Smaug

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For other uses, see Smaug (disambiguation).

Smaug
Dragon
GenderMale
Book(s)

Smaug (

worm".[T 2]

Critics have identified close parallels with what they presume are sources of Tolkien's inspiration, including the

Fafnir, who proposes a betrayal to Sigurd.[2] A further source may be Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's 1855 poem The Song of Hiawatha, where Megissogwon, the spirit of wealth, is protected by an armoured shirt, but whose one weak spot is revealed by a talking bird.[3] Commentators have noted Smaug's devious, vain, and proud character,[4] and his aggressively polite way of speaking, like the British upper class.[5]

Smaug was voiced and interpreted with performance capture by Benedict Cumberbatch in Peter Jackson's film adaptations of The Hobbit.

Story

Men retreated to the Long Lake, where they built Lake-town of houses on stilts, surrounded by water to guard against the dragon.[T 3]

'The King under the Mountain is dead and where are his kin that dare seek revenge? Girion Lord of Dale is dead, and I have eaten his people like a wolf among sheep, and where are his sons' sons that dare approach me? I kill where I wish and none dare resist. I laid low the warriors of old and their like is not in the world today. Then I was but young and tender. Now I am old and strong, strong, strong, Thief in the Shadows!' he gloated. 'My armour is like tenfold shields, my teeth are swords, my claws spears, the shock of my tail a thunderbolt, my wings a hurricane, and my breath death!'

—J. R. R. Tolkien, The Hobbit[6]

Gandalf realized that Smaug could pose a serious threat if used by Sauron. He therefore agreed to assist a party of Dwarves, led by Thrór's grandson Thorin Oakenshield, who set out to recapture the mountain and kill the dragon. Assuming that Smaug would not recognize the scent of a Hobbit, Gandalf recruited Bilbo Baggins to join the quest.[T 4]

Upon reaching Erebor, the Dwarves sent Bilbo into Smaug's lair, and he was initially successful in stealing a beautiful golden cup as Smaug slept. Knowing the contents of the treasure hoard to the ounce, Smaug quickly realized the cup's absence upon awakening and searched for the thief on the Mountain. Unsuccessful, he returned to his hoard to lie in wait. The Dwarves sent Bilbo down the secret tunnel a second time. Smaug sensed Bilbo's presence immediately, even though Bilbo had rendered himself invisible with the One Ring, and accused the Hobbit (correctly) of trying to steal from him. During his discourse with the dragon, Bilbo noticed a small bare patch on Smaug's jewel-encrusted underbelly, and narrowly escaped. A thrush overheard Bilbo's account of the meeting, and learnt of the bare patch on Smaug's underside.[T 5]

Still enraged, Smaug flew south to Lake-town and set about destroying it. The townsmen's arrows and spears proved useless against the dragon's armoured body. The thrush told Bard the Bowman of Smaug's one weak spot, a bare patch on the dragon's belly. With his last arrow, Bard killed Smaug by shooting into this place.[T 6]

Analysis

The dragon stopped short in his boasting. 'Your information is antiquated', he snapped. 'I am armoured above and below with iron scales and hard gems. No blade can pierce me.'

'I might have guessed it', said Bilbo. 'Truly there can nowhere be found the equal of Lord Smaug the Impenetrable. What magnificence to possess a waistcoat of fine diamonds!'

'Yes, it is rare and wonderful, indeed', said Smaug absurdly pleased. He did not know that the hobbit had already caught a glimpse of his peculiar under-covering on his previous visit, and was itching for a closer view for reasons of his own. The dragon rolled over. 'Look!' he said. 'What do you say to that?'

   'Dazzlingly marvellous! Perfect! Flawless! Staggering!' exclaimed Bilbo aloud, but what he thought inside was: 'Old fool! Why, there is a large patch in the hollow of his left breast as bare as a snail out of its shell!'

—J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit[6]

Character

Beowulf fights his dragon to the death in a 1908 illustration by Joseph Ratcliffe Skelton.

