Unveiling the mystery of 🕷️Shelob's origins.

Dear, dear, Luthien. I don't know how to say this other than through bluntess: you are crazy!!!

Not far down the tunnel, between them and the opening where they had reeled and stumbled, [Frodo] was aware of eyes growing visible, two great clusters of many-windowed eyes - the coming menace was unmasked at last.

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IT SAYS RIGHT THERE THAT THEY WERE TWO CLUSTERS OF MANY-WINDOWED EYES!

There's no other way to interpret that. She had two clusters (groups) of eyes.

Now as to her being completely spider-like or not, spiders generally aren't three stories tall. I'm willing to cut Tolkien some slack on that, as Shelob was a monster in 'spider-form', not a spider as we think of them today. And if he meant for her to be a true spider, than perhaps spiders in Middle earth had two clusters of many eyes.

MANY EYES

I'm not overreacting, I'm only stating that Tolkien specifically states that she had many eyes... to argue against it is strange. That's like saying Galadriel had black hair, though Tolkien said many times how golden it was!

Lúthien is of course correct as regards spider's eyes in our world.

Almost all spiders have 8 eyes, some families have 6. I did a report on spiders on my first year on Univ... good memories .

I don't think Tolkien knew or did any research on spider's eyes to write his description of Shelob. And I think it possible that she inherited some weird traits from Ungoliant (which was clearly not a mere spider -- more like a spider-shaped monster). Ungoliant "mated with spiders", so Shelob is most likely a hybrid between spiders and "something" (we don't know the status of Ungoliant, and I don't subscribe to the theory that "if we don't know it, it's a Maia" ).

In any case, I think it very unlikely that Tolkien would research books on spiders to write his description. And I also think it reasonable for a layman to confuse spider eyes with insect eyes (how many of you ever looked a spider in its eyes? ). Spider's eyes don't come in clusters... at most, they come in pairs.

I got some spider eye arrangements for you.

I think that both Dain & Lanty and Luthien Seregon are correct. Obviously Shelob is not completely a spider. This is because Shelob's father was not a spider, but some other foul creature that lived in Nan Dungortheb (see my post at the top of page 3). This, I think, is the point that Luthien was trying to make. She was trying to point out un-spider-like traits of Shelob, and used the eye thing as an example.

Good example or not, judging by the quotes Dain and Lanty have provided, I would say that there were two clusters of eyes, not just two.

Perhaps there were two great clusters of eyes, with one "great eye" in the middle of each?

Originally posted by Lúthien Séregon
And why would they ( spiders of ME ) have two clusters of eyes, and why would they be "many-windowed"? My point was, how is she a spider if she had a completely different facial anatomy to one? There’s no need to overreact, I just made a scientific point that Shelob wasn’t quite a spider.

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A good point. I think that IF Shelob's facial anatomy is different to a spider, then this is a trait she has "inherited" (again see my post at the top of page 3) from her father, not her mother.

Originally posted by Lúthien Séregon
You know, tying in with the thread, what is Shelob, spider/monster/maia, etc?

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A better question to ask is "what is Ungoliant?". There is much information about this on the other couple of pages of this thread...it's very interesting. But basically we've concluded (I think ) that IF Ungoliant can be classified as either a Maia, Vala, Creature or anything other than just a very powerful spirit, then she is a Maia.

Assuming Ungoliant is a Maia, then Shelob is part-Maia and part-something else yucky. The yucky thing, her father, was just a foul creature that lived in Nan Dungortheb, and was of less power to Ungoliant. Thus, Shelob is less powerful than Ungoliant, but still very powerful - the most powerful of Ungoliant's offspring seemingly.

Again, if you want more in-depth info about all this, I'd reccomend reading the first couple of pages of this thread.

Yep I think that's a possibility as well Luthien. I guess that there are a lot of things regarding Shelob that we can only speculate on - this is a good example of one.

This thread is interesting. You know what I find disgusting though, is that Shelobs' father is a monster of some sort who mated with spiders. That's just gross. I dont care if you're a monster or not. SPIDERS??? Come on! That's disgusting! Were the spiders he mated or possibly mated(unless you're sure he mated with them) big like Shelob?

As Lanty stated some time ago Ungoliant probably found a lesser Maia or other kind of spirit.But was Shelob the only child of Ungoliant.Was Shelob mother of the spiders in Mirkwood and who was the father?
Interesting questions I think.

The father was a small wimp of a spider, as all male spiders are, and was eaten by Shelob ages before she met Frodo.

haha Eriol.
But yeah just to clarify, Ungoliant was almost certainly female (Ungoliant is referred to as 'she' in the Silmarillion), and would therefore be the mother, not the father, of her offspring.

originally posted by Lúthien Seregon
You know, tying in with the thread, what is Shelob, spider/monster/maia, etc?

