XPost: rec.arts.books.tolkien   
   From: briancanada71@yahoo.com   
      
   My son asked me this today in the car, and it reminded me of discussions   
   with an old friend of mine who maintained that the Nazgûl's winged   
   steeds were wyverns, and seemed honestly surprised that I had a   
   different opinion.   
      
    From the first time I read the passage describing the Witch-king's   
   steed, many a long year ago when I was a small boy, I always took it to   
   mean a Pterodactyl (Pterosaur).  No other explanation ever even crossed   
   my mind.   
      
   So, based on the description given in the Battle of the Pelennor fields,   
   what what is the majority opinion among the scholars?  Did Tolkien   
   himself ever chime in on the subject in any of his letters?   
      
   The relevant passage, as copy/pasted from the LOTRwiki:   
      
      
   "And behold! It was a winged creature: if bird, then greater than all   
   other birds, and it was naked, and neither quill nor feather did it   
   bear, and its vast pinions were as webs of hide between horned fingers;   
   and it stank. A creature of an older world maybe it was, whose kind,   
   lingering in forgotten mountains cold beneath the Moon, outstayed their   
   day, and in hideous eyrie bred this last untimely brood, apt to evil.   
   And the Dark Lord took it, and nursed it with fell meats, until it grew   
   beyond the measure of all other things that fly; and he gave it to his   
   servant to be his steed."   
      
      
      
   Brian.  See?  Pterodactyl...   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)