How to Slay a Dragon

How, or with what, did Sigurd then slay his dragon?

Sigurd slew the dragon by stabbing him one time with the sword we see here on the gravestone. The sword is large, pictured as long as the dragon’s head – raised up in Sigurd’s hand as he runs towards Fafnir to slay him. This sword was a reforged sword named Gram (Gramr in Old Norse) – it was made from a sword owned by Sigurd’s father Sigmund, which was mended and used to kill both King Lyngvi and Fafnir. For more information, see https://criticsrant.com/things-to-know-about-sigurds-gram-sword-from-norse-mythology/

The weapons in Tolkien’s fiction also have names – and the swords in The Hobbit are no exception.

The travelling party acquire two swords from a troll-lair, and these have runes carved into them. Elrond tells them which swords they possess:

“These are old swords, very old swords of the High Elves of the West, my kin. They were made in Gondolin for the Goblin-wars. They must have come from a dragon’s hoard or goblin plunder, for dragons and goblins destroyed that city many ages ago. This, Thorin, the runes name Orcrist, the Goblin-cleaver in the ancient tongue of Gondolin; it was a famous blade. This, Gandalf, was Glamdring the Foehammer that the king of Gondolin wore. Keep them well!” See Tolkien, J.R.R. The Hobbit. George Allen & Unwin Ltd, 1966, p. 48.

The goblins have different names for these swords: they call them Biter and Beater – for they recognize the swords, and one must have stabbed them while the other beat them.

Bilbo himself also comes into possession of a sword, which he names Sting after he has used the sword to escape from the spiders in Mirkwood.

Yet not one of these three elven-blades kills Smaug. The dragon was felled by an arrow, and crashed upon Laketown. This arrow is Black arrow, and was the last arrow Bard had in his possession – one passed on from his father and his ancestors before him.

Thus, both Fafnir and Smaug were killed by being struck by a family heirloom – the sword Gram and the Black arrow. The passing down from father to son lends the weapons a kind of gravity – and perhaps that was what was needed to kill the fearsome foes.