| Dragons | |
|---|---|
| In-universe information | |
| Created by | Morgoth (Melkor) |
| Creation date | First Age |
| Home world | Middle-earth |
| Base of operations | Ered Mithrin,Withered Heath,Lonely Mountain |
| Sub-races | Fire-drakes Cold-drakes |
J. R. R. Tolkien'sMiddle-earthlegendarium featuresdragons based on those of European legend, but going beyond them in having personalities of their own, such as the wilySmaug, who has features of bothFafnir andtheBeowulf dragon.
Dragons appear in the early stories ofThe Book of Lost Tales, including the mechanical war-dragons ofThe Fall of Gondolin. Tolkien went on to create Smaug, a powerful and terrifying adversary, inThe Hobbit. Dragons are only mentioned in passing inThe Lord of the Rings.
Tolkien's conception of the dragon has been adopted both in games loosely based on his Middle-earth writings, and by otherfantasy authors. Several taxa have been named after Tolkien's dragons, including both extinct and living species. Severaltaxa, including girdled lizards, shield bugs, and ants, carry the nameSmaug.
Dragons are already present inThe Book of Lost Tales. Tolkien had been fascinated with dragons since childhood.[T 1] As well as "dragon", Tolkien called them "drake" (fromOld Englishdraca, in turn fromLatindraco andGreekδράκων), and "worm" (from Old Englishwyrm, "serpent", "dragon").[T 2] Tolkien named four dragons in hisMiddle-earth writings. Like theOld Norse dragonFafnir, they are able to speak, and can be subtle of speech.[1][2] In the earliest drafts of "The Fall of Gondolin", theLost Tale that is the basis forThe Silmarillion, the Dark LordMorgoth (here calledMelkor) sends mechanical war-machines in the form of dragons against the city; some serve as transport forOrcs. These do not appear in the publishedSilmarillion, edited byChristopher Tolkien, in which real dragons attack the city. As in the later conception of the dragons in theLegendarium, the winged dragons had not yet been devised by Morgoth at the time of the Fall of Gondolin. The first winged dragons appeared at the same time as Ancalagon the Black.[T 2] In the lateThird Age, the dragons bred in the Northern Waste and Withered Heath north of the Grey Mountains.[T 3]
In Tolkien's works, dragons arequadrupedal, and may be either flightless, like Scatha[T 4] and Glaurung, or winged, likeSmaug. Winged dragons first appeared during theWar of Wrath, the battle that ended theFirst Age.[T 5] Some dragons, known as "Fire-drakes" ("Urulóki" inQuenya), are capable of breathing fire. It is not entirely clear whether the "Urulóki" were only the first dragons such as Glaurung that could breathe fire but were wingless, or to any dragon that could breathe fire, and thus include Smaug.[T 6] In Appendix A ofThe Lord of the Rings, Tolkien mentions that Dáin I, King of theDwarves, and his son Frór were killed by a "Cold-drake", prompting their people to leave the Grey Mountains.[T 7] It is commonly assumed that this indicates a dragon which could not breathe fire. Dragon-fire (even that of Ancalagon the Black) is described as not being hot enough to melt theOne Ring; however, four of theDwarven Rings are consumed by Dragon-fire.[T 8] All Tolkien's dragons share a love of treasure (especiallygold), subtle intelligence, immense cunning, great physical strength, and ahypnotic power called "dragon-spell". They are extremely powerful and dangerous but mature very slowly. Because of this,Melkor's first attempts to use them against his enemies failed, as they were not yet powerful enough to be useful in battle.[T 5]
Tolkien named only four dragons in his Middle-earth writings. Another,Chrysophylax Dives, appears inFarmer Giles of Ham, a story separate from the Middle-earth corpus. Chrysophylax is a fire-breathing dragon, described as "cunning, inquisitive, greedy, well-armoured, but not over bold".[T 9]
Glaurung, first introduced inThe Silmarillion, is described as the Father of Dragons in Tolkien's legendarium, and the first of the Urulóki, the Fire-drakes ofAngband. He is a main antagonist inThe Children of Húrin, in which he sets in motion events that bring about the protagonistTúrin Turambar's eventual suicide before being slain by him.[T 10] Glaurung is shown to use his ability to control and enslave Men using his mind to wipe the memory of Túrin's sister Nienor, though it was restored after Glaurung had perished. He is described as having four legs and the ability to breathe fire, but no wings.[T 11]
Ancalagon the Black (Sindarin:rushing jaws fromanc "jaw", andalag "impetuous"[T 12]) was a dragon bred by Morgoth during the First Age, as told inThe Silmarillion. He was one of Morgoth's most powerful servants, the mightiest of all dragons, and the first of the winged "fire-drakes". He arose like a storm from the pits of Angband beneath theIron Mountains, as a last defence of the realm ofDor Daedeloth. Near the end of the War of Wrath that pitted Morgoth's armies against the army of the godlikeValar, Morgoth sent Ancalagon to lead a flight of dragons from his fortress of Angband to destroy his enemies. So powerful was the assault that the army of the Valar was driven back from the gates of Angband.Eärendil in his airborne shipVingilot, aided byThorondor and his greatEagles, battled Ancalagon's dragons for an entire day. At length Eärendil gained the upper hand, throwing Ancalagon down on the peaks ofThangorodrim, destroying both Ancalagon and the towers. With his last and mightiest defender slain, Morgoth was defeated and made captive, thus ending the War of Wrath.[T 5]
