They are among the most vile and cunning creatures in all Middle-earth. Their greed
and love of gold are legendary. As we dive into Tolkien’s text,
we find that not only could they potentially pass this greed onto others,
but that the malice of their maker may have resided within the gold itself.
Today, on Nerd of the Rings, we cover dragon-sickness in Middle-earth.
The origins of dragons, and their incredible power comes during the First Age of Arda.
Having realized his orcs alone were not enough to defeat the mighty Noldor, the dark Morgoth breeds
this new race of being - powerful, cunning, and malicious. While they would be used to terrible
effect in the First Age, their race would still be around, wreaking havoc well over 6000 years later.
Readers would first be introduced to these terrors of Middle-earth in 1937
in the pages of The Hobbit as we meet the greatest dragon of the Third Age:
Smaug. In Smaug, we see not only his race’s intense greed as they seek out treasure hoards,
but also that they may have passed this trait on to other beings even after their demise.
This concept of dragon-sickness, while expanded in Peter Jackson’s hobbit trilogy,
is indeed named within the pages of The Hobbit. At the end of the book,
we see the exact term used when we discover what became of the Master of Lake-town:
The old Master had come to a bad end. Bard had given him much gold for the
help of the Lake-people, but being of the kind that easily catches such
disease he fell under the dragon-sickness, and took most of the gold and fled with it,
and died of starvation in the Waste, deserted by his companions.
Now of course, in the films, we see Thorin succumb to dragon-sickness quite extensively,
with his downward spiral kicking off the moment Smaug is killed in
his attack on Lake-town. His obsession with the Arkenstone leads him to hostility against Bard,
question the loyalty of his most trusted dwarves, and initially forsake Dain’s
forces in the Battle of Five Armies so that they can maintain their position guarding the
treasure before finally realizing what he has become and casting off the dragon-sickness.
Of these actions, only the first occurs in the pages of the Hobbit book - and indeed
it is when Bard comes to Erebor that we get our second description of dragon-sickness:
Thorin hailed them in a loud voice:
A tall man stood forward, dark of hair and grim of face, and he cried:
Now these were fair words and true, if proudly and grimly spoken; and Bilbo thought that Thorin would
at once admit what justice was in them. He did not, of course, expect that any one would remember
that it was he who discovered all by himself the dragon’s weak spot; and that was just as well,
for no one ever did. But also he did not reckon with the power that gold has upon which a dragon
has long brooded, nor with dwarvish hearts. Long hours in the past days Thorin had spent in the
treasury, and the lust of it was heavy on him. Though he had hunted chiefly for the Arkenstone,
yet he had an eye for many another wonderful thing that was lying there,
about which were wound old memories of the labours and the sorrows of his race.
In Thorin’s treatment of Bard, we see the results of this dragon-sickness,
this power of gold over which a dragon has long brooded. And indeed, for 171 long years from
his sack of Erebor to his death, the dragon Smaug brooded over the great treasure of the
Lonely Mountain. And while some of Thorin’s reaction can be attributed to his own greed,
we are left with the impression that there may be more to his words than the hearts of dwarves…
Thorin answered:
We would later see Thorin go as far as to shoot an arrow at a messenger from Bard,
which sticks in his shield. At this point,
the majority of the company shares Bilbo’s sentiments, seeing how grim Thorin has become.
Thorin, as we know, would join with the elves and men in the Battle of Five Armies and be
reconciled to Bilbo before his death. But The Hobbit is not the only Tolkien book with
a possible reference to dragon-sickness. In Appendix A of The Lord of the Rings,
we learn of Fram, the fifth lord of the Eotheod - ancestors of the Rohirrim. During his rule,
Fram and the Eotheod are troubled by a dragon from the Grey Mountains named
Scatha. Fram famously kills the dragon and lays claim to the monster’s hoard.
However, Scatha’s riches had been plundered from dwarves of the Ered Mithrin,
who laid claim to it after the dragon’s death. Fram refused to give them so much as a penny,
instead sending them a necklace made of the dragon’s teeth, saying:
While it is not certain,
the text then says “some say that the dwarves slew Fram for this insult.” While we don’t
get the same description as Thorin - who was clearly obsessive over his treasure,
this brief account could be an instance of dragon-sickness at work.
Diving deeper into not only Tolkien’s writings, but those that inspired him,
we find a tale that not only inspired the portrayal of Smaug, but may have inspired
the concept of dragon-sickness. The tale which has multiple versions and accounts - features
a character named Fáfnir, who generally kills his father and takes possession of
his treasure hoard. The treasure, which in one account is given by gods Odin and Loki,
is cursed and Fafnir is transformed into a dragon. You can actually read Tolkien’s
own composition of this larger tale in The Legend of Sigurd & Gudrún, published in 2009.
Going back to the Middle-earth text, we find that there may be an additional influence on
gold - the very same that brought about the dragons themselves. In The History of
Middle-earth Volume 10: Morgoth’s Ring, we find an essay from JRR Tolkien called
“Notes on motives in the Silmarillion”. Tolkien says that while Sauron is eradicated with the
destruction of the One Ring, no such eradication of Morgoth was possible,
for it would require the complete disintegration of Arda itself.
He goes on to state an example that Morgoth’s power was disseminated throughout Gold. This
power is not absolute, for he did not create Gold, but it was also nowhere absent. He says further:
It is quite possible, of course, that certain ‘elements’ or conditions of
matter had attracted Morgoth’s special attention (mainly, unless in the remote past,
for reasons of his own plans). For example, all gold (in Middle-earth) seems to have
had a specially ‘evil’ trend — but not silver. Water is represented as being almost entirely
free of Morgoth. (This, of course, does not mean that any particular sea, stream, river,
well, or even vessel of water could not be poisoned or defiled — as all things could.)
Of all the gems and jewels, minerals and materials of Middle-earth,
it’s interesting that Morgoth gave special attention to Gold - and that
Gold indeed would have so many evil trends throughout history.
For all its flaws of the Battle of Five Armies film, digging deeper into this
topic of dragon-sickness has actually given me a greater appreciation for how The Hobbit depicts
Thorin’s affliction. I’ve always enjoyed the bit where Thorin’s voice is overlaid
with Smaug’s, but with the story of Fafnir as a background, I find it an even nicer touch.
Recently, I’ve been having a lot of fun diving deeper into the ancient stories
that inspired Tolkien - so if you have personal favorites that you’d like to see
explored in regard to their connection to Middle-earth, let me know in the comments!
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