📖👀 🕷️Shelob's Lair

[m4r35n357]

Editorial (so ultimate Canon I suppose!) reference to Beren's passage of the Mountains of Terror to Luthien in Doriath, and Shelob's descendence from Ungoliant.

 

[Rivendell_librarian]

There is an excellent diagram of the layout of the tunnels of Shelob's Lair in Fonstad's atlas of ME which also shows its connection to the Tower of Cirith Ungol.

After grim and grimmer this is grimmest: the stench, the darkness and unsurprisingly Gollum sneaks off leaving Frodo and Sam to face Shelob alone. "A light when other lights go out": Sam reminds Frodo of the "Lady's gift" and we find that Shelob doesn't like it, nor Sting as Frodo advances towards the monster bearing both. It may be that Galadriel spoke directly to Sam to remind him.

We are told that Shelob cares only for her stomach, not towers or rings. Smeagol must be too scrawny for Shelob who had curried favour with her by feigning worship She found orcs to be wary and poor food yet now Gollum had brought her some sweeter meat. Gollum's plan is that Shelob discards the Ring after eating the two hobbits. Gollum with the power of the Ring would pay her back along with everyone. Sauron regarded her as a useful guardian cat.

Their way is blocked by one of Shelob's webs which needs an elven-blade to cut through it. But Shelob had other exits from her lair and as Frodo was running to what he thought was the exit she rushed upon him. Just at that moment guess who grabs Sam: Gollum of course! There's a tremendous description of their fight and Gollum finds Sam to be a tougher nut than he thought and runs off. Then Sam turns to find out what has happened to Frodo.

I'm reminded of this:

 

[TrackerOrc]

'All living things were her food, and her vomit darkness.' Yikes!

As a complete arachnaphobe, I still almost feel ill when I read this chapter, brilliantly written as it is.

'Sometimes as a man may cast a dainty to his cat (his cat he calls her, but she owns him not) Sauron would send her prisoners that he had no better use for.' Now here is an author who knows all about cats!

'Great horns she had, and behind her short stalk-like neck was her huge swollen body, a vast bloated bag, swaying and sagging between her legs; its great bulk was black, blotched with livid marks, but the belly underneath was pale and luminous and gave forth a stench. Her legs were bent, with great knobbed joints high above her back, and hairs that stuck out like steel spines, and at each leg's end there was a claw.' Never read a more superb, but utterly horrifying description of personified evil.