Scatha was a mighty "long-worm" of theGrey Mountains.[T 13] In a poem, Scatha was a "blind and cold…wingless drake" capable of freezing people "with fear and his cold breath".[T 4] Little is known of Scatha except that he was slain byFram in the early days of theÉothéod, the ancestors of theRiders of Rohan. Scatha's name was likely taken fromAnglo-Saxonsceaða, "injurious person, criminal, thief, assassin".[T 14] After slaying Scatha, Fram's ownership of his recovered hoard was then disputed by theDwarves of that region. Fram rebuked this claim, sending them instead Scatha's teeth, with the words, "Jewels such as these you will not match in your treasuries, for they are hard to come by." This led to his death in a feud with the Dwarves. The Éothéod retained at least some of the hoard, and brought it south with them when they settled inRohan. The silver horn thatÉowyn gave toMerry Brandybuck after theWar of the Ring, crucial inThe Scouring of the Shire, came from this hoard.[3]
Smaug was the last named dragon of Middle-earth. He was slain byBard, a descendant of Girion, Lord of Dale. A deadly winged fire-breathing dragon, he was red-gold in colour and his underbelly was encrusted with many gemstones from the treasure-pile he commonly slept upon once he had taken control ofErebor (the Lonely Mountain). The Arkenstone was buried right in the pile he slept on, but Smaug never noticed it. Smaug had only a single weakness: there was a hole in his jewel encrusted underbelly on his left breast area. The hobbitBilbo Baggins discovered this weakness, and the information led to Smaug's death aboveEsgaroth.[T 15]
Tolkien's dragons were inspired by medieval stories, including those aboutFafnir inGermanic mythology[1] andtheBeowulf dragon.[2] The folklorist Sandra Unerman writes that Smaug's ability to speak, the use of riddles, the element of betrayal, his enemy's communication via birds, and his weak spot could all have been inspired by the talkingGermanic dragon Fafnir of theVölsunga saga.[4] Łukasz Neubauer writes that Tolkien's friendC. S. Lewis was similarly inspired by Fafnir. He compares the two men's use of dragons in their mythologies, noting that Tolkien's usage is both more visible and better documented.[5]
The scholar of Icelandic literatureÁrmann Jakobsson writes that with the encounter with Smaug, the story inThe Hobbit becomes "more unexpected, entangled,ambiguous, and political". He argues that Tolkien was effectively translating the subtext of his Old Norse sources, creating in his dragon a far more subtle, uncanny, and frightening monster than those in the earlier, more or less unconnected, travel narrative episodes.[6]
The use of dragons as anallegorical device lasted until the early 20th century. Tolkien makes clear that he prefers the actual dragon,draco (just meaning "dragon" in Latin[7]), to any kind of abstract or moralising usage, which Tolkien namesdraconitas.[8] The Tolkien scholarThomas Honegger notes that Tolkien pointed out that "a 'good dragon' is a beast that displays the typical characteristics ofdraco without becoming a mereallegorical representative ofdraconitas (the vice ofavarice)."[8] In Honegger's view, Tolkien's innovation, seen best in Smaug, is his creation of "a distinct 'dragon personality'". Whereas Glaurung is a mythical element, and Ancalagon is merely ferocious, Smaug and Chrysophylax Dives "go beyond both the 'primitive'draco ferox ("fierce dragon") of myths and legends as well as the whimsicaldraco timidus ("timid dragon") of contemporary children's literature."[8] Thus, Honegger concludes, Tolkien's "good dragons" admit their mythical ancestry but are at the same time recognisably modern characters.[8]
WhenIron Crown Enterprises gained the licensing rights for games made from Tolkien's books, they expanded the selection of named dragons beyond theMiddle-earth canon in bothMiddle-earth Role Playing[9] andThe Wizards, atrading card game set in Middle-earth.[10] In thereal-time strategy gameThe Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-earth II, based onPeter Jackson's film trilogy, there is a dragon named Drogoth.[11] InThe Lord of the Rings: War in the North, players encounter the dragon Úrgost.[12]
Honegger writes that Tolkien's conception of dragons "as intelligent beings with a distinct personality" has been adopted byfantasy authors with a wide range of styles, includingBarbara Hambly,Ursula K. Le Guin,Anne McCaffrey,Christopher Paolini, andJane Yolen.[8]
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