Gondolin

Scholars have noted the presence of tank-like iron fighting machines in Morgoth's army in early versions of the story, written soon after Tolkien returned from the Battle of the Somme.

"[T 6] The Book of Lost Tales states that the active male Elves of Gondolin belong to one of the 11 "Houses" or Thlim, plus the bodyguard of Tuor, accounted as the twelfth.

The dark lord Morgoth sends an army over the Encircling Mountains during Gondolin's festival of The Gates of Summer, and sacks the city with relative ease.

Morgoth's army consists of orcs, Balrogs, dragons and in early versions of the story iron machines powered by "internal fires".

Conversely, Greenman notes that Idril's advice to enact a contingency plan for a secret escape route out of Gondolin was heeded by her people, unlike the warning of Cassandra; and that Idril had always rejected Maeglin's advances and remained faithful to Tuor, unlike Helen who left her husband King Menelaus of Sparta for Prince Paris of Troy.

Thus, Morgoth attacks while Gondolin's guard is lowered during a great feast, whereas the Trojans were celebrating the Greeks' apparent retreat, with the additional note of treachery.

[7] Cristini comments further that "The most evident analogy is perhaps the behaviour of Creusa and Idril, who clasp the knees of their husbands to prevent them from joining again the battle when all hope is lost.

"[7] Scholars have noted that Tolkien himself drew classical parallels for the assault, writing that "Nor Bablon, nor Ninwi, nor the towers of Trui, nor all the many takings of Rûm that is greatest among Men, saw such terror as fell that day upon Amon Gwareth".

[5][6] The scholar of heraldry Cătălin Hriban writes that the emblems of the houses of Gondolin are simple and figurative, depicting familiar real-world objects.

He comments that Maeglin the traitor, of the House of Moles, fittingly has the colour black; like the animal, his people are miners, used to living underground in the dark.

"[3] To defeat Gondolin, Melkor (at first called Melko) uses monsters, Orcs and Balrogs, supported by "beasts like snakes and dragons of irresistible might that should overcreep the Encircling Hills and lap that plain and its fair city in flame and death".

There are three kinds, Garth explains: heavy, slow, bronze dragons that can break gaps in Gondolin's walls; fiery monsters, unable to climb the steep smooth hill on which the city sits; and iron dragons in which Orc-soldiers can ride, and which travel on "iron so cunningly linked that they might flow ... around and above all obstacles", and are armoured so that they clang hollowly when bombarded or attacked with fire.

Garth comments that these are not so much like mythical dragons as "the tanks of the Somme", and that to the story's Elf-narrator, a combustion engine would look like "a metal heart filled with flame".