The Hobbit deals with the Dwarves trying to reclaim their mountain homeland from the dragon Smaug. During this time, are there other dragons who are alive in Middle Earth?
asked Dec 3, 2017 at 2:37
-
3Are you referring to the film or the book?– ValorumCommented Dec 3, 2017 at 2:41
-
1@Valorum Primarily the book (plus LOTR appendices and such), although any of the film adaptations would be useful supplementary information.– ThunderforgeCommented Dec 3, 2017 at 6:36
-
quora.com/Is-Smaug-the-last-dragon-in-Middle-Earth– ValorumCommented Dec 3, 2017 at 16:09
-
4I've down-voted this because this is just incredibly low effort.– EdlothiadCommented Dec 3, 2017 at 18:55
-
1depending on how you interpret it (see scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/22034/… and discussions about the exact extend of Tolkien's legendarium), you may want to read into en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farmer_Giles_of_Ham and en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smith_of_Wootton_Major; since ME is essentially time-before-time of our Earth, and FGoH (and, SoWM too) happen later on - well, maybe there are still dragons to be found today? ...– user24069Commented Dec 4, 2017 at 4:05
|
Show 1 more comment
1 Answer
I think in The Hobbit "An Unexpected Party" the Dwarves talk shop, including discussing "the depredations of dragons" indicating that Smaug is not the only dragon then active in Middle-earth. In the same chapter is said that a shriek like Bilbo's would awake the dragon and all his relatives.
About 77 years after The Hobbit, in Fellowship of the Ring "The Shadow of the Past", Frodo asks about destroying the One Ring. Gandalf says:
It has been said that dragon-fire could melt and consume the rings of power but there is not now any dragon left on earth in which the old fire is hot enough, nor was there ever any dragon, not even Ancalagon the Black, who could have harmed the One Ring, the Ruling Ring, for that was made by Sauron himself.
So Gandalf believes there are still dragons on earth in the time of Lord of the Rings, just not hot enough to melt rings of power.
in Tolkien's letter 144 to Naomi Mitcheson he said:
…Dragons. They had not stopped; since they were active in far later times, close to our own. Have I said anything to suggest the final ending of dragons? If so it should be altered. The only passage I can think of is Vol. I p. 70 : ‘there is not now any dragon left on earth in which the old fire is hot enough’. But that implies, I think, that there are still dragons, if not of full primeval stature….
https://middle-earth.xenite.org/was-smaug-the-last-dragon-in-middle-earth/1
answered Dec 3, 2017 at 6:17
-
1+1 Honorary mention for Tolkien's Farmer Giles of Ham, which (a) entails a dragon in England in times much closer to our own, and (b) a conceit of the LotR/Middle Earth world-building is that it is a prehistory for western Europe, and specifically for the British Isles. :)– LexibleCommented May 4 at 14:24