Shelob

Shelob
Tolkien's legendarium character
Race	Spider
Book(s)	The Two Towers (1954)

Shelob is a fictional giant spider from J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth legendarium. She appears at the end of the fourth book, second volume (The Two Towers), of The Lord of the Rings. Her lair lies in Cirith Ungol ("the pass of the spider") leading into Mordor. Gollum deliberately leads Frodo Baggins there in hopes of recovering the One Ring when Shelob attacks Frodo. The plan is foiled when Samwise Gamgee greatly injures Shelob with Frodo's Elvish dagger, Sting, and the Phial of Galadriel.

Shelob was an "evil thing in spider form...[the] last child of Ungoliant to trouble the unhappy world", living high in the Ephel Dúath mountains on the borders of Mordor. There are numerous references to her predating the events of The Lord of the Rings by many ages. Although she resided in Mordor and was unrepentantly evil, she was independent of Sauron and his influence.

This creature makes her first appearance in the chapter "The Stairs of Cirith Ungol", though she is formally introduced in the next chapter "Shelob's Lair" where the author says "But still she was there, who was there before Sauron, and before the first stone of Barad-dûr; and she served none but herself, drinking the blood of Elves and Men, bloated and grown fat with endless brooding on her feasts, weaving webs of shadow; for all living things were her food, and her vomit darkness". Her descendants include the Giant Spiders defeated by Bilbo Baggins in The Hobbit.

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