Tolkien made Smaug "more villain than monster", writes the author and biographer Lynnette Porter; he is "devious and clever, vain and greedy, overly confident and proud."[4] The fantasy author Sandra Unerman called Smaug "one of the most individual dragons in fiction".[7] The Tolkien scholar Anne Petty said that "it was love at first sight", describing Smaug as "frightening, but surprisingly knowable".[8]

The Tolkien scholar Tom Shippey notes the "bewilderment" that Smaug spreads: he is enchanted by gold and treasure, and those who come into contact with his powerful presence, what Tolkien describes as "the effect that dragon-talk has on the inexperienced", similarly become bewildered by greed.[5] In Shippey's view, however, the most surprising aspect of Smaug's character is "his oddly circumlocutory mode of speech. He speaks in fact with the characteristic aggressive politeness of the British upper class, in which irritation and authority are in direct proportion to apparent deference or uncertainty."[5] In sharp contrast to this is his vanity in response to flattery, rolling over "absurdly pleased" as Tolkien narrates, to reveal his marvellously armoured belly.[5] Shippey comments that such paradoxes, "the oscillations between animal and intelligent behaviour, the contrast between creaking politeness and plain gloating over murder" join to create Smaug's principal attribute, "wiliness".[5]

The Christian commentator Joseph Pearce describes Smaug's weak spot as his Achilles heel, noting his boastful over-confidence in his own indestructibility, and seeing in the fact that the vulnerability is over his heart a sign that "it is the wickedness of his heart which will lead to his downfall".[9] Pearce likens Smaug's pride to that of Achilles, whose pride leads to the death of his best friend, and of many Greeks; and to the cockerel Chauntecleer in Geoffrey Chaucer's "The Nun's Priest's Tale", where a boastful reply to the flattering fox causes the cockerel's fall.[9]

The Beowulf dragon

Further information:
Beowulf in Middle-earth

From 1925 to 1945, Tolkien was a professor of English Literature at

Oxford University. He was a prominent scholar of the Old English poem Beowulf, on which he gave a lecture at the British Academy in 1936.[T 7] He described the poem as one of his "most valued sources" for The Hobbit.[T 8] Many of Smaug's attributes and behaviour in The Hobbit derive directly from the unnamed "old night-ravager" in Beowulf: great age; winged, fiery, and reptilian[a] form; a stolen barrow within which he lies on his hoard; disturbance by a theft; and violent revenge on the lands all about, flying and attacking at night.[2]

The scholars of English literature Stuart D. Lee and Elizabeth Solopova analyse the parallels between Smaug and the unnamed Beowulf dragon.[2]

Lee and Solopova's comparison of Smaug and the Beowulf dragon[2]
Plot element Beowulf The Hobbit
Aggressive
dragon 		eald uhtsceaða ... hat ond hreohmod ...
Wæs þæs wyrmes wig / wide gesyne

"old twilight-ravager ... hot and fierce-minded" ...
"that worm's war was / widely seen"

 Smaug fiercely attacks Dwarves, Laketown
Gold-greedy
dragon 		hordweard

"treasure-guardian"

 Smaug watchfully sleeps on pile of treasure
Provoking
the dragon 		wæs ða gebolgen / beorges hyrde,
wolde se laða / lige forgyldan
drincfæt dyre.

"was then furious / the barrow's keeper
wanted the enemy / with fire to revenge
precious drinking-cup."

 Smaug enraged when Bilbo steals golden cup
Night-flying
dragon 		nacod niðdraca, nihtes fleogeð
fyre befangen

"naked hate-dragon, flying by night,
wreathed in fire"

 Smaug attacks Laketown with fire, by night
Well-protected
dragon's lair 		se ðe on heaum hofe / hord beweotode,
stanbeorh steapne; stig under læg,
eldum uncuð.

"the one who on high heath / hoard watched
steep stone-barrow / the path up to it
unknown to any."

