LOTR: Bag End Inn

Evil entity in spider form. Shelob's body was vast and bloated and her wrinkled hide was thick and tough with no weak spots. Her upper body was black with markings and her belly was a luminous white and gave off a terrible stench. Her legs had knobbed joints that bent above her back. Each leg was covered with stiff hairs and ended in a claw. Her neck was a short stalk and on her head were great horns and two clusters of multi-faceted eyes. She secreted venom through a beak around her mouth.

Little she knew of or cared for towers, or rings, or anything devised by mind or hand, who only desired death for all others, mind and body, and for herself a glut of life, alone, swollen till the mountains could no longer hold her up and the darkness could not contain her.

Shelob was the offspring of Ungoliant. In ancient times, Ungoliant helped Melkor destroy the Two Trees of Valinor and she then went to Middle-earth where she spawned numerous Great Spiders that lived in the Mountains of Terror in Beleriand. At the end of the Third Age, Shelob was the only one of Ungoliant's offspring left in the world.

Shelob had numerous offspring herself, including the Great Spiders of Mirkwood. They were lesser creatures than herself though still terrible. Shelob sometimes mated with her own offspring, and afterwards she devoured them.

It is not known how Shelob came to the southeast of Middle-earth. Sometime before the year 1000 of the Second Age, she made her lair on the western border of Mordor in the Mountains of Shadow high in the pass that came to be called Cirith Ungol. Shelob's Lair was called Torech Ungol. It was a long tunnel with many branches and secret exits. Inside it was pitch dark and there was an unbearable stench.

At first, Shelob fed on Men and Elves who ventured near her lair. As Sauron's power increased and Minas Ithil became the Dead City of Minas Morgul, her diet consisted mainly of Orcs. She stung her victims in the neck, injecting them with a poison that made them unconscious and limp, and she wrapped them in her silken webs and hung them in her lair. Then she drank their warm blood and feasted on their living flesh.

Sauron was aware that Shelob lived in Cirith Ungol on the borders of his realm. Her presence guarded the pass more effectively than any garrison, though Shelob served only herself and was not allied with Sauron. The Dark Lord sometimes sent prisoners that he had no further use for into her lair to provide her with sport and food.

In 2980, Shelob encountered Gollum, a scrawny, unappetizing creature who grovelled before her. Many years later, on March 11, 3019, Gollum returned to Shelob's Lair and promised to bring her sweet meat. The next day, Frodo Baggins and Sam Gamgee entered her lair. Shelob tracked them through the tunnels and was about to attack them when Frodo brought out the Phial of Galadriel and cried, "Aiya Eärendil Elenion Ancalima!" ("Behold, Earendil, brightest of the stars!" - TTT, p. 329)

Shelob was not daunted at first, for she had heard that cry from the Elves long ago. But then Frodo turned and advanced on her with his sword Sting in one hand and in the other was the Phial blazing brighter than anything she had ever seen. Shelob felt the first stirrings of doubt and she retreated.

Shelob did not give up, however. As the Hobbits escaped from her lair on March 13, Shelob emerged from one of her secret exits. She descended swiftly on Frodo and stung him in the neck and wrapped his body from shoulder to ankle in her web. Before she could make off with her prey, she was attacked by an adversary more furious and determined than any she had ever encountered.

It was Sam Gamgee, who rushed to Frodo's defense and hewed off one of Shelob's claws and put out one of her eyes before she could react. He then sliced her underbelly, but though poison bubbled from the gash it was not enough to pierce her thick hide. Shelob raised her huge belly and then bore down, intending to crush Sam beneath her. But Sam held Sting aloft, and Shelob skewered herself on the blade. She shuddered and convulsed in anguish and was prepared to attack again when Sam brought out the Phial and invoked the name Elbereth, one of the Valar.

Sam's indomitable spirit caused the Phial to kindle with a brilliant white light. The pain was intolerable to Shelob; her vision was seared and her mind was in agony. She crawled back into her lair oozing a trail of green-yellow slime. Shelob's ultimate fate is not known. She may have died from the wounds inflicted by Sam, or she may have spent long years in pain and misery healing herself until she was strong enough to wreak terror once more.

Frodo survived but he never fully recovered from Shelob's sting. He became ill on the anniversary of the attack each year for as long he remained in Middle-earth.

Also called Shelob the Great. Shagrat referred to Shelob as Her Ladyship. Sauron called Shelob his cat. Gollum referred to Shelob simply as She or Her. In Elvish she was called Ungol.

The name Shelob means "female spider." The word lob is an archaic English term meaning "spider" derived from the Old English lobbe. The Elvish Ungol means "spider" derived from ungo meaning "cloud, dark shadow."