Content deleted Content added
m Clean up duplicate template arguments using findargdups |
→Scatha: wl |
||
| (16 intermediate revisions by 9 users not shown) | |||
Line 1:
{{good article}}
{{Short description|Race from J. R. R. Tolkien's legendarium}}
{{Redirect|Glaurung|the genus of fossil reptiles|Glaurung (reptile)}}
Line 15 ⟶ 16:
Dragons appear in the early stories of ''[[The Book of Lost Tales]]'', including the mechanical war-dragons of ''[[The Fall of Gondolin]]''. Tolkien went on to create Smaug, a powerful and terrifying adversary, in ''[[The Hobbit]]''; dragons are only mentioned in passing in ''[[The Lord of the Rings]]''.
Tolkien's conception of the dragon has been adopted both in games loosely based on his Middle-earth writings, and by other [[fantasy]] authors. Several taxa have been named after Tolkien's dragons, including both extinct and living species. Several [[taxa]],
== Development ==
[[File:Hylestad I, right - Fafnir and Sigurd.jpg|thumb|upright|[[Sigurd]] kills the dragon [[Fafnir]]. Wood-carving in [[Hylestad Stave Church]], 12th–13th century. Smaug resembles Fafnir in several respects.<ref name="Shippey 2001"/>]]
Dragons are already present in ''[[The Book of Lost Tales]]''. Tolkien had been fascinated with dragons since childhood.<ref name="Fairy-Stories" group=T>[[J. R. R. Tolkien|Tolkien, J. R. R.]] (1947), ''[[On Fairy-Stories]]'', [[Unwin Paperbacks]] (1975), p. 44; {{ISBN|0 04 820015 8}}</ref> As well as "dragon", Tolkien called them "drake" (from [[Old English]] ''draca'', in turn from [[Latin]] ''draco'' and [[Greek language|Greek]] {{lang|grc|δράκων}}), and "worm" (from Old English ''wyrm'', "serpent", "dragon").<ref name="Turambar" group=T>{{harvnb|Tolkien|1984b}}, ch. 2 "[[Túrin Turambar|Turambar]] and the Foalókë"</ref> Tolkien named four dragons in his [[Middle-earth]] writings. Like the [[Old Norse]] dragon [[Fafnir]], they are able to speak, and can be subtle of speech.<ref name="Shippey 2001">{{cite book |last=Shippey |first=Tom |author-link=Tom Shippey |title=[[J. R. R. Tolkien: Author of the Century]] |date=2001 |publisher=HarperCollins |isbn=978-0261-10401-3 |pages=36–37}}</ref><ref name="Lee Solopova 2005">{{cite book |last1=Lee |first1=Stuart D. |author1-link=Stuart D. Lee |last2=Solopova |first2=Elizabeth |author2-link=Elizabeth Solopova |title=The Keys of Middle-earth: Discovering Medieval Literature Through the Fiction of J. R. R. Tolkien |title-link=The Keys of Middle-earth |date=2005 |publisher=Palgrave |isbn=978-
== Characteristics ==
Line 35 ⟶ 36:
=== Ancalagon the Black ===
{{main|Ancalagon The Black}}
[[File:BlalockAncalagontheBlack.jpg|thumb|upright|A painting of Ancalagon the Black]]
Line 42 ⟶ 43:
=== Scatha ===
Scatha was a mighty "long-worm" of the [[Ered Mithrin|Grey Mountains]].<ref group=T>{{harvnb|Tolkien|1955}}, Appendix A, "The House of Eorl"</ref> Little is known of Scatha except that he was slain by [[Fram (Middle-earth)|Fram]] in the early days of the [[Éothéod]], the ancestors of the [[Rohan, Middle-earth|Riders of Rohan]]. Scatha's name was likely taken from [[Anglo-Saxon language|Anglo-Saxon]] ''sceaða'', "injurious person, criminal, thief, assassin".<ref group=T>[[J. R. R. Tolkien|Tolkien, J. R. R.]] (1967), ''[[Translations of The Lord of the Rings#Tolkien's Guide to the Names in The Lord of the Rings|Nomenclature of The Lord of the Rings]]'', in [[Wayne G. Hammond]] & [[Christina Scull]] (2005), ''[[The Lord of the Rings: A Reader's Companion]]'', HarperCollins, p. 762; {{ISBN|0 00 720308 X}}</ref> After slaying Scatha, Fram's ownership of his recovered hoard was then disputed by the [[Dwarf (Middle-earth)|Dwarves]] of that region. Fram rebuked this claim, sending them instead Scatha's teeth, with the words, "Jewels such as these you will not match in your treasuries, for they are hard to come by." This led to his death in a feud with the Dwarves. The Éothéod retained at least some of the hoard, and brought it south with them when they settled in [[Rohan (Middle-earth)|Rohan]]. The silver horn that [[Éowyn]] gave to [[Merry Brandybuck]] after the [[War of the Ring]], crucial in [[The Scouring of the Shire#Wish-fulfilment|The Scouring of the Shire]], came from this hoard.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Drout |first1=Michael D. C. |author-link=Michael Drout |last2=Hitotsubashi |first2=Namiko |last3=Scavera |first3=Rachel |title=Tolkien's Creation of the Impression of Depth |journal=[[Tolkien Studies]] |volume=11 |issue=1 |year=2014 |pages=167–211
