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Glaurung is a dragon in J. R. R. Tolkien's legendarium. He appears in The Silmarillion and is a major antagonist in The Children of Húrin. He is the progenitor of the Urulóki, the fire-drakes created by Morgoth, and is called the "father of dragons".

Concept and creation[edit]

Sigurd kills Fáfnir, by Arthur Rackham

The character was mentioned in the story "The Tale of Tinúviel", but the name first appeared as-written in "Túrin and the Foalókë".[1] Christopher Tolkien's commentary on The Book of Lost Tales is not clear on the exact date at which this first appearance occurs. He writes that "The Tale of Tinúviel" was written in 1917,[2] but that first extant copy of "The Tale of Turambar" probably dates to mid-1919 and precedes the first extant form of "The Tale of Tinúviel".[3] In any case, both these early stories were abandoned prior to the composition of "Túrin Son of Húrin and Glórund the Dragon" and "The Children of Húrin", epic poems cast in alliterative verse which were written in the early 1920s.[4] As manuscripts were successively begun, abandoned, restarted, and recontinued, the dragon's name was changed from Glórund to Glómund and finally to Glaurung.[5]

Glaurung is similar in several respects to Fáfnir of the Volsunga Saga,[6] which Tolkien almost certainly read.[7] Glaurung's death in particular is based on that of Fáfnir.[8] In the Volsunga Saga, the hero Sigurd lays in wait, hidden in a ditch over which Fáfnir must cross. As the dragon passes overhead, Sigurd stabs and mortally wounds him. These circumstances were "expanded to mythic proportions" in The Children of Húrin,[8] where Túrin displays courage "even finer" than Sigurd's.[9] In addition to his mode of death, Glaurung's "evil wisdom, [his] love of lies and gold (which [he] may not use or enjoy), and the knowledge of tongues which Men say would come from eating a dragon's heart" are references to the Norse legend.[10]

Characteristics[edit]

In The Children of Húrin, Glauring is large and serpent-like. He is flightless, unlike later dragons of Middle-earth, but has at least two powerful forearms. During a pivotal moment in the story of Túrin, Glaurung is able to cross a ravine by hurling his front parts over the chasm and dragging the rest of his sagging bulk across. The "father of dragons",[11] he is the first of the Urulóki, the fire-drakes, and is described as having "seven tongues of fire".[12] He has an extremely tough upper hide, but his Achilles' heel is a soft underbelly which is pale, wrinkled, slimy, and stinks overwhelmingly of death. His blood is caustic and venomous.

Glaurung is intelligent, articulate, and has power over the minds of others. This hypnotic ability is associated with his eyes, and is native to the evil spirit inside him. The creative evolution of this spirit from the early work Narn i Chîn Húrin to the latter Grey Annals is evident in Tolkien's manuscripts. In The War of the Jewels, Christopher Tolkien states:

In the passage in [Narn i Chîn Húrin] describing the eyes of Glaurung when Nienor came face to face with him on the hill-top, the words 'They were terrible, being filled with the fell spirit of Morgoth, his master' contain an editorial alteration: the manuscript reads 'the fell spirit of Morgoth, who made him.' My father underlined the last three words in pencil, and faintly and barely legibly at the foot of the page he noted: 'Glaurung must be a demon [??contained in worm form].'[13]

This change seems to stem from Tolkien's then-emerging view that Melkor is unable to create new life—he can only manipulate or corrupt.[14]

References[edit]

  1. ^ Tolkien 1984, The Book of Lost Tales, 2, Commentary on The Tale of Turambar, p.125
  2. ^ Tolkien 1984, The Book of Lost Tales, 2, The Tale of Tinúviel, p.1"
  3. ^ Tolkien 1984, The Book of Lost Tales, 2, Turambar and the Foalókë, p.69"
  4. ^ Tolkien 2007, The Children of Húrin, Appendix, p.269
  5. ^ Tolkien, J. R. R. (1994). Christopher Tolkien (ed.). The War of the Jewels. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. ISBN 0-395-71041-3.
  6. ^ Tolkien Studies. West Virginia University Press. 2009. p. 276. Retrieved 28 June 2013.
  7. ^ Paul Harold Kocher (1980). A reader's guide to The Silmarillion. Houghton Mifflin. ISBN 978-0-395-28950-1. Retrieved 28 June 2013.
  8. ^ a b Anne C. Petty (18 May 2004). Dragons of fantasy. Cold Spring Press. p. 43–. ISBN 978-1-59360-010-5. Retrieved 28 June 2013.
  9. ^ Randel Helms; John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (16 March 1981). Tolkien and the Silmarils. Houghton Mifflin. p. 10. ISBN 978-0-395-29469-7. Retrieved 28 June 2013.
  10. ^ J.R.R. Tolkien (15 February 2012). The Book of Lost Tales: Part Two. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. pp. 183–. ISBN 978-0-547-95206-2. Retrieved 28 June 2013.
  11. ^ Tolkien, J. R. R. (2007). Christopher Tolkien (ed.). The Children of Húrin. London: HarperCollins. p. 303. ISBN 0-007-24622-6.
  12. ^ Tolkien, J. R. R. (2007). Christopher Tolkien (ed.). The Children of Húrin. London: HarperCollins. p. 236. ISBN 0-007-24622-6.
  13. ^ Tolkien, J. R. R. (1994). Christopher Tolkien (ed.). The War of the Jewels. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. p. 150. ISBN 0-395-71041-3.
  14. ^ Tolkien, J. R. R. (1994). Christopher Tolkien (ed.). The War of the Jewels. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. p. 150. ISBN 0-395-71041-3.
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