 Secret passage to Smaug's lair and mound of treasure in stone palace under Mount Erebor
Accursed
dragon-gold 		hæðnum horde

"a heathen hoard"

 The treasure provokes
Battle of Five Armies

Fafnir

Fafnir. Wood-carving in Hylestad Stave Church
, 12th–13th century.
Further information:
Fafnir

Smaug's ability to speak, the use of riddles, the element of betrayal, his enemy's communication via birds, and his weak spot could all have been inspired by the talking

Fafnir of the Völsunga saga.[7] Shippey identified several points of similarity between Smaug and Fafnir.[2]

Fafnir[2]
Plot element Fáfnismál The Hobbit
Killing the dragon
Fafnir
's belly 		Bard the Bowman shoots Smaug in the belly
Riddling to the dragon Sigurd does not give his name, but replies in a riddle that he has no mother or father Bilbo does not give his name, but gives himself riddling names like "clue-finder", "web-cutter", "barrel-rider"[T 5]
Dragon suggests betrayal Fafnir turns Sigurd against Regin Smaug suggests Bilbo should not trust
Dwarves
Talking to birds Dragon-blood lets Sigurd understand bird language: the
nuthatches
say Regin wants to betray him 		A thrush hears Bilbo talk about Smaug's weakness, and tells Bard the Bowman

Old English spell

Further information: Philology and Middle-earth
"A low philological jest"[T 8]
Old English Plain meaning Alternatively
smugan, sméogan[11] "to creep, to squeeze through a hole" "to think out, to scrutinise"
wyrm "worm" "lizard, reptile, dragon"
spell (on line 3)
wid smeogan wyrme[12]
[Book of] Remedies
"against a penetrating worm"[12]
 "against a crafty dragon"

Tolkien noted, in a joking letter that he was surprised to see published in

dwarves.[14]

The Song of Hiawatha

Detail of wampum bead girdle

Tolkien's biographer John Garth notes the similarity between Smaug's death from Bard's last arrow and the death of Megissogwon in Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's 1855 poem The Song of Hiawatha. Megissogwon was the spirit of wealth, protected by an armoured shirt of wampum beads.[b] Hiawatha shoots in vain, until he has only three arrows left. Mama the woodpecker sings to Hiawatha where Megissogwon's only weak point is, the tuft of hair on his head, just as Tolkien's thrush tells Bard where to shoot at Smaug.[3]

Illustrations

Tolkien created numerous pencil sketches and two pieces of more detailed artwork portraying Smaug. The latter were a detailed ink and watercolour labelled Conversation with Smaug and a rough coloured pencil and ink sketch entitled Death of Smaug.[16][17][18] While neither of these appeared in the original printing of The Hobbit due to cost constraints, both have been included in subsequent editions, particularly Conversation with Smaug. Death of Smaug was used for the cover of a UK paperback edition of The Hobbit.[19]

Adaptations

Animated films

Rankin/Bass animated film of The Hobbit[20]

A dragon named 'Slag' features in Gene Deitch's brief 1967 animated film.[21]

Francis de Wolff voiced the red dragon in the long-lost 1968 BBC radio dramatization.[22]

Rankin/Bass.[23] Austin Gilkeson calls the film's depiction of Smaug "distinctly feline" as he has cat-like eyes and whiskers "and a lush mane".[20] Gilkeson comments that the result does not resemble Western dragons, but that it works well, not least because Smaug's nature as an "intelligent, deadly, greedy" and lazy predator is in his view "very cat-like".[20]

The Hobbit (film series)

Smaug as depicted in Peter Jackson's The Hobbit trilogy, with voice and motion-capture by Benedict Cumberbatch

Smaug was voiced and interpreted with

Asian dragons as inspirations to create Smaug.[25] The Telegraph stated that Cumberbatch had "the authority to make of Smaug a cunning nemesis".[26]

In the first film,

White Council as Gandalf's reason to support Thorin Oakenshield's quest.[27]

