In Tolkien’s early stories Melkor was more industrialized. He sent mechines against Gondolin. Orcs rode inside some of them, perhaps only as passengers but maybe also steering them at a control panel.

There were a variety of machine types. They navigated over terrain, broke through walls, and some could climb and coil snake-like. Some are described as having “hearts and spirits of blazing fire.” Definitely suggestive of an engine.


John Garth, author of Tolkien and the Great War has published an excerpt on his website. It may be of interest to anyone curious about the relation between Melko’s mechanical things and Tolkien’s experience of the WW1 tank.

Garth quotes an article by The Times, relaying a German report of the tank:

“The monster approached slowly, hobbling, moving from side to side, rocking and pitching, but it came nearer. Nothing obstructed it: a supernatural force seemed to drive it onwards. Someone in the trenches cried, ‘The devil comes,’ and that word ran down the line like lightning. Suddenly tongues of fire licked out of the armoured shine of the iron caterpillar … the English waves of infantry surged up behind the devil’s chariot.”


Garth notes that:

“Indeed, there is a whiff of science fiction about the army attacking Gondolin… to the Noldoli [elves] the host seems the product of sorcery. ‘The Fall of Gondolin’, in Tolkien’s grand unfolding design, is a story told by an Elf; and the combustion engine, seen through enchanted eyes, could appear as nothing other than a metal heart filled with flame.”

Link to Garth’s blog - https://johngarth.wordpress.com/2016/12/09/tanks-at-gondolin/