How Many Times Was Sauron Slain?

Q: How Many Times Was Sauron Slain?

ANSWER: While this may seem a straight-forward and easily answered question to many people, how many times was Sauron slain is not really so easily and satisfactorily explained. The complexity lies in how one chooses to regard a passage found in an essay titled “Ósanwe-kenta” (“Enquiry into the Communication of Thought”). Although J.R.R. Tolkien wrote this piece sometime around 1959-60, it was not published until 1998, when it appeared in Vinyar Tengwar Issue 39. One must ask if the essay is canonical, and there is no correct answer to that question.

Within the context of The Lord of the Rings and even The Silmarillion there are only three events where Sauron is said to have “died” — in the sense that his physical, self-incarnated body was destroyed or overcome and his spirit fled away:

1. He died in the Downfall of Numenor
2. He was slain by Elendil at the end of the Second Age
3. He was slain when Gollum fell into the Sammath Naur at the end of the Third Age

These are indisputable deaths for Sauron. Hence, the short answer to the question “how many times was Sauron slain” is at least three times. “Ósanwe-kenta” appears to add a fourth, earlier physical death to the tally in the 5th end note J.R.R. Tolkien composed for the essay. “Ósanwe-kenta” is supposed to be a summation of an older, much longer work written by Pengolodh. Pengolodh was one of the narrative characters Tolkien included and redacted in various texts, such that his inclusion in the “Middle-earth mythology” is hotly debated. There is no doubt that Pengolodh at one time had a place in Tolkien’s imagined or intended Legendarium but the question is whether Pengolodh deserves to be considered a part of the realized Legendarium (which is a stylistic euphemism for “the canon of Middle-earth”). Opinions are locked and not really flexible on the matter. Here is the full text of the fifth note from “Ósanwe-kenta”. You’ll have to decide for yourself what it means:

Here Pengolodh adds a long note on the use of hröar by the Valar. In brief he says that though in origin a “self-arraying”, it may tend to approach the state of “incarnation”, especially with the lesser members of that order (the Maiar). “It is said that the longer and the more the same hroa is used, the greater is the bond of habit, and the less do the ‘self-arrayed’ desire to leave it. As raiment may soon cease to be adornment, and becomes (as is said in the tongues of both Elves and Men) a ‘habit’, a customary garb. Or if among Elves and Men it be worn to mitigate heat or cold, it soon makes the clad body less able to endure these things when naked”. Pengolodh also cites the opinion that if a “spirit” (that is, one of those not embodied by creation) uses a hroa for the furtherance of its personal purposes, or (still more) for the enjoyment of bodily faculties, it finds it increasingly difficult to operate without the hroa. The things that are most binding are those that in the Incarnate have to do with the life of the hroa itself, its sustenance and its propagation. Thus eating and drinking are binding, but not the delight in beauty of sound or form. Most binding is begetting or conceiving.

“We do not know the axani (laws, rules, as primarily proceeding from Eru) that were laid down upon the Valar with particular reference to their state, but it seems clear that there was no axan against these things. Nonetheless it appears to be an axan, or maybe necessary consequence, that if they are done, then the spirit must dwell in the body that it used, and be under the same necessities as the Incarnate. The only case that is known in the histories of the Eldar is that of Melian who became the spouse of King Elu-thingol. This certainly was not evil or against the will of Eru, and though it led to sorrow, both Elves and Men were enriched.

“The great Valar do not do these things: they beget not, neither do they eat and drink, save at the high asari, in token of their lordship and indwelling of Arda, and for the blessing of the sustenance of the Children. Melkor alone of the Great became at last bound to a bodily form; but that was because of the use that he made of this in his purpose to become Lord of the Incarnate, and of the great evils that he did in the visible body. Also he had dissipated his native powers in the control of his agents and servants, so that he became in the end, in himself and without their support, a weakened thing, consumed by hate and unable to restore himself from the state into which he had fallen. Even his visible form he could no longer master, so that its hideousness could not any longer be masked, and it showed forth the evil of his mind. So it was also with even some of his greatest servants, as in these later days we see: they became wedded to the forms of their evil deeds, and if these bodies were taken from them or destroyed, they were nullified, until they had rebuilt a semblance of their former habitations, with which they could continue the evil courses in which they had become fixed”. (Pengolodh here evidently refers to Sauron in particular, from whose arising he fled at last from Middle-earth. But the first destruction of the bodily form of Sauron was recorded in the histories of the Elder Days, in the Lay of Leithian.)

The incident to which this essay refers is recorded in “Beren and Lúthien” in The Silmarillion, and it begins with Lúthien’s assault upon Minas Tirith, the former Elvish stronghold on Tol Sirion, which Sauron had seized on behalf of Morgoth:

But Lúthien heard his answering voice, and she sang then a song of greater power. The wolves howled, and the isle trembled. Sauron stood in the high tower, wrapped in his black thought ;but he smiled hearing her voice, for he knew that it was the daughter of Melian. The fame of the beauty of Lúthien and the wonder of her song had long gone forth from Doriath; and he thought to make her captive and hand her over to the power of Morgoth, for his reward would be great. Therefore he sent a wolf to the bridge. But Huan slew it silently. Still Sauron sent others one by one; and one by one Huan took them by the throat and slew them. Then Sauron sent Draugluin, a dread beast, old in evil lord and sire of the werewolves of Angband. His might was great; and the battle of Huan and Draugluin was long and fierce. Yet at length Draugluin escaped, and fleeing back into the tower he died before Sauron’s feet; and as he died he told his master: ‘Huan is there!’ Now Sauron knew well, as did all in that land, the fate that was decreed for the hound of Valinor, and it came into his thought that he himself would accomplish it. Therefore he took upon himself the form of a werewolf, and made himself the mightiest that had yet walked the world; and he came forth to win the passage of the bridge.

