Something Hobbit related today, since the third part of the film trilogy is out! I hope I can watch it sometime next week ...
I've found an article in the guardian today which has a focus on Smaug. It deals with the history of dragons in general, but has some very intriguing stuff on our favourite dragon from The Hobbit, too.
The most interesting Smaug related fact is the derivation of the dragon's name. According to the author, the name Smaug really comes from the old German word "smugan", which means "to squeeze through a hole". Apparently, this is meant in reference to what Jesus said about rich men having less of a chance of getting into heaven than a camel squeezing through the eye of a needle. I think that's sound, considering how rich Smaug is after he's taken control of the Lonely Mountain - but my personal suspicion is that it might also have something to do with Smaug's position in a mountain itself. I think for a big dragon there might be some squeezing involved if one wants to enter a dwarf mine ...
Over on the LOTR wikia they seem to suggest that another way of interpreting Smaug's name would be to trace it back to the Old English word "smeag", which means "worm". I think this makes a lot of sense, too, considering Tolkien was very influenced by Scandinavian mythology and the lindworm plays an important role in those.
Another interesting thing is the comparison that is made between Tolkien's own illustration of Smaug and Peter Jackson's version, and how they look nothing alike:
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| Tolkien's Smaug |
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| Smaug in "The Desolation of Smaug" |
... Yeah, I can sort of see their point.
That's all with regard to Smaug here, however I find the entire article highly readable and if you're at all interested in dragons I would really suggest you head over to the guardian right now!
Happy Hobbit week everyone!
Links & Refereces
Guardian: http://www.theguardian.com/film/2013/dec/09/brief-history-dragons-smaug-hobbit-tolkien
LOTR wikia: http://lotr.wikia.com/wiki/Smaug
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