A Desire for Dragons

From a young age, Tolkien was fascinated by dragons. He “desired dragons with a profound desire”, For more information, see Evans, Jonathan. “The Dragon-Lore of Middle-earth: Tolkien and Old English and Old Norse Tradition.” In J.R.R. Tolkien and His Literary Resonances: Views of Middle-earth, edited by George Clark and Daniel Timmons, 21-38. Westport: Greenwood Press, 2000, p. 23. and was inspired by “best of all the nameless North of Sigurd of the Völsungs, and the prince of all dragons”. See Evans, Jonathan. “The Dragon-Lore of Middle-earth: Tolkien and Old English and Old Norse Tradition.” In J.R.R. Tolkien and His Literary Resonances: Views of Middle-earth, edited by George Clark and Daniel Timmons, 21-38. Westport: Greenwood Press, 2000, p. 23. It is then no coincidence that many dragons can be found within Tolkien’s work.

Tolkien’s first ever story was already about “a green great dragon”, See Evans, Jonathan. “The Dragon-Lore of Middle-earth: Tolkien and Old English and Old Norse Tradition.” In J.R.R. Tolkien and His Literary Resonances: Views of Middle-earth, edited by George Clark and Daniel Timmons, 21-38. Westport: Greenwood Press, 2000, p. 23. something which he wrote when he was but seven years old. His mother then told him that it should be “a great green dragon”, See Evans, Jonathan. “The Dragon-Lore of Middle-earth: Tolkien and Old English and Old Norse Tradition.” In J.R.R. Tolkien and His Literary Resonances: Views of Middle-earth, edited by George Clark and Daniel Timmons, 21-38. Westport: Greenwood Press, 2000, p. 23. and this word order problem interested Tolkien greatly as well – it is no wonder then that he became a philologist as well as an author, studying the history of language.

We’ve already seen that Tolkien’s poem The Hoard features a dragon, and that The Hobbit has dragon Smaug at the heart of its story. Yet there are more dragons in Tolkien, some of which you might not have heard.

These dragons are Chrysophylax, Ancalagon the Black, Glaurung and Scatha the Worm.

Most of these dragons are a part of Tolkien’s Middle Earth, yet Chrysophylax is not. He is from Farmer Giles of Ham, and he is the only dragon not to be killed within these narratives.

Ancalagon, Glaurung and Scatha were all three slain: Ancalagon was killed by Eärendil, golden Glaurung was slain by Túrin Túrambar, and Scatha was felled by Fram:

“Scatha's hoard, won by Fram, establishes the national treasury of the Rohirrim”. For more information, see Evans, Jonathan. “The Dragon-Lore of Middle-earth: Tolkien and Old English and Old Norse Tradition.” In J.R.R. Tolkien and His Literary Resonances: Views of Middle-earth, edited by George Clark and Daniel Timmons, 21-38. Westport: Greenwood Press, 2000, p. 26.

Here the hoard is of use to the Rohirrim, unlike the hoard in the poem The Hoard – so Scatha’s hoard might not have been so accursed as the other hoards we’ve seen, and the hero Fram’s effort to capture it was not in vain.

Fun Fact: Tolkien used Old English to represent the language of the Rohirrim!