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Well, my interpretation of Shelob's (and Ungoliant's) nature is given on the previous page.

As for the Mirkwood spiders, in my aforementioned psot I said "And another theory of mine is that the Great Spiders of Mirkwood were of the offspring of Shelob, who had even less Maia-essense in them"..
So basically, I see it like this: Ungoliant fled from Melkor's Valaraukar and dwelt in Nan Dungortheb. She mated with the creatures of Melkor there, and produced huge numbers of offspring.
Now, the first 'child' of Ungoliant (with some Maia-essense but less than Ungoliant herself) further mated with other creatures. That offspring mated with the other creatures, and so on. And each time that a descendant of Ungoliant mated with a creature with no Maia-essense, the offspring of that mating would possess less of it.
So as I see it, the Mirkwood spiders were probably descendants of Ungoliant; although there is absolutely nothing to back that up. How would the spiders have managed to migrate from Beleriand to Middle-earth, hundreds of thousands of miles??
So maybe Sauron, retaining some of the 'lore' taught to him by Melkor, bred the species of Great Spiders and set them purposefully in Mirkwood to spread fear and terror in the great forest, so that nobody would accidentally find his hidden fortress there.
But Sauron obviously possessed far less technical cunning and power than Melkor, being a Maia and not a Vala in stature, so the creatures that he bred would not be as seeped in Maia-essense (if indeed at all) as their 'forebearers' of Nan Dungortheb.

Now then again, it is also possible (and IMO more probable) that the Great Spiders of Mirkwood were really the offspring of Shelob, who Sauron simply stole and 'employed' into his service.

Ungoliant's nature...

It is somewhat problematic trying to "categorize" Ungoliant as a Maia. In Tolkien's earliest tales he had envisaged her as a primeval spirit of a doubtful origin:

...for here dwelt the primeval spirit Móru whom even the Valar know not whence or when she came, and the folk of Earth have given her many names. Mayhap she was bred of mists and darkness on the confines of the Shadowy Seas, in that utter dark that came between the overthrow of the Lamps and the kindling of the Trees, but more like she has always been; and she it is who loveth still to dwell in that black place taking the guise of an unlovely spider, spinning a clinging gossamer of gloom that catches in its mesh stars and moons and all bright things that sail the airs.

The Book of LostTales I - "The Theft of Melko"

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It should be noted that this was written long before the conception of Maiar had taken their final shape in Tolkien's mind (Maiar in their final form do not appear in Tolkien's writings before "The Annals of Aman" which were probably written somewhen in the 1950s).
But even in the published Silmarillion Ungoliant's origin remains somewhat doubtful and is only indirectly explained:

The Eldar knew not whence she came; but some have said that in ages long before she descended from the darkness that lies about Arda, when Melkor first looked down in envy upon the Kingdom of Manwë, and that in the beginning she was one of those that he corrupted to his service.

The Silmarillion - "Of the Darkening of Valinor"

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And though the description of Ungoliant's origin had undergone several changes (...out of the darkness of Ea..., and ...from the Outer Darkness, maybe, that lies in Ea beyond the walls of the World...), I am not sure there is an instance where it is stated that Ungoliant came from outside Eä (the creation or the world)

Female spiders have always been more dominant than males. It is safe to assume that Shelob was more of an arboreal spider like a black widow, since she lived in mountains. Female black widows usually devour their husband after mating, hence the name "widow". I also think it is ridiculous that PJ decided to model Shelob after a tunnel web spider for these reasons.

That is true that female black widows devour their husband after mating with them. I dont know why. I think I heard why, but am not sure. It's sad that the males have fun mating to then die by their mate after. That's not fair.

Originally posted by Eriol
The father was a small wimp of a spider, as all male spiders are, and was eaten by Shelob ages before she met Frodo.

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Do we know that the father was a spider? I mean, I know it makes sense for Ungoliant to breed with other spiders, but who says she couldn't breed with other creatures? They were all yucky, evil things, and they are constantly referred to as "creatures of Melkor", not "spiders of Melkor" - doesn't this mean that they were creatures other than spiders? And (tell me if I just made this up) I always thought that Ungoliant was the "mother of all spiders" kind of thing.

