Concept and Creation
The Great Eagles ruled by "Thorndor" already appeared in the first tale about Middle-earth that Tolkien wrote in late 1910s, The Fall of Gondolin, published in The Book of Lost Tales. The role of Thorondor was expanded in stages, with the successive introduction of the relevant plot elements; and after the conception of Númenor entered in 1930s, the notion that the eagles were the messengers of Manwë was further elaborated. Soon after, Tolkien introduced the eagles into The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, repeating in the latter some plot elements and names present in older writings.
In several early texts Tolkien wrote that, before moving to Crissaegrim after the death of Fingolfin, the eagles of Thorondor nested upon the peaks of Thangorodrim above Morgoth's fortress of Angband; Christopher Tolkien assumes that this idea was later abandoned. Another rejected proposal was that after Beren's death Lúthien would not pass of grief, but would be carried to Valinor by Thorondor who would have been "summoned" by Melian the Maia.
The eagles possessed a notable characteristic that distinguished them from other birds in early writings. Tolkien originally described that Eä, the World, was bounded by the Walls of Night, and that the space above the surface of the Earth up to the Walls was divided into three regions; common birds could keep aloft only within the lower layer, while the Eagles of Manwë could fly "beyond the lights of heaven to the edge of darkness". The conception of the limited world and of the layers of the firmament was rejected during the writing of The Lord of the Rings.
The eagle-shaped clouds that appeared in Númenor were one of Tolkien's recurring associations with the downfall of the island, just like the images of a sloping mountain and of an overwhelming wave; they were also introduced by him into two abandoned time-travel stories, The Lost Road and The Notion Club Papers. In a sketch for the former, Tolkien projected that it would be "Sorontur" (Thorondor) himself that appeared in Númenor to the protagonist of the story.
Tolkien's painting of an eagle on a crag appears in some editions of The Hobbit. According to Christopher Tolkien, the author based this picture on a painting by Archibald Thorburn of an immature Golden Eagle, which Christopher found for him in The Birds of the British Isles by Thomas Coward. However, Tolkien's use of this model does not necessarily mean that his birds were ordinary Golden Eagles.
Read more about this topic: Eagle (Middle-earth)
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