Tolkien named many weapons, mainly swords, but also including Aeglos, the spear of the Elf-king Gil-Galad; Belthronding, Beleg's bow; Dramborleg, Tuor's axe; and Grond, the name both of the evil battering-ram from Minas Morgul, and of the mace of the first Dark Lord, Morgoth, in his Middle-earth writings. Eighteen such weapons are listed by Anthony Burdge and Jessica Burke in the J. R. R. Tolkien Encyclopedia. As in medieval epics, the sword in particular symbolised the heroism and position of its owner. As the Tolkien scholar Verlyn Flieger put it, the sword proclaims the emergence of the hero; further, the fates of sword and man are linked, and the destruction of one signals the end of the other.