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Smaug

Meaning: Derived from Germanic 'Smugan', 'To squeeze through a hole'

Other Names:
the Golden
the Magnificent
the Dragon of Erebor

Location(s): Grey Mountains, Lonely Mountain

Race/Species: Beasts & Monsters

Dates: I ? - III 2941*

Description:
"There he lay, a vast red-golden dragon, fast asleep; a thrumming came from his jaws and nostrils, and wisps of smoke, but his fires were low in slumber. Beneath him, under all his limbs and his huge coiled tail, and about him on all sides stretching away across the unseen floor, lay countless piles of precious things..."
- The Hobbit, Chapter XII: Inside Information

"...when Smaug came from the North, licking the mountain-sides with flame, beating his great wings with a noise like a roaring wind."
- The Hobbit, Chapter XII: Inside Information

He had a wicked and a wily heart, and he knew his guesses were not far out, though he suspected that the Lake-men were at the back of the plans, and that most of the plunder was meant to stop there in the town by the shore that in his young days had been called Esgaroth.
-The Hobbit, Chapter XII: Inside Information
*[From this quote, it may be guessed Smaug is no more than 2,500 years old.]

So the rumour of the wealth of Erebor spread abroad and reached the ears of the dragons, and at last Smaug the Golden, greatest of the dragons of his day, arose and without warning came against King Thrór and descended on the Mountain in flames. It was not long before all that realm was destroyed, and the town of Dale near by was ruined and deserted; but Smaug entered into the Great Hall and lay there upon a bed of gold.

The Return of the King, LoTR Appendix A, Annals of the Kings and Rulers: Durin's Folk

'Revenge!' [Smaug] snorted, and the light of his eyes lit the the hall from floor to ceiling like scarlet lightning. 'Revenge! The King under the Mountain is dead and where are his kin that dare seek revenge? Girion Lord of Dale is dead, and I have eaten his people like a wolf among sheep, and where are his sons' sons that dare approach me? I kill where I wish and none dare resist. I laid low the warriors of old and their like is not in the world today. Then I was but young and tender. Now I am old and strong, strong, strong, Thief in the Shadows!' he gloated. 'My armour is like tenfold shields, my teeth are swords, my claws spears, the shock of my tail a thunderbolt, my wings a hurricane, and my breath death!'

The Hobbit, Ch 12, Inside Information

Contributors:
Klose - 28.12.2002
Kitt of Lindon 24.10.04.
added quotes: Elena Tiriel 9Jan05

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