=== Smaug ===
Line 57 ⟶ 58:
Tolkien's dragons were inspired by medieval stories, including those about [[Fafnir]] in [[Germanic mythology]]<ref name="Shippey 2001"/> and [[The Beowulf Dragon|the ''Beowulf'' dragon]].<ref name="Lee Solopova 2005"/> The folklorist Sandra Unerman writes that 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 [[Germanic dragon]] [[Fafnir]] of the ''[[Völsunga saga]]''.<ref name="Unerman 2002">{{Cite journal |title=Dragons in Twentieth Century Fiction |last=Unerman |first=Sandra |journal=[[Folklore (journal)|Folklore]] |date=April 2002 |volume=113 |issue=1 |pages=94–101 |jstor=1261010 |doi=10.1080/00155870220125462 |s2cid=216644043 }}</ref>
The scholar of Icelandic literature [[Ármann Jakobsson]] writes that with the encounter with Smaug, the story in ''The Hobbit'' becomes "more unexpected, entangled, [[Tolkien's ambiguity|ambiguous]], and political". He argues that Tolkien was effectively translating the subtext of his Old Norse sources, creating in his dragon a far more subtle, uncanny, and frightening monster than those in the earlier, more or less unconnected, travel narrative episodes.<ref name="Jakobsson 2009">{{cite journal |last=Jakobsson |first=Ármann |author-link=Ármann Jakobsson |title=Talk to the Dragon: Tolkien as Translator |journal=[[Tolkien Studies]] |volume=6 |issue=1 |year=2009 |doi=10.1353/tks.0.0053 |pages=27–39|s2cid=170310560 }}</ref>
The use of dragons as an [[allegorical]] device lasted until the early 20th century. Tolkien makes clear that he prefers the actual dragon, ''draco'' (just meaning "dragon" in Latin<ref>{{cite dictionary |entry=draco |url=http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/resolveform?type=exact&lookup=draco&lang=latin |last1=Lewis |first1=Charlton T. |last2=Short |first2=Charles |year=1879 |title=A Latin Dictionary |publisher=[[Clarendon Press]]}}</ref>), to any kind of abstract or moralising usage, which Tolkien names ''draconitas''.<ref name="Honegger 2009">{{cite book |last1=Honegger |first1=Thomas |author1-link=Thomas Honegger |editor1-last=Chen |editor1-first=Fanfan |editor2-last=Honegger |editor2-first=Thomas |title=Good Dragons are Rare. An Inquiry into Literary Dragons East and West |date=2009 |series=Arbeiten für Literarisches Phantasie ("ALPH") |publisher=Peter Lang |location=Frankfurt |isbn=978-
== Legacy ==
Line 65 ⟶ 66:
=== In games and novels ===
When [[Iron Crown Enterprises]] gained the licensing rights for games made from Tolkien's books, they expanded the selection of named dragons beyond the [[Middle-earth canon]] in both [[Middle-earth Role Playing]]<ref>{{cite book |first1=Ruth Sochard |last1=Pitt |first2=Jeff |last2=O'Hare |first3=Peter C.
Honegger writes that Tolkien's conception of dragons "as intelligent beings with a distinct personality" has been adopted by [[fantasy]] authors with a wide range of styles, including [[Barbara Hambly]], [[Ursula K. Le Guin]], [[Anne McCaffrey]], [[Christopher Paolini]], and [[Jane Yolen]].<ref name="Honegger 2009"/>
Line 72 ⟶ 73:
{{further|List of things named after J. R. R. Tolkien and his works#Named after animals}}
Several taxa have been named after Tolkien's dragons. Two extinct genera have been named after Ancalagon: [[Ancalagon (genus)|a genus of priapulid worms]] from the Cambrian [[Burgess Shale]],<ref>{{cite web |title=''Ancalagon minor'' |url=https://burgess-shale.rom.on.ca/fossils/ancalagon-minor/ |
== References ==
Line 78 ⟶ 79:
=== Primary ===
{{reflist|group=T|28em}}
| |||