Glorfindel began to speak, telling the three who sat before him a tale that this age did not know.
"In the elder days of the First Age," he said, "Morgoth had beneath his hand many dread creatures of darkness.
"There were werewolves and fell dragons, bronze-skinned behemoths and vampires, and above all the Balrogs, who were called the very embodiment of the fire."
Their bodies, Glorfindel told them, had been shaped by the Dark Lord Morgoth, and into those forms the spirits of fallen Maiar were bound, one to each body. Thus they bore many wicked powers, and every one of them was terrible in might.
"There were such as Glaurung," he said, "the first of the great dragons, and Ancalagon the Black, greatest of all winged worms. There was Gothmog, lord of the Balrogs. These were not mindless beasts. They were cunning and wise in evil, and almost every one of them led vast hosts of monstrous armies."
In those days, he went on, the Dark Lord Sauron, who now named himself Lord of the Rings, was in the same reckoning as such beings. He was a counselor and a shadowed mind working behind the lines of war, weaving stratagems in the rear of Morgoth's darkness.
Against these towering powers, against dark cunning and the endless ranks of trolls and the first crude Orcs, the Elves were hard pressed.
The Noldor, the Elves of the Light, and the Sindar, the Elves of the Twilight, fought battle after battle and were driven back step by step. Internal strife gnawed at them besides. In the end, one by one, all their kingdoms fell before Morgoth.
"Yet," Glorfindel said, and his eyes were grave, "the road of darkness was not without its own price.
"Many dark powers were cast down. In battle after battle, the mythic heroes of the Elves flung away their own lives to slay the dark gods. There were many deaths of that kind, where the foe was dragged into ruin with the slayer."
Remembering those dreadful years, Glorfindel's gaze grew distant and sorrowful.
"If we speak of Balrogs," he said at length, "then we must speak of Gothmog..."
Gothmog, lord of Balrogs, was the first among them and their king.
"He was born," said Glorfindel, "before the beginning of the Great Music at the beginning of the world. He was one of the mightiest of the Maiar who fell and gave himself wholly to Melkor.
"Unlike many of his kind, Gothmog had not only the terror of fire and shadow for his strength, but a high and cruel intelligence, and great prowess in command. For long he served as Melkor's war-leader, the war-marshal of his legions, commander of the Dark Lord's greatest hosts."
In the early First Age, when the Two Trees had but lately been destroyed and neither Sun nor Moon had yet arisen, the Noldor came to Middle-earth behind Fëanor, and under the stars they began their first great war against Morgoth.
"In that war beneath the starlight," Glorfindel said, "the enemy feigned defeat and retreated, drawing Fëanor on in reckless pursuit, alone and far from his host.
"Thus the Elves and the Balrogs met in their first clash. In that ambush, Gothmog himself struck. With his fiery whip and his axe of shadow he smote Fëanor and cast him to the ground, grievously wounded."
Though the sons of Fëanor came swiftly and bore their father from the field, his hurts were too deep, and shortly after he died. So the first High King of the Noldor in Middle-earth fell, and with him much of their early hope.
"In the Battle of Tears Unnumbered," Glorfindel went on, "the Nirnaeth Arnoediad, Gothmog again rode forth, leading Morgoth's legions. There he met Fingon, High King of the Noldor, in single combat."
That battle darkened all the sky.
"The heavens grew black with smoke and storm," said Glorfindel. "Rain fell, but it could not quench the fire of the Balrog's whip.
"Gothmog first clove open Fingon's helm with his black axe. Then another Balrog's flaming whip twined about Fingon and ensnared him. At the last Gothmog hewed off Fingon's head and slew him."
The High King's body was trampled into dust beneath iron-shod feet. His death broke the strength of the Elven alliance. Their armies were utterly routed, and from that day the kingdoms of the Elves began to fade one by one into ruin.
"So Gothmog, lord of Balrogs," Glorfindel said quietly, "with his own hands slew two High Kings of the Noldor. Save for Morgoth himself there was no foe more hated in the hearts of the Noldor."
His end came at last in the Fall of Gondolin, where he and Ecthelion, champion of the Fountain, slew one another.
"Ecthelion," Glorfindel said, "was the mightiest of the Elven warriors of the First Age. Not even the High Kings themselves could match his strength in battle.
"In that last, burning night of Gondolin he slew three great captains of the Orcs and the lord of Balrogs, Gothmog himself.
"He drove the spike of his helm into Gothmog's belly and bore him down into the King's Fountain at the heart of the city, and there they sank together. Ecthelion was the first Elf ever to slay a Balrog."
Here Glorfindel added softly that this Ecthelion, the war-champion of Gondolin, was not the same as the Steward of Gondor who later bore that name.
The Battle of Gondolin, he said, was one of the fiercest of all the wars of the First Age, and the most full of epic sorrow. Many fell in that single night. Even Glorfindel left his first life there upon the walls and the high crags above the city.
"That war was so terrible," Glorfindel said, "that no words of mine can truly tell it. If I must name it, I can only say that everywhere the eye turned there was nothing but a vision of hell.
"Yet in that war, and in the many battles before it, we learned many of the monsters' weaknesses, trolls and great demons and all such creatures."
...
According to Glorfindel, the Balrogs had three chief weaknesses.
"The first," he said, "lies in their nature as beings of darkness. They are set at odds with holy light and with the higher magics of the Elves.
"Elven-forged weapons carry within them the hatred of the Eldar for evil. Because of that, they can inflict wounds upon creatures of darkness that bite deeper than ordinary blows.
"In like manner, the 'white magic' of the High Elves, those powers that purify and drive out shadow, can weaken the flame and shadow-shield of a Balrog and make its true form more exposed to harm."
"The second weakness," Glorfindel continued, "is the limit of their fire.
"The flames of a Balrog are its chief strength, but that does not mean they are without end. In a long war of wearing down, its fire will wane. That is most true in cold and in wet places. On snowy peaks of the Misty Mountains, or in caverns where dark rivers run, the strength of its flame can be stifled by the very air and water around it.
In the original tale, when Gandalf fought the Balrog upon the mountain-top, the battle was long and bitter. Little by little the demon's fire grew dim, until at last its strength and power were spent and it showed a gap in its defenses. Then Gandalf struck the killing blow.
"The third weakness," he said at last, "lies in the binding of soul and body.
"As Maiar, the spirits of the Balrogs are bound tightly to their physical forms. If the body is utterly destroyed, the spirit does not vanish at once, but it is left without any vessel and cannot readily gather its strength again.
"So to end them, one must not merely wound them. One must shatter the flesh completely, so that they have no form left in which to rise once more.
"This," Glorfindel added, "is the very method I once used. I drove a dagger into a Balrog's belly and poured my power into it, breaking its body from within. That was how I won that battle.
When Glorfindel's tale was ended, the listeners sat long in silence. Their minds wandered in awe and sorrow through the great storms of the First Age as he had painted them: a time of high splendor and endless ruin.
At last the two Dwarf-kings rose together and bowed deeply before Glorfindel, their gratitude and reverence plain to see.
Thorin drew a deep breath and said firmly, "No matter how mighty the enemy, we will give all that we have and strike it with all our strength."
Dáin nodded. "Durin's Folk will struggle against the darkness to the very end."
Seeing this, Glorfindel inclined his head slightly.
"Since you have set your hearts," he said, "and you mean to stand before a Balrog face to face, then I will give you one last counsel.
"If you can, go to Lothlórien and ask for a portion of the dew of the Blue Sacred Tree, Lúna Olonta. There is a power of cleansing in that dew. Perhaps it may aid you when the time comes."