Ungoliant: the Tolkien spider worse than Shelob

Middle-earth has giant spiders, and as bad as Shelob was, she's not even the worst spider Tolkien came up with. That title belongs to Ungoliant, the ancient creature who drank the light out of the world and frightened Morgoth.

Her story is told in The Silmarillion (1977), in chapter eight, The Darkening of Valinor. I've been reading Tolkien since I was about 10, and what I find so terrifying about Ungoliant is the scale of what she wants.

Ungoliant and Morgoth destroy the Two Trees of Valinor

Before the sun and the moon existed, the land of Valinor was lit by two enormous glowing trees. They were the light of the world. Morgoth, being Morgoth, wants them gone. So he teams up with Ungoliant, an ancient creature of darkness in the shape of a giant spider, and she sneaks into Valinor with him.

The attack comes in the second half of the chapter, during a festival. Tolkien writes that it happened at the mingling of the lights, when both trees were shining and the city of Valmar was filled with silver and gold. In that very hour, Melkor and Ungoliant came hastening over the fields of Valinor and reached the green mound of Ezellohar.

The unlight of Ungoliant rose up to the roots of the trees. Melkor sprang upon the mound and struck each tree to its core with his black spear, and their sap poured out like blood. Ungoliant sucked it up, and going from tree to tree, "she set her black beak to their wounds till they were drained." The poison of death in her withered them root, branch and leaf, and they died.

Ungoliant drinks the Wells of Varda dry and grows so vast Melkor is afraid

Even that is not enough for her. Still thirsting, she goes to the wells of Varda and drinks them dry. As she drinks, she belches out black vapors and swells to a shape so vast and hideous that Melkor himself was afraid. That passage is so good.

This is the heart of why Ungoliant scares me more than Shelob. Shelob is an enormous spider that wants to eat you. "Ungoliant wants to eat everything." She doesn't want a kingdom. She doesn't want an army. She is drinking the light out of the world and it is still not enough.

And Morgoth, the original great evil of Middle-earth, starts getting frightened of her, which I think is brilliant. Morgoth wants to control everything, and Ungoliant wants to eat it.

Ungoliant turns on Morgoth over the Silmarils

When Morgoth won't hand over the Silmarils, she turns on him. Ungoliant had grown great, and he was lessened by the power that had gone out of him. She rose against him, her cloud closed about him, and she wrapped him in a web of clinging thongs to strangle him.

Morgoth let out a terrible cry that echoed in the mountains. That region was called Lammoth, because the echoes of his voice lived there ever after, so that anyone who cried aloud in that land woke them. Tolkien writes: "The cry of Morgoth in that hour was the greatest and most dreadful that was ever heard in the northern world." The mountains shook, the earth trembled and the rocks split apart.

The Balrogs rescue Morgoth and Ungoliant flees to Nan Dungortheb

Morgoth has to scream for the Balrogs to come and save him. The cry was heard deep beneath the ruined halls of Angband, in vaults the Valar had not descended to in the haste of their assault. There the Balrogs still lurked, waiting for their lord to return.

They rose swiftly, passed over Hithlum and came to Lammoth like a tempest of fire. With their whips of flame they cut apart the webs of Ungoliant. She quailed and fled, belching black vapors to cover herself. She went down into Beleriand and lived beneath Ered Gorgoroth, in the dark valley later called Nan Dungortheb, the valley of the dreadful death, because of the horror she bred there.

Imagine being the original Dark Lord and needing rescuing because you've annoyed a spider. Morgoth wants to control everything and Ungoliant just wants to eat it.