Smaug appears in the second film, The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug. In an interview with Joe Letteri, Smaug's design was changed to the wyvern-like form shown in the film after the crew saw how Benedict Cumberbatch performed Smaug while moving around on all four limbs.[28]

In The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies, Smaug attacks Lake-town. He is killed by Bard with a black arrow and his body falls on the boat carrying the fleeing Master of Lake-town. It is later revealed that Smaug's attack on Erebor was all part of Sauron's design, meaning that Smaug and Sauron were in league with each other.[29][30]

Smaug was considered one of the highlights of the second film of the series; several critics hailed him as cinema's greatest dragon. Critics also praised the visual effects company Weta Digital and Cumberbatch's vocal and motion-capture performance for giving Smaug a fully realized personality, "hiss[ing] out his words with cold-blooded vitriol".[31][32]

Video games

In the 2014 video game

Lego The Hobbit, the portrayal departs more from the book; rather than ever more closely simulating the book's characters, the scholar Carol L. Robinson notes, the technology has allowed new fiction to be created.[33]

In culture

An Air New Zealand aircraft in Smaug livery

In 2012, Smaug's wealth was estimated at $61 billion, placing him in the Forbes Fictional 15.[34]

In 2011, scientists named a genus of southern African girdled lizards, Smaug.[35] The lizards were so named after the fictional dragon for being armoured, dwelling underground, and native to Tolkien's birthplace, Bloemfontein.[36] In 2015, a new species of shield bug was named Planois smaug, because of its size and its status "sleeping" in the researcher's collections for about 60 years until it was discovered.[37][38]

See also

Notes

  1. ^ The Old English word wyrm, used repeatedly in Beowulf for the flying dragon, has the dictionary meaning of reptile, serpent, or dragon.[10] Tolkien accordingly uses "worm" of Smaug in The Hobbit.[T 9]
  2. ^ Jeff Thompson drew illustrations of Megissogwon's wampum shirt deflecting arrows for National Geographic.[15]

References

Primary

  1. ^ Tolkien 1996, "The Appendix on Languages"
  2. ^ Tolkien 1937, Chapter 1: An Unexpected Party
  3. ^ Tolkien 1955, Appendix A:III "Durin's Folk"
  4. ^ Tolkien 1980, Part III, Chapter 3: The Quest of Erebor
  5. ^ a b Tolkien 1937, Chapter 12: Inside Information
  6. ^ Tolkien 1937, Chapter 14: Fire and Water
  7. ISBN 978-0-04-809019-5
    .
  8. ^
    ISBN 978-0-35-865298-4
    .
  9. ^ Tolkien 1937, chapter 1: An Unexpected Party

