Hawks". Tolkien describes them as "[[wiktionary:fell#Etymology 4|fell]] beasts", though he also applies the adjective ''fell'' ("fierce, cruel") to other creatures throughout ''The Lord of the Rings'' – even at one point to the wizard [[Gandalf]]. In a letter, he calls the winged mounts "Nazgûl-birds".<ref group=T>{{harvnb|Carpenter|2023|loc=#100 to [[Christopher Tolkien]], 29 May 1945, expressing his "loathing" for the [[Royal Air Force]]: "My sentiments are more or less those that [[Frodo]] would have had if he discovered some [[Hobbit]]s learning to ride Nazgûl-birds, 'for the liberation of the Shire'." }}</ref> In the absence of a proper name, derivative works sometimes press "fellbeast" or "fell-beast" into service.<ref>{{cite video game |title=[[The Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar]] |developer=[[Turbine, Inc.]] |level=Barad Guldur}}</ref>

In the Battle of the Pelennor Fields, where the Lord of the Nazgûl rode one of the flying beasts against King Théoden of Rohan, his mount is described as:<ref name="Pelennor Fields" group=T/>

{{blockquote|a winged creature: if bird, then greater than all other birds, and it was naked, and neither quill nor feather did it bear, and its vast pinions were as webs of hide between horned fingers; and it stank. A creature of an older world maybe it was ...<ref name="Pelennor Fields" group=T/>}}

It is said to attack with "beak and claw".<ref name="Pelennor Fields" group=T/> Tolkien wrote that he "did not intend the steed of the Witch-king to be what is now called a '[[pterodactyl]]'", while acknowledging "obviously it is ''pterodactylic''" and owed much to the "new ... mythology" [of the "Prehistoric"], and might even be "a last survivor of older geological eras."<ref name="Letter 211" group=T/>

The medievalist [[Marjorie Burns]] compares the fell beast to the ''[[Poetic Edda]]''{{'}}s flying steed [[Sleipnir]], "Odin's eight-legged otherworldly horse". She writes that whereas Gandalf's horse Shadowfax resembles Sleipnir in his miraculous speed and in almost seeming to fly, the Nazgûl's mount actually flies but is a "negative image" of Odin's steed; and, she notes, both Odin and the Nazgûl can cause blindness.<ref name="Burns 2005">{{cite book |last=Burns |first=Marjorie |author-link=Marjorie Burns |title=Perilous Realms: Celtic and Norse in Tolkien's Middle-earth |title-link=Perilous Realms |year=2005 |publisher=[[University of Toronto Press]] |isbn=978-0-8020-3806-7 |pages=104–106}}</ref>{{Clear}}