Originally posted by Lantarion
As for the Mirkwood spiders, in my aforementioned psot I said "And another theory of mine is that the Great Spiders of Mirkwood were of the offspring of Shelob, who had even less Maia-essense in them"..
So basically, I see it like this: Ungoliant fled from Melkor's Valaraukar and dwelt in Nan Dungortheb. She mated with the creatures of Melkor there, and produced huge numbers of offspring.
Now, the first 'child' of Ungoliant (with some Maia-essense but less than Ungoliant herself) further mated with other creatures. That offspring mated with the other creatures, and so on. And each time that a descendant of Ungoliant mated with a creature with no Maia-essense, the offspring of that mating would possess less of it.
So as I see it, the Mirkwood spiders were probably descendants of Ungoliant; although there is absolutely nothing to back that up. How would the spiders have managed to migrate from Beleriand to Middle-earth, hundreds of thousands of miles??
So maybe Sauron, retaining some of the 'lore' taught to him by Melkor, bred the species of Great Spiders and set them purposefully in Mirkwood to spread fear and terror in the great forest, so that nobody would accidentally find his hidden fortress there.
But Sauron obviously possessed far less technical cunning and power than Melkor, being a Maia and not a Vala in stature, so the creatures that he bred would not be as seeped in Maia-essense (if indeed at all) as their 'forebearers' of Nan Dungortheb.

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I understand your point, Lanty, but I don't agree with your theory that Sauron might have 'bred' the spiders of Mirkwood. I believe that the spiders of Mirkwood migrated from Beleriand just as Shelob did. They were all searching for dank, dark places where no light reached. Shelob found Cirith Ungol, and the other spiders found Mirkwood.

For my theory to be true, we must assume that Shelob and the spiders left Beleriand at approximately the same time (just before or after the War of Wrath). Just as Shelob was in Cirith Ungol "before the first stone of the Barad-dur", the spiders were in Mirkwood a long, long time before Dol Guldur was established in southern Mirkwood. This would mean that Sauron could have bred the Great Spiders, as they were already there when he first entered Dol Guldur as the Necromancer.

Originally posted by Lantarion
Now then again, it is also possible (and IMO more probable) that the Great Spiders of Mirkwood were really the offspring of Shelob, who Sauron simply stole and 'employed' into his service.

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I also agree that the spiders of Mirkwood could be Shelob's offpsring, but either way, they all seem to be descendants of Ungoliant somehow.

Ah, Walter found the quote I had been looking for. Although it doesn't completely rule out the idea that Ungoliant is a Maiar, it makes it highly unlikely. Have any of you people saying Ungoliant is a Maiar actually read the Lost Tales? It doesn't even hint at it in the Silmarillion.

And as for Balrogs being Maia... in the Lost Tales, it said that Balrogs were a construction of fire and iron, although the entire concept of Balrogs changed for the Silmarillion, so that is probably invalid. Even so, it's just something to think about.

Also, I had previously thought that the spiders of Rhovanion only appeared during the "darkening," which led to it being called the Mirkwood (Wasn't it Greenwood before, or something? My book isn't handy). It doesn't say that outright in the book, but it seems like the Greenwood(?) was pretty nice and peaceful. Not a place for giant, nasty spiders. If that is the case, either Sauron brought them there himself, or they naturally travelled there, sensing the darkness and evil there. It said that Shelob's offspring lived in Ephel Duath, so I could see Sauron stealing a few and bringing them to Dol Guldur for his purposes.

And as for Balrogs being Maia... in the Lost Tales, it said that Balrogs were a construction of fire and iron, although the entire concept of Balrogs changed for the Silmarillion, so that is probably invalid. Even so, it's just something to think about.

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Yes, I think we have to take the word of the Published Silmarillion when it says that the Balrogs were Maiar - it seems to be considered the authority on all subjects.....it overrules most things in other works of Tolkien (except perhaps LotR).

Also, I had previously thought that the spiders of Rhovanion only appeared during the "darkening," which led to it being called the Mirkwood (Wasn't it Greenwood before, or something? My book isn't handy). It doesn't say that outright in the book, but it seems like the Greenwood(?) was pretty nice and peaceful. Not a place for giant, nasty spiders. If that is the case, either Sauron brought them there himself, or they naturally travelled there, sensing the darkness and evil there. It said that Shelob's offspring lived in Ephel Duath, so I could see Sauron stealing a few and bringing them to Dol Guldur for his purposes.

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I can't remember whether Mirkwood was called Greenwood before the end of the Third Age. I know it was called 'Greenwood the Great' at the end of the Third Age, but I can't remember if it was called that before as well. Due to the fact that I am afflicted by a severe case of laziness I shall not be able to confirm/deny this.

As for Sauron "stealing" spiders, I think it unlikely. How would they be captured, and if so, how would they be transported to Mirkwood and kept under control? I doubt very much that they, being the evil and treacherous creatures that they are, would willingly obey such a master that "kindnapped" them. This quote from TTT might help also:

"his Cat He calls Her, but She owns Him not." (Sauron refers to Shelob as "his Cat")

That's not direct, but it's almost exactly the same. This proves that Shelob was completely independent to Sauron. Therefore wouldn't her offspring also be independent and unwilling to be subservient to one such as Sauron? I think that they would be of like mind to their mother - they would just want to be their own master and eat lots of tasty Elves and Men and the like.

I'm not sure, but I think it says somewhere that she did have a mate, but later killed and ate him , somewhat like the black widow spiders there are today.