For some time Tolkien considered the Eagles as bird-shaped Maiar; however, later he realised that the statement about Gwaihir and Landroval's descent from Thorondor had already appeared in print in "The Lord of the Rings", while the notion of the "Children" of the Valar and Maiar had been rejected by him long before. In the last of his notes on this topic, dated by his son to late 1950s, Tolkien decided that the Great Eagles were common animals that had been "taught language by the Valar, and raised to a higher level—but they still had no "fëar"."