The Eagles and Gandalf

The relationship between the Eagles and Gandalf is one of the oldest and most reliable alliances in the War of the Ring, grounded in a series of rescues that span the wizard's darkest hours and culminate in the salvation of the Ring-bearers. The bond is personified above all by Gwaihir the Windlord, swiftest of the Great Eagles, who acts as Gandalf's aerial steed and deliverer at three critical junctures.

Rescue from Orthanc

When Saruman imprisoned Gandalf on the pinnacle of Orthanc, the wizard stood alone on the star-gazing platform with no descent save a narrow stair of many thousand steps, and the valley below swarming with wolves and orcs. His days were bitter, pierced with cold, and he had little room to pace. Yet Radagast the Brown, acting in good faith on Saruman's errand, had unknowingly set in motion the Eagles' intervention: he rode away towards Mirkwood and asked his friends among the birds to bring news to Saruman and Gandalf. The Eagles of the Mountains went far and wide, saw the gathering of wolves, the mustering of Orcs, and the Nine Riders, and heard news of Gollum's escape. They sent a messenger to Gandalf. Thus, when summer waned, there came a night of moon, and Gwaihir the Windlord came unlooked-for to Orthanc and found Gandalf standing on the pinnacle. Gandalf spoke to him, and Gwaihir bore him away before Saruman was aware. He was far from Isengard ere the wolves and orcs issued from the gate to pursue him.

The Rescue from Zirakzigil

After Gandalf cast down the Balrog from the peak of Celebdil, he lay naked upon the mountain-top, the tower behind crumbled into dust, the window gone, the ruined stair choked with burned and broken stone. He was alone, forgotten, without escape upon the hard horn of the world, staring upward while the stars wheeled over and each day was as long as a life-age of the earth. Faint to his ears came the gathered rumour of all lands: the springing and the dying, the song and the weeping, and the slow everlasting groan of over-burdened stone. And so at last Gwaihir the Windlord found him again, and took him up and bore him away. Gandalf gasped, "Ever am I fated to be your burden, friend at need." Gwaihir answered, "A burden you have been, but not so now. Light as a swan's feather in my claw you are. The Sun shines through you. Indeed I do not think you need me any more: were I to let you fall, you would float upon the wind." Gandalf begged him not to let him fall, for he felt life in him again, and asked to be borne to Lothlórien. Gwaihir replied that that indeed was the command of the Lady Galadriel, who had sent him to look for Gandalf.

The Final Rescue at Mount Doom

At the climax of the Quest, when Frodo and Sam lay side by side on a low ashen hill at the foot of Mount Doom, worn out and choked with fumes and heat, the world shaking under them and rivers of fire drawing near, Gwaihir saw them with his keen far-seeing eyes. Down the wild wind he came, daring the great peril of the skies, and circled in the air: two small dark figures, forlorn, hand in hand upon a little hill. Even as he espied them and came swooping down, he saw them fall, worn out or choked with fumes and heat, or stricken down by despair at last, hiding their eyes from death. Side by side they lay; and down swept Gwaihir, and down came Landroval and Meneldor the swift; and in a dream, not knowing what fate had befallen them, the wanderers were lifted up and borne far away out of the darkness and the fire. Gandalf had called to Gwaihir from the hill-top before the Black Gate, saying, "Twice you have borne me, Gwaihir my friend. Thrice shall pay for all, if you are willing. You will not find me a burden much greater than when you bore me from Zirakzigil, where my old life burned away." Gwaihir answered, "I would bear you, whither you will, even were you made of stone." Gandalf then asked him to let his brother go with them, and some other of their folk who was most swift, for they had need of speed greater than any wind, outmatching the wings of the Nazgûl. Gwaihir said, "The North Wind blows, but we shall outfly it," and lifted up Gandalf and sped away south, with Landroval and Meneldor young and swift beside him. They passed over Udûn and Gorgoroth and saw all the land in ruin and tumult beneath them, and before them Mount Doom blazing, pouring out its fire. Thus the Eagles completed their third and most crucial service to Gandalf, snatching the Ring-bearers from the very brink of destruction.