Glaurung
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Dragons of Middle-earth |
|---|
| Ancalagon |
| Glaurung |
| Scatha |
| Smaug |
Glaurung was the first and greatest of the land-bound fire-breathing Dragons, in J. R. R. Tolkien's fictional Middle-earth legendarium. He was known as the Deceiver, the Golden, and the Worm of Greed.
Glaurung was a very powerful dragon. He was not the largest of dragons, but still very cunning, and he at times used his abilities to achieve his desired ends without resorting to direct physical violence (at which he was equally proficient). Glaurung appears to have been more cunning than the Balrog Gothmog, a contemporary in the hierarchy of Morgoth. Like Sauron, another of his contemporaries, it was his nature to trick and deceive, and to spread lies and deceptions so cleverly that they could not be discovered until it was too late. In this manner, he accomplished much more damage than he could have with brute force, and caused the destruction of the Elven stronghold of Nargothrond and the suicide of mankind's greatest hero to date, Túrin Turambar. He caused amnesia in Túrin's sister Nienor, and since neither recognized the other when they met (Nienor was born after Túrin had left home), she eventually married her brother. Glaurung himself was slain by Túrin's blade Gurthang before he committed suicide.
Glaurung was called Father of Dragons. It is not known with certainty, but it is largely suspected that he sired the rest of his race (or at least of his own sub-species, the Úruloki: wingless firebreathing dragons). He was bred by Morgoth from some unknown stock and was the first dragon to appear outside of Angband. This first appearance occurred during the Siege of Angband in 265 (First Age), when he came forth to attack, but too early because he was still young and immature. He was defeated and driven back to Angband by mounted Elven archers.
After the sack of Nargothrond, he made a nest of treasure in the abandoned tunnels of the city. It is likely that he is the dragon that appears in Tolkien's poem "The Hoard" in The Adventures of Tom Bombadil, which seems to be based on the events at Nargothrond. The memory of Glaurung lives on in the many creatures that he apparently sired.
In the real-time strategy game The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-earth II, chiefly based on the The Lord of the Rings film trilogy directed by Peter Jackson, playing an evil faction allows one to uses "Wyrms", snakelike dragons. They could have some sort of relationship with Glaurung, as they are both ground-dwelling dragons, and one of Glaurung's names is the "Worm of Greed". Note that wyrm is the Old English form of "worm", an archaic term for "dragon", but Tolkien does not use the spelling with a y.
