Shelob

Name: Shelob

AKA: Shelob the Great

Location: Torech Ungol

Novel: The Two Towers

Author: J.R.R. Tolkien





Natural History:
Shelob was an evil thing in spider form that lived at the top of the stairs of Cirith Ungol. No one knows how she came there from long ago. She was there before Sauron and his tower.

Her lair was filled with a black vapour wrought of veritable darkness that blinded the eyes and the mind, as if night was all that had existed in her tunnels. She let off a stench foul and a lurking malice.

Very few had ever entered her tunnels. Even Orcs were not willing to go in. She served none but herself, drinking the blood of Elves and Men. All living things were her food, and she grew bloated and fat, and her vomit darkness. Her brood was spread far and wide, even in Dol Guldur and Mirkwood.

Gollum had bowed and worshiped her at one time, bringing her food. But all she desired was death for all others and for herself a glut of life, alone, swollen until the mountains could no longer hold her and the darkness could not contain her.

Gollum led Frodo and Sam to Shelob in hopes that she would devour them and he could pick through the left-overs and take back his precious. Frodo and Sam felt her malice and cruelty in the tunnels, and using the gift bestowed upon him by the Lady of the Wood, Frodo was able to reveal Shelob. She retreated for the time being and followed them out, exiting out of one of the many holes of her lair.

Shelob was able to sting Frodo, putting him into a deep sleep. Sam took up his master's sword and stung Shelob in one of her many eyes and stabbed her in the underside, letting forth a venomous ooze. But her hide was thick and foul. She was her own undoing as she tried to break Sam under her own weight therefore driving his sword into her. She stood quivering but resolved to destroy Sam. Sam used the Phial of Eärendil one last time and its rays entered her wounds, causing her great pain. She retreated into her lair never to be seen again.

Shelob may never have left her tunnels again. She may have healed herself and once again wrought webs and shadows . . . or she may have perished.

"None could rival her, Shelob the Great, last child of Ungoliant to trouble the unhappy world."