Thread:Sinthorion/@comment-26295802-20151125184326/@comment-27723099-20151126000844

From the One Wiki To Rule Them All: The early conception of Balrogs makes them less terrible, and certainly more destructible, than they afterwards became: they existed in 'hundreds' (p. 170), and were slain by Tuor and the Gondothlim in large numbers: "thus five fell before Tuor's great axe Dramborleg, three before Ecthelion's sword, and two score were slain by the warriors of the king's house."

- —The Book of Lost Tales 2, commentary by Christopher Tolkien on The Fall of Gondolin

"There came wolves and serpents and there came Balrogs one thousand, and there came Glomund the Father of Dragons."

- The Lost Road, Chapter 16. (Glomund's name became Glaurung when Tolkien wrote the Silmarillion.

When Tolkien developed Middle-earth as the backdrop for The Lord of the Rings, Balrogs became more formidable and terrible, and their number was much reduced. In the end Christopher Tolkien stated that there were "at most" seven Balrogs:

"In the margin my father wrote: 'There should not be supposed more than say 3 or at most 7 ever existed.'"

- —Morgoth's Ring, Section 2 (AAm*): Note 50

And yet, in The Silmarillion, which is considered canon, Tolkien wrote that during meant that those "few that fled and hid themselves" numbered only three or at most seven.