Question about Smaug

[Scarab Mango]

As it stands, I have read the Hobbit, LOTR, and the Silmarillion. Something has been playing on my mind for a while and I wanted to get some feedback/opinions from other Tolkien fans.

On various websites, I have heard it asserted that Smaug might be one of the original dragons of Morgoth, and thus a vassal of Ancalagon and a seriously powerful dragon. Smaug's exact origins seem to get a bit foggy (at least for me) when you try to go back further than Erebor.

Due to Smaug's obvious power and his own statements to Bilbo about "laying low the warriors of old" in ages past, I began to wonder if Smaug may well BE a dragon of Morgoth. Some people have said that he, along with Scatha and perhaps a few other dragons, escaped the War of Wrath amd plagued Middle Earth for many years after.

Smaug is obviously a powerful dragon capable of destroying a whole city singlehandedly, and I have also heard that Gandalf's true motivation for helping Thorin and his subjects might have been to keep Sauron from recruiting Smaug and thus gaining what would have been a devastating weapon for his own designs on the world. (This statement was made in Unfinished Tales I believe, though I haven't read that book in its entirety).

I think there may be some credence to Smaug's possible status as a dragon of Morgoth and his participation in the War of Wrath, but I have yet to find a "smoking gun" to confirm this, either in Tolkien's writing or on websites such as the Encyclopedia of Arda.

If anyone who could provide me with some feedback on this, or just a similar/opposing theory, I would greatly appreciate it. Perhaps someone who has read more Tolkien than me knows the answer.

 

[Barliman Butterbur]

...Something has been playing on my mind for a while ... I began to wonder if Smaug may well be a dragon of Morgoth.

Alas, I could find no entries about Smaug in Tolkien's letters that refer to the question you bring up, only references to dragons in other cultures, and the Germanic origin of his name (Smugan), which means a creature that crawls through a hole. This leads me to believe that Smaug has some other history.

Some whiff of memory in my mind tells me that Smaug was a fairly young dragon at the time of his death (I think he may have referred to his age in The Hobbit, but I'm not sure), and, the fact that his name does not appear in the Name Index of the Silmarillion further indicates (to me) that he couldn't have been connected directly with Morgoth.

What is for sure, in Tolkien's "Unfinished Tales of Númenor and Middle-earth," is the tale set out wherein Gandalf is extremely worried that Sauron might use Smaug as a WMD, and it is partly this that brings him to Bree one night, where he runs into Thorin Oakenshield (a "coincidence"), and the plan is hatched wherein Bilbo is to go with the Dwarves on the adventure outlined in The Hobbit.

Lotho

 

[Scarab Mango]

Smaug does indeed mention his age. He tells Bilbo that, in contrast to his tender age during his battles with warriors of a now-lost caliber, he is currently:

"...OLD and strong, strong, strong, thief in the shadows!"

If this is not some indication of Smaug's old age, maybe I need to rethink exactly what IS. Had I thought Smaug died young, I would never have lent any faith at all to the theories of his being a Dragon of Morgoth, nor in all probability would these theories have existed.

Perhaps, since I can't actually ask Tolkien, I will never know the answer. I would still appreciate some more feedback from anyone who might have an interest in this topic, so feel free to post your take on the issue. I'll be checking this thread for replies just in case.

 

[Barliman Butterbur]

Smaug does indeed mention his age. He tells Bilbo that, in contrast to his tender age during his battles with warriors of a now-lost caliber, he is currently:

"...OLD and strong, strong, strong, thief in the shadows!"

Ah, that was it! Thanks for the correction! That indeed again opens up the question, "Was Smaug one of Morgoth's dragons?"

As I said, I never ran across Smaug's name in the Name Index of the Silmarillion (there is not an ordinary index to the book), and of course no index at all in The Hobbit.

The only other place I've seen Smaug being mentioned (so far) is Tolkien's "Unfinished Tales of Númenor and Middle-earth" (ed. CT).

Has anyone found mention of Smaug in CT's "History of Middle-earth" volumes?

Wouldn't it be wonderful to have all of Tolkien's texts on CDs or electronic books (or even PDF files) so that they could be interactively searchable!

(My son gave me a 2004 daily calendar: "A Guide to Middle Earth" based on the book of the same name by Robert Foster. So every day I type the day's entry into a WP file. At the end of the year, I'll have a fairly useful searchable encyclopedia of Tolkieniana. Does anyone have any opinion on the original Foster book?)

Lotho

 

[Barliman Butterbur]

Here is a link to an entry in The Encyclopedia of Arda (http://www.glyphweb.com/arda/s/smaug.html) which sheds a bit of speculative light on Smaug's origin, that maybe he was born in the First Age in Angband, in Melkor's time. It's only speculation however.

Lotho

 

[Inderjit S]

The 'Tale of Years' (HoME 11) tells us that two dragons escaped from the War of Wrath. Whether such a statement, from a series of hasty jotting, proposed revision etc. can be trusted is entirely up to the person evaluating the sources and it's validity.

There were of course several dragons around in the T.A, but Smaug was the greatest Dragon if the age. Scatha, is another Dragon of the T.A. (He is referred to as the 'worm' which gives people the impression that he is a flightless Dragon, but Thorin refers to Smaug, at one point, as a worm.) and also the great cold-drake that slew Dáin I and Fror, as well as various other Dragons who assailed Dwarves.

