SOURCE: The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien (1937)

DESCRIPTION:"...Smaug lay, with wings folded likean immeasurable bat, turned partly on one side, so that the hobbit could see his underparts and his long pale belly crusted with gems and fragments of gold from his long lying on his costly bed..." (The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien)

NOTES: Smaug has the extasensory ability to know that Bilbo is in his lair, though invisible. The dragon is very wily and tries to get Bilbo to tell him information through a riddle contest. He almost succeeds in burning Bilbo to death with his fiery breath. From Bilbo's answers Smaug learns that the men of laketown were involved in the dwarves adventure and burns the town. He uses a clever trick of breathing fire on the lake and creating a steamy mist which hides his attacks. Smaug dies when Bard shoots him in the unprotected spot on his chest that Bilbo told a thrush about. The bird tells Bard since he can speak the language of birds.

HISTORY: Smaug the Dragon is one of Tolkien's greatest achievements. He is able to convey the sheer elder nastiness of the beast without ever going near sentimentality (ala The Reluctant Dragon, etc.) He does this by basing his creature on the Germanic or Scandanavian attitude towards dragons and not usng it as a metaphor or foil as Kenneth Grahame does. Tolkien wrote about another dragon, Chrysophylax in "Farmer Giles of Ham".

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