Shelob

Shelob is a character from J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth. A Giant Spider-like creature, she appears at the end of the second volume of The Lord of the Rings, where her attack leads to Sam Gamgee's key decision to take over the quest to destroy the One Ring.

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Shelob is a huge creature in spider form, high in the mountains of Mordor, the last of the spawn of Ungoliant. (She may be a form of evil spirit, possibly a Maia or with Maiar blood, instead of an actual spider.) Her lair is along the path that Sam Gamgee and Frodo Baggins take while seeking Mount Doom. Apparently she has some sort of understanding with Gollum, whom the Orcs of the Tower of Cirith Ungol call "Her Sneak".

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She attacks and stings Frodo, who lapses into a death-like coma. Sam manages to defeat her by letting her impale herself upon Frodo's sword while trying to crush him, and she flees to her lair, wounded.

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Thinking Frodo dead, Sam takes the One Ring from him and leaves his body behind, but discovers by listening to a party of Orcs that Shelob's venom is not intended to kill its victims but only to render them unconscious and keep their meat fresh.

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Shelob occupies Terech Ungol beneath Cirith Ungol, and may have once lived in Beleriand, possibly in the Ered Gorgoroth.

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Shelob's brood (upon whom she often would often feed) include the giant (but relatively smaller) spiders who capture Bilbo Baggins' Dwarf allies in Mirkwood.

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The name Shelob is derived from "lob", an archaic English word for spider. A variation, "cob" is the derivation of the word "cobweb".

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J. R. R. Tolkien: John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (January 3, 1892 – September 2, 1973) is the author of The Hobbit and its sequel The Lord of the Rings....

Middle-earth: Middle-earth is the name used for the inhabitable parts of J.R.R. Tolkien's fictional Arda (ancient Earth) where the (canonical) stories in his legendarium take place. "Middle-earth" is a literal translation of the Old English term middangeard, referring to this world, the habitable lands of men. T...

The Lord of the Rings: The Lord of the Rings is an epic fantasy story by J. R. R. Tolkien, a sequel to his earlier work, The Hobbit. It was published in three volumes in 1954 and 1955. Three movie productions have been made, the first, by animator Ralph Bakshi was released in 1978 (as part one of what was originally to ...