 

[Sengir Buendia]

Just to say that in LOTR appendices there is mention to Gandalf's real motivation of inciting Thorin's quest (get rid of Smaug so that he couldn't be used as a weapon by Sauron)... It can be found in the dwarves section

 

[Barliman Butterbur]

Just to say that in LOTR appendices there is mention to Gandalf's real motivation of inciting Thorin's quest (get rid of Smaug so that he couldn't be used as a weapon by Sauron)... It can be found in the dwarves section

From my Post #2 in this thread:

What is for sure, in Tolkien's "Unfinished Tales of Númenor and Middle-earth," is the tale set out wherein Gandalf is extremely worried that Sauron might use Smaug as a WMD, and it is partly this that brings him to Bree one night, where he runs into Thorin Oakenshield (a "coincidence"), and the plan is hatched wherein Bilbo is to go with the Dwarves on the adventure outlined in The Hobbit.

Lotho

 

[Bucky]

Does anyone have any opinion on the original Foster book

Well, I recall having it in the late 70's or early 80's......

It was just a catalogue of information of collected from the 4 books JRR Tolkein published, nothing really new or exciting for back then - if you knew the books yourself that is.

BTW, Lotho, that link didn't go into much detail on their speculation, did it?

 

[Barliman Butterbur]

Does anyone have any opinion on the original Foster book

Well, I recall having it in the late 70's or early 80's......

It was just a catalogue of information of collected from the 4 books JRR Tolkein published, nothing really new or exciting for back then - if you knew the books yourself that is.

BTW, Lotho, that link didn't go into much detail on their speculation, did it?

My son just gave me a 2004 page-a-day calendar based on the Foster book. Each day I type the day's entry into a WP file. At the end of the year, I'll have a pretty good searchable encyclopedia of general ME info.

As for the link, it isn't much more than I described. Click on it and see what you think.

Lotho

 

[Bucky]

At the end of the year, I'll have a pretty good searchable encyclopedia of general ME info.

Every time I read the original, I just thought, "I already knew that."

But, that's me. My mind is (was, lol) good that way.

I do have a question about Smaug escaping The War Of Wrath:

If so, what was he doing for 6000 years?
Licking his wounds while hiding in the Grey Mountains or stuck in the mithril mine in Moria with Durin's Bane?

 

[Scarab Mango]

Yes, licking his wounds, healing up, increasing in power, and biding his time. Thousands of years are nothing to creatures as long-lived as dragons, so long as the have some men/elves to kill, meat to eat, women to carry off, and some gold on which to sleep.

One of the most interesting and amusing aspects of Tolkien's dragons, if not of dragons in fantasy at large, is the fact that they are enormously intelligent yet possessed of such laughably base desires. After manipulating Turin at the behest of Morgoth, Glaurung's though process seems to be, "Well, my work here is done. Time to go lay on some gold!"

He's such an incredible, powerful, intelligent creature and yet all it takes to make him happy is violence, treasure, and food. Smaug would have been no different, and could easily have amused himself on the same resources (albeit Smaug also seems to enjoy a good riddle here and there).

Ah, dragons. So very very smart but nary a lick of wisdom or virtue, at least not in Middle Earth. Gotta love it.

 

[Barliman Butterbur]

He's such an incredible, powerful, intelligent creature and yet all it takes to make him happy is violence, treasure, and food.

Reminds me of some pretty high-up politicians who shall remain nameless...

Lotho

 

[Baruk Khazad!]

http://www.glyphweb.com/arda/

If you look at the very top of the Smaug entry in the Encyclopedia of Arda at the timeline, it indicates that Smaug indeed WAS born in the First Age of Arda, possibly in Angband.

 

[jallan]

http://www.glyphweb.com/arda/

If you look at the very top of the Smaug entry in the Encyclopedia of Arda at the timeline, it indicates that Smaug indeed WAS born in the First Age of Arda, possibly in Angband.

As Lotho_Pinple has already mentioned that is unsupported supposition.

Never trust the encyclopedias.

In "An Unexpected Party" in The Hobbit Thorin remarks:

And I know where Mirkwood is, and the Withered Heath where the great dragons bred.

More probably Smaug was bred and born on the Withered Heath during the Third Age.

Thorin later remarks:

... but Smaug could not creep into a hole that size, not even when he was a young dragon, certainly not after devouring so many of the dwarves and men of Dale.

The implication is that Thorin has some traditional knowledge about Smaug as a young dragon, perhaps from the days when his folk still dwelt in the Grey Mountains adjoining the Withered Heath or perhaps because Smaug had still not attained his full growth when he laid waste to Dale and Erebor.

Of course Thorin is doubtless not referring to Smaug as he might have been upon first hatching.

 

[Gamil Zirak]

Wouldn't it be wonderful to have all of Tolkien's texts on CDs or electronic books (or even PDF files) so that they could be interactively searchable!

It is nice. I have the Hobbit, LoTR, Sil, and Letters of Tolkien in pdf and UT in a word doc. They can all be found on any peer to peer network. Just make sure you own the books before you get the electronic files.

Smaug's age is very perplexing. It's hard to take things from the Hobbit as facts as the whole scheme of things was changed later. It is conceivable that Smaug was from the first age, but hard to tell as the dragon keeping record isn't what it should be. Dragon's were too busy burning down villages and eating fair maidens so they did not have time to write things down.