"...There agelong she had dwelt, an
evil thing in spider-form, even such as once of old had lived in the Land of the
Elves in the West that is now under the Sea, such as
Beren fought in the
Mountains of Terror in
Doriath, and so came
Luthien upon the green sward amid the hemlocks in the moonlight long ago. How Shelob came there, flying from ruin, no tale tells, for out of the Dark years few
tales have come. But still she was there, who was there before
Sauron, and before the first stone of
Barad-dur; and she served none but herself, drinking the blood of Elves and
Men, bloated and grown fat with endless brooding on her feasts, weaving webs of shadow; for all living things were her
food, and her vomit darkness.
Far and wide her lesser broods, bastards of the miserable mates, her own offspring, that she slew, spread from glen to glen, from the Ephel Duath to the eastern hills, to Dol Guldur and the fastness of Mirkwood. But none could rival her, Shelob the Great,
last child of Ungoliant to trouble the unhappy world..."