So great was the horror of his approach that Huan leaped aside. Then Sauron sprang upon Lúthien; and she swooned before the menace of the fell spirit in his eyes and the foul vapour of his breath. But even as he came, falling she cast a fold of her dark cloak before his eyes; and he stumbled, for a fleeting drowsiness came upon him. Then Huan sprang. There befell the battle of Huan and Wolf-Sauron, and howls and baying echoed in the hills, and the watchers on the walls of Ered Wethrin across the valley heard it afar and were dismayed.

But no wizardry nor spell, neither fang nor venom, nor devil’s art nor beast-strength, could overthrow Huan without forsaking his body utterly. Ere his foul spirit left its dark house, Lúthien came to him, and said that he should be stripped of his raiment of flesh, and his ghost be sent quaking back to Morgoth; and she said: ‘‘There everlastingly thy naked self shall endure the torment of his scorn, pierced by his eyes, unless thou yield to me the mastery of thy tower.’’

Then Sauron yielded himself, and Lúthien took the mastery of the isle and all that was there; and Huan released him. And immediately he took the form of a vampire, great as a dark cloud across the moon, and he fled, dripping blood from his throat upon the trees, and came to Tar-nu-Fuin, and dwelt there, filling it with horror.

One might not conclude on the basis of this text alone that Sauron was NOT slain by Huan, but some people might argue that the text is open to interpretation and that “Ósanwe-kenta” offers the interpretation that Sauron was in fact for all intents and purposes “dead”. On the other hand, we know from The History of Middle-earth and Christopher Tolkien’s commentary in The Children of Húrin that J.R.R. Tolkien had always wanted to rewrite “Lay of Leithian” but he never finished the task. So it is reasonable to ask if “Ósanwe-kenta” refers to the imagined/intended revision or if it is in fact only interpreting whatever already “existed in writing” at the time “Ósanwe-kenta” was composed.

However, there is indeed a passage in “Lay of Leithian” (published in The Lays of Beleriand, Volume III of The History of Middle-earth), in which Thu’s *Sauron) wolf-body remains lifeless as he flies away in vampire form:

…The wolves whimpering and yammering fled
like dusky shadows. Out there creep 2810
pale forms and ragged as from sleep,
crawling, and shielding blinded eyes:
the captives in fear and in surprise
from dolour long in clinging night
beyond all hope set free to light. 2815
A vampire shape with pinions vast
screeching leaped from the ground, and passed,
its dark blood dripping on the trees;
and Huan neath him lifeless sees
a wolvish corpse – for Thu had flown 2820
to Taur-na-Fuin, a new throne
and darker stronghold there to build…

But though this passage clearly stipulates that Thu (later renamed Sauron) had died, it is a pre-Lord of the Rings text which does not look to a future “Second Age” or “Third Age” in which Sauron dies repeatedly and is subsequently weakened each time. This lay was composed in the mid-1920s, more than 30 years prior to the composition of “Ósanwe-kenta”. To assume that J.R.R. Tolkien intended this event to be carried forward in this form is as presumptuous as it seems reasonable. Being a fair assumption does not make the assumption a correct assertion. Christopher Tolkien made an editorial decision to alter the passage.

In fact, there is another passage in “The Annals of Beleriand” (aka “The Grey Annals”) which agrees with “Lay of Leithian”:

$200. Beren sank down now into a darkness of sorrow and despair. In that hour Luthien and Huan came to the bridge that led to Sauron’s isle, and Luthien sang a song of Doriath. Then Beren awoke from his darkness; and the towers of Sauron trembled, and he sent forth Draugluin the greatest of his werewolves. But Huan slew Draugluin, and when Sauron himself came forth in wolf-hame he overthrew him. Thus Sauron was constrained to yield up Tol-sirion, ere bereft of his bodily form he passed away as a black shadow into Taur-nu-Fuin.

And while this seems rather a straight-forward declaration of Sauron’s death resulting from his battle with Huan, this is nothing like the passage Christopher published in The Silmarillion. For the source of the published story, we must turn to Volume V of The History of Middle-earth, The Lost Road and Other Writings, where Christopher Tolkien writes:

This fifth volume of The History of Middle-earth completes the presentation and analysis of my father’s writings on the subject of the First Age up to the time at the end of 1937 and the beginning of 1938 when he set them for long aside. The book provides all the evidence known to me for the understanding of his conceptions in many essential matters at the time when The Lord of the Rings was begun; and from the Annals of Valinor, the Annals of Beleriand, the Ainulindale, and the Quenta Silmarillion given here it can be quite closely determined which elements in the published Silmarillion go back to that time, and which entered afterwards. To make this a satisfactory work of reference for these purposes I have thought it essential to give the texts of the later 193Os in their entirety, even though in parts of the Annals the development from the antecedent versions was not great; for the curious relations between the Annals and the Quenta Silmarillion are a primary feature of the history and here already appear, and it is clearly better to have all the related texts within the same covers. Only in the case of the prose form of the tale of Beren and Luthien have I not done so, since that was preserved so little changed in the published Silmarillion; here I have restricted myself to notes on the changes that were made editorially.

So that seems to mean that Christopher Tolkien simply adapted a pre-Lord of the Rings prose text which had already been written with only minor editorial revision.

Hence, there can be no definitive, authoritative answer to these questions. And therefore there is no way to definitively, authoritatively declare that Sauron was or was not slain by Lúthien and Huan. We can at best only agree to say that Sauron was physically slain “at least three” times and “perhaps four”, depending on your point of view.

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