Secondary

  1. ^ "Timeline/Third Age". Tolkien Gateway. Archived from the original on 24 July 2023. Retrieved 24 July 2023.
  2. ^
    ISBN 978-1-40394-671-3
    .
  3. ^ a b Garth, John (9 December 2014). "Tolkien's death of Smaug: American inspiration revealed". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 1 July 2018. Retrieved 1 July 2018.
  4. ^
    ISBN 978-0-7864-5795-3
    .
  5. ^
    ISBN 978-0-26110-275-0
    .
  6. ^ a b Tolkien 1937, Chapter 12: "Inside Information".
  7. ^
    S2CID 216644043
    .
  8. ISBN 978-0979270093
    .
  9. ^
    ISBN 978-1-61890-122-4
    .
  10. ^ Clark Hall, J. R. (2002) [1894]. A Concise Anglo-Saxon Dictionary (4th ed.). University of Toronto Press. p. 365.
  11. ^ a b Bosworth, Joseph; Bosworth Northcote, T. (2018). "smúgan". An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary. Prague: Charles University. Archived from the original on 3 December 2013. Retrieved 29 November 2013.
  12. ^
    MS. Harley 585, ff. 136b, 137a (11th century) (Lacnunga
    ).
  13. ^ Clark Hall, J. R. (2002) [1894]. A Concise Anglo-Saxon Dictionary (4th ed.). University of Toronto Press. p. 311.
  14. ^ Shippey, Tom (13 September 2002). "Tolkien and Iceland: The Philology of Envy". Archived from the original on 14 October 2007.
  15. ^ Thompson, Jeff (2001). "Hiawatha & Megissogwon". National Geographic. Archived from the original on 24 October 2020. Retrieved 23 February 2020.
  16. ^ "JRR Tolkien artwork on display for first time". BBC. 1 June 2018. Archived from the original on 24 February 2020. Retrieved 24 February 2020.
  17. ISBN 978-0-00744-081-8
    .
  18. ^ "In Focus: The hand-drawn maps from which JRR Tolkien launched Middle-earth". Country Life. 10 August 2018. Archived from the original on 24 February 2020. Retrieved 24 February 2020.
  19. George Allen & Unwin
    1975 Third Edition (Paperback)... 1975... Cover illustration of Death of Smaug
  20. ^
    Tor.com. Archived
    from the original on 26 October 2023. Retrieved 26 October 2023.
  21. ISBN 9781119656029
    .
  22. ^ "The Hobbit Full Cast Radio Drama". Internet Archive. Retrieved 24 February 2020.
  23. ^ Harvey, Ryan (29 March 2011). "The Hobbit: The 1977 Animated Television Movie". Black Gate. Archived from the original on 26 February 2020. Retrieved 26 February 2020.
  24. ^ Fleming, Mike Jr. (16 June 2011). "Benedict Cumberbatch To Voice Smaug in 'The Hobbit'". Deadline. Los Angeles, California: Penske Media Corporation. Archived from the original on 19 June 2011. Retrieved 19 June 2011.
  25. Gannett Company. Archived
    from the original on 2 December 2015. Retrieved 12 September 2017.
  26. ^ "Benedict Cumberbatch's career in pictures: from Hawking to The Child in Time". The Daily Telegraph. 24 September 2017. Archived from the original on 20 September 2017. Retrieved 31 May 2020.
  27. ^ Fleming, Mike (16 June 2011). "Benedict Cumberbatch To Voice Smaug in 'The Hobbit'". Deadline.com. Archived from the original on 18 January 2013. Retrieved 8 January 2013.
  28. ^ Sullivan, Kevin P. (20 December 2013). "What Happened To Smaug's Other Legs? 'Hobbit' FX Expert Explains". MTV. Archived from the original on 29 December 2019. Retrieved 24 February 2020.
  29. ^ Hughes, Mark (8 December 2013). "Review - 'The Hobbit: The Desolation Of Smaug' Is Middle-Earth Magic". Forbes. Archived from the original on 1 July 2018. Retrieved 1 July 2018.
  30. ^ Corliss, Richard (9 December 2013). "'The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug': It Lives!". Time. Meredith Corporation. Archived from the original on 28 August 2018. Retrieved 1 July 2018.
  31. ^ De Semlyen, Nick (6 December 2013). "The Hobbit: The Desolation Of Smaug Movie Review". Empire. Bauer Media Group. Archived from the original on 13 December 2013. Retrieved 1 July 2018.
  32. Viacom. Archived
    from the original on 5 February 2014. Retrieved 1 July 2018.
  33. ISBN 978-1-350-02161-7
    .
  34. ^ "Smaug". Forbes. 2012. Archived from the original on 29 July 2017. Retrieved 8 July 2012.
  35. ^ "Protect and Prosper". American Museum of Natural History. Archived from the original on 16 November 2015. Retrieved 30 August 2015.
  36. PMID 20816817
    .
  37. Entomology Today. Annapolis, Maryland: Entomological Society of America. Archived
    from the original on 21 March 2016. Retrieved 20 March 2016.
  38. doi:10.4067/s0718-686x2015000100013
    .

Sources

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