THE EAGLES ARE COMING
Illustration for the 1980 J.R.R. Tolkien Calendar
AT THE END OF ALL THINGS
"What a tale we have been in, Mr Frodo, haven't we?" he said. "I wish I could hear it told." ...
But even while he spoke so, to keep fear away until the very last, his eyes strayed north, north into the eye of the wind, to where the sky far off was clear, as the cold blast, rising to a gale, drove back the darkness and the ruin of the clouds.
And so it was that Gwaihir saw them with his keen far-seeing eyes, as down the wild wind he came, and daring the great peril of the skies he circled in the air: two small dark figures, forlorn, hand in hand upon a little hill, while the world shook under them, and gasped, and rivers of fire drew near."
-J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King
My painting was commissioned for the 1980 J.R.R. Tolkien Calendar published by Ballantine Books. It was later collected in my second art book and presented alongside Tolkien's text.
I suspect that watching this scene come to life in Peter Jackson's movie adaptation of The Return of the King was as thrilling for me as any fan of The Lord of the Rings.
Additional images from THE EAGLES ARE COMING
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This one makes my heart so glad. Just recently re-watching the films at the movie theater, I am struck by how much Jackson's scene seems to have drawn from your envisioning.
I don't know where I first saw this image, but it's long been what I see for that scene. I was thrilled when the scene in the movie was almost exactly this.