Mirkwood Spiders

Name: Mirkwood Spiders

AKA: Unknown

Location: Mirkwood

Novel: The Hobbit

Author: J.R.R. Tolkien



Natural History:
Discovered by Bilbo Baggins and company on their journey to the Lonely Mountain. Upon entering Mirkwood, which had become a dark and sinister place with the coming of the Necromancer in Dol Guldur, these giant spiders ensnared the thirteen dwarves.

The spiders were huge and hideous, weaving their webs in the trees and hanging their captured prey in bundles,which they preferred to let hang a bit. They spoke to one another in a sort of thin creaking and hissing. To slow down their prey, they used their stingers. Their legs were hairy and they had many eyes.

Bilbo Baggins enraged them by calling them Attercop, Old Tomnoddy, lazy Lob and crazy Cob. The spiders were easily defeated by the throwing of stones and by Sting, Bilbo's sword.

The spiders may have been from the brood of Shelob.

"What nasty thick skins they have to be sure, but I'll wager there is good juice inside." -Spider

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."

Ungoliant

Name: Ungoliant

AKA: Unknown

Location: Avathar

Novel: The Silmarillion

Author: J.R.R. Tolkien




Natural History:
No one knows whence she came. Some say she descended from the darkness when the world was new. She took the shape of a spider in monstrous form and lived alone, far from the people's of Middle-earth.

She had an immense hunger. She hungered for light and hated it. She had no master, for she desired to be mistress of her own lust, taking all things to herself to feed her emptiness.

She made her home in the cleft of the mountains, sucking up all the light she could find and spinning it into dark nets of strangling gloom and black webs so no light could come to her abode. She was able to spin Unlight, a cloak of darkness in which things seemed to be no more and which eyes could not pierce, for it was void.

She assisted Melkor, he promising her whatever she lusted for, in seeking vengeance on the Valar. On the green of Ezellohar, the Unlight of Ungoliant rose up to the roots of the trees of the Valar, Telperion and Laureli, the first sources of light in Arda. Melkor smote each tree to its core and Ungoliant sucked up the sap that came forth. The poison of death that was in her withered the trees until they died. Her thirst and hunger was great, and going to the Wells of Varda, drained them dry. She belched forth black vapors as she drank, and swelled to an immense size and hideous shape, that frightened even Melkor.

Ungoliant and Melkor traveled to Angband. Though Melkor feared Ungoliant and tried to elude her, he knew that she would not leave his side until his promise was fulfilled. She requested the Silmarils, but Morgoth (Melkor) would not have it and kept them tight in his clutch. The immense cloud of darkness grew and she tried to strangle Morgoth with her webs. His cries called forth the Balrogs, who assailed Ungoliant with their whips, then freed Morgoth and drove off Ungoliant.

Ungoliant fled, covering herself in black vapors, to Nan Dungortheb, the Valley of Dreadful Death. There she hid, devouring and breeding with the other foul creatures of spider form that dwelt there. Her offspring remained there, weaving their hideous webs, while she moved south, away from the people's of Middle-earth.

"Of the fate of Ungoliant no tales tale. Yet some have said that she ended long ago, when in her utter famine she devoured herself at last."