[Turin and Hunthor] halted therefore and waited, and out of the dark ravine they watched a white star far above creep across the faint strip of sky;

Then Turambar drew the Black Sword of Beleg and stabbed upwards with all the might of his arm, and of his hate, and the deadly blade, long and greedy, went into the belly even to its hilts.

Then Glaurung, feeling his death-pang, gave forth a scream, whereat all the woods were shaken, and the watchers at Nen Girith were aghast. Turambar reeled as from a blow, and slipped down, and his sword was torn from his grasp, and clave to the belly of the Dragon. For Glaurung in a great spasm bent up all his shuddering bulk and hurled it over the ravine, and there upon the further shore he writhed, screaming, lashing and coiling himself in his agony, until he had broken a great space all about him, and lay there at last in a smoke and a ruin, and was still.

Then he wrenched out the sword, and even as he did so a spout of black blood followed it, and fell upon his hand, and his flesh was burned by the venom, so that he cried aloud at the pain.

Then she turned with a cry and fled south along the river, and cast her cloak as she ran, as though casting off a darkness that clung to her; and beneath she was all clad in white, and she shone in the moon as she flitted among the trees.

crying: ‘Water, water! Take now Níniel Niënor daughter of Húrin; Mourning, Mourning daughter of Morwen! Take me and bear me down to the Sea!’ With that she cast herself over the brink: a flash of white swallowed in the dark chasm, a cry lost in the roaring of the river.

Heroes losing hands! Maedhros, Frodo (a finger), Beren, and Turin, and I'm sure I'm forgetting others. They don't lose eyes or ears, but hands are quick casualties, more so than eyes, ears, legs, etc. Is it because a hand is the symbol of ability, or does it symbolize a person's soul as well? There are people, not just palm-readers, who think that a lot of a person's character resides in their hands and how they use them. Are our heroes losing a chunk of their souls in their battles with evil?

when Luke loses his hand in 'The Empire Strikes Back' (Star Wars V), it's the filmmaker's attempt to make the space opera properly mythic in scope. Lucas is said to have worked from Joseph Campbell's The Hero WIth A Thousand Faces when he sketched out the Star Wars story. (The possibly ridiculous part is that Luke's hand is immediately restored, in the same film no less, with no further consequences in the rest of the story.)

The MacAllister family crest includes a severed hand holding a dirk. The story behind it was that one of the MacAllisters was in a boat race out to a sand dune and back, with the first to touch shore winning. Upon realizing he was not going to beat his opponent, he cut off his hand, put his dirk with family crest in it for identity, and then threw it onto the beach for the win.

The Irish god Nuada did something similar to the MacAllister above — the first to touch Irish soil would be the one who ruled, so in order to defeat his rival he cut off his own hand and threw it onto the beach. (Problem was, a maimed man cannot rule, so he had to wait until another god built him a silver hand.)

At the bend of the river Scheldt, legend tells of a giant who demanded toll from everyone who wanted to sail past his fortress. If they couldn't or didn't want to pay the toll, the giant (Sus Antigoon) cut off their hand as punishment. Silvius Brabo, a Roman soldier, sought to bring an end to Antigoon's cruelty and defeated him. After this defeat Brabo cut off Antigoon's own hand and threw it into the Scheldt. Supposedly this is where the city of Antwerp, Belgium got its name from. "Hand" & "Werpen" (to throw).

The Norse god Tyr had his hand bitten off by Fenrir.

http://tvtropes.org/...hp/Main/AnArmAndALeg

For she was come to the Crossings of Tieglin and Haudh-en-Elleth stood before her, pale in the moonlight, with a black shadow cast athwart it; and out of the mound came a great dread."

And now abating in his flurry, the whale once more rolled out into view; surging from side to side; spasmodically dilating and contracting his spout-hole, with sharp, cracking, agonized respirations. At last, gush after gush of clotted red gore, as if it had been the purple lees of red wine, shot into the frighted air; and falling back again, ran dripping down his motionless flanks into the sea. His heart had burst!

"He's dead, Mr. Stubb," said Daggoo.

"Yes; both pipes smoked out!" and withdrawing his own from his mouth, Stubb scattered the dead ashes over the water; and, for a moment, stood thoughtfully eyeing the vast corpse he had made.

Moby Dick, Ch 61: Stubb Kills a Whale

Dread:
1) extreme fear or apprehension; great awe
2) Doubt; risk of something bring otherwise
(New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary)

Then she turned with a cry and fled south along the river...