The Hobbit: The Dragon, the Ring and the Confrontation with Nothingness

Avalon Mentors

This is a recording of one of the sessions on Tolkien held this summer, 2021. Of the topics considered, the nature of dragons is paramount. What is a dragon? Tolkien said

"I desired dragons with a profound desire. Of course, I in my timid body did not wish to have them in the neighborhood . . . . But the world that contained even the imagination of Fáfnir was richer and more beautiful, at whatever cost of peril.”

Tolkien's dragons are of the Western variety. Treasure hording, highly intelligent, they cannot ignore riddles but are inhuman in their destructive nature and tend to spread despair & half-truths through their greed and hatred.

The English word, "dragon", derives (via Middle English, Old French, and Latin) from Ancient Greek δράκων drákōn, "serpent, dragon", from δέρκομαι, "I see", ἒδρακον, "I saw", δἐδορκα, "I have seen" (in various senses); hence perhaps "sharp-sighted one"; or because a snake's eyes seem to be always open. The Greek word probably derives from an Indo-European base derk- meaning "to see"; the Sanskrit root dŗç- also means "to see".

Dragons, therefore, have to do with vision, insight, wisdom. They are "the final test of heroes" as professor Tolkien wrote. The encounter with a Western dragon poses a tremendous challenge but the reward for success, as Dr. Jordan Peterson points out, is riches beyond compare.

Bilbo, we find, encounters the dragon under Lonely Mountain, but not necessarily in the way we might expect. Listen in to found out.

Famous Western (European) Dragons

1. Mushkhushshu - Babylonian from Akkadian from Sumerian “MUŠ.ḪUS, 'reddish snake', sometimes also translated as 'fierce snake'. 'splendor serpent' (𒈲 MUŠ is the Sumerian term for 'serpent')

2. Tiamat “salt water” and Apsu “fresh water” vs. Marduk – Enuma Elish

3. “Dragon” (serpent) of Eden

4. The Dragon of Revelation

5. Python vs. Apollo

6. Hydra vs. Herakles

7. Ladon & the tree of the Hesperides (Herakles)

8. Nidoggr & Jormungandr; the middle child of Loki and the giantess Angrboða (Norse Mythology)

9. Fafnir the Dragon & Siegfried (Sigurd) – Volsunga saga

10. Beowulf dragon; referred to as draca and also as a wyrm (worm, or serpent). Its movements are denoted by the Anglo-Saxon verb bugan, "to bend"

11. St. George & the Dragon

12. Red and white dragons of Arthur; Arthur Pendragon = Welsh pen, "head, chief, top" and dragon, "dragon; warrior"

13. Errour & the Knight Redcrosse (1590 Edmund Spenser; “The Faerie Queen”)

Tolkien's Dragons

1. Chrysophylax (Farmer Giles of Ham)

2. Great White Dragon (Roverandom)

3. Glaurung – born by Morgoth, slain by Turin Turambar

4. Ancalagon the Black – born by Morgoth, slain by Earendil

5. Scatha the Worm – slain by Fram

6. The Fire Drake of Gondolin – participated in the fall of Gondolin

7. The Great Cold Drake – slew Dain I and forced dwarves eastward

8. Smaug the Terrible – infests Lonely Mountain, slain by Bard of Dale

9. Balrogs

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