Ungoliant is a fictional character

Fictional character

A character is the representation of a person in a narrative work of art . Derived from the ancient Greek word kharaktêr , the earliest use in English, in this sense, dates from the Restoration, although it became widely used after its appearance in Tom Jones in 1749. From this, the sense of...

 in J. R. R. Tolkien

J. R. R. Tolkien

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, CBE was an English writer, poet, philologist, and university professor, best known as the author of the classic high fantasy works The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and The Silmarillion.Tolkien was Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon at Pembroke College,...

's Middle-earth

Middle-earth

Middle-earth is the fictional setting of the majority of author J. R. R. Tolkien's fantasy writings. The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings take place entirely in Middle-earth, as does much of The Silmarillion and Unfinished Tales....

 legendarium

Legendarium

Legendary may refer to:*A hagiography, or study of the lives of saints and other religious figures**The South English Legendary, a Middle English legendary*A legend-Entertainment:*Legendary, an album by Kaysha*Legendary...

, described as an evil spirit in the form of a spider. She is mentioned briefly in The Lord of the Rings

The Lord of the Rings

The Lord of the Rings is a high fantasy epic written by English philologist and University of Oxford professor J. R. R. Tolkien. The story began as a sequel to Tolkien's earlier, less complex children's fantasy novel The Hobbit , but eventually developed into a much larger work. It was written in...

, and plays a supporting role in The Silmarillion

The Silmarillion

The Silmarillion is a collection of J. R. R. Tolkien's mythopoeic works, edited and published posthumously by his son Christopher Tolkien in 1977, with assistance from Guy Gavriel Kay, who later became a noted fantasy writer. The Silmarillion, along with J. R. R...

. Her origins are unclear, as Tolkien's writings don't explicitly reveal her nature, other than that she is from "before the world". She is one of a few instances, along with Tom Bombadil

Tom Bombadil

Tom Bombadil is a supporting character in J. R. R. Tolkien's legendarium. He appears in Tolkien's high fantasy epic The Lord of the Rings, published in 1954 and 1955. In the first volume, The Fellowship of the Ring, Frodo Baggins and company meet Bombadil in the Old Forest...

 and the Cats of Queen Berúthiel

Cats of Queen Berúthiel

The Cats of Queen Berúthiel were at first mention used as a cognitive estrangement device in an off-hand remark in the Lord of the Rings. Later a story was published about the cats of Queen Berúthiel, the wife of Tarannon Falastur, twelfth King of Gondor....

, where Tolkien does not provide a clear background for an element of his fiction.

Name

Ungoliant means "dark spider" in the fictional Sindarin language. It is a loan word from . She is also known as Gloomweaver (Sindarin: , Quenya: ).

Internal history

Ungoliant aided the evil Vala Melkor

Morgoth

Morgoth Bauglir is a fictional character from J. R. R. Tolkien’s Middle-earth legendarium. He is the main antagonist of The Silmarillion, figures in The Children of Húrin, and is mentioned briefly in The Lord of the Rings.Melkor was the most powerful of the Ainur, but turned to darkness and became...

 in his attack upon the Two Trees of Valinor

Two Trees of Valinor

In J. R. R. Tolkien's legendarium, the Two Trees of Valinor are Telperion and Laurelin, the Silver Tree and the Gold that brought light to the Land of the Valar in ancient times...

, draining them of their sap after Melkor had injured them. She also drained the wells of Varda

Varda

Varda Elentári is a deity in J. R. R. Tolkien's legendarium to whom the hymn A Elbereth Gilthoniel is directed..-Character overview:Varda is one of the Valar, a group of semi-divine beings similar to archangels. Also known as "Queen of the stars", she is said to be too beautiful for words; within...

, extinguishing the source of light for the world. Afterward this light persisted only within the Silmaril

Silmaril

The Silmarils are three brilliant jewels which contained the unmarred light of the Two Trees in J. R. R. Tolkien's legendarium. The Silmarils were made out of the crystalline substance silima by Fëanor, a Noldorin Elf, in Valinor during the Years of the Trees...

s of Fëanor

Fëanor

Fëanor is a fictional character from J. R. R. Tolkien's legendarium who plays an important part in The Silmarillion. He was the eldest son of Finwë, the High King of the Noldor, and his first wife Míriel Serindë...

. Ungoliant helped Melkor evade the Valar by shrouding them both in her impenetrable darkness, causing blindness and confusion amongst the hosts of the Valar that attempted to intercept them.

Melkor had promised Ungoliant that he would yield anything she wished in return for her aid, but betrayed this promise by attempting to withhold the Silmarils from her. This angered Ungoliant, who, having grown immensely powerful from ingesting the life force of the Two Trees, trapped Melkor in her webs. At this point he gave out a cry of such fear and intensity that it was heard in the depths of Angband

Angband (Middle-earth)

-External links:*...

, and the Balrog

Balrog

Balrogs are fictional demonic beings who appear in J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth legendarium. Such creatures first appeared in print in his novel The Lord of the Rings, though they figured in earlier writings that posthumously appeared in The Silmarillion and other books.Balrogs are described as...

s rushed to the aid of their master, scourging Ungoliant with their whips of flame.

Ungoliant fled to the Ered Gorgoroth in Beleriand

Beleriand

In J. R. R. Tolkien's fictional legendarium, Beleriand was a region in northwestern Middle-earth during the First Age. Events in Beleriand are described chiefly in his work The Silmarillion, which tells the story of the early ages of Middle-earth in a style similar to the epic hero tales of Nordic...

. At some point she gave birth to Giant Spiders, including the character Shelob

Shelob

Shelob is a fictional character from J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth legendarium. She appears at the end of the fourth book, second volume , of The Lord of the Rings.-Literature:...

 in The Lord of the Rings. In The Silmarillion, it is stated that when she went into hiding her hunger was so influential that she would mate with spiders only to devour them later, with her offspring to be used as food once they were fully grown.

According to The Silmarillion, Ungoliant's unremitting hunger drove her to devour herself, although an alternative sketch of Eärendil's

Eärendil

Eärendil the Mariner is a fictional character in J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth legendarium. He is depicted in The Silmarillion as a great seafarer who, on his brow, carried the morning star across the sky.-Etymology:...

 voyage suggests that he slew her in the south.

In popular culture

Ungoliant has been the subject of several Heavy metal music

Heavy metal music

Heavy metal is a genre of rock music that developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s, largely in the Midlands of the United Kingdom and the United States...

 songs. On their 2006 album The Morrigan's Call

The Morrigan's Call

The Morrigan's Call is an album by Celtic metal band Cruachan released in 2006.-Track listing:#"Shelob" - 3:03#"The Brown Bull of Cooley" - 5:23#"Coffin Ships" - 1:48#"The Great Hunger" - 6:06#"The Old Woman in the Woods" - 1:50#"Ungoliant" - 3:55...

, the Irish Celtic metal

Celtic metal

Celtic metal is a subgenre of folk metal that developed in the 1990s in Ireland. As the name suggests, the genre is a fusion of heavy metal music and Celtic music. The early pioneers of the genre were the three Irish bands Cruachan, Primordial and Waylander...

 band Cruachan

Cruachan (band)

Cruachan [kroo-a-khawn] is a Celtic metal band from Dublin, Ireland that has been active since the 1990s. They have been acclaimed as having "gone the greatest lengths of anyone in their attempts to expand" the genre of folk metal. They are recognised as one of the founders of the genre of folk metal...

 featured a song "Ungoliant", as well as one named after Shelob.
In Blind Guardian

Blind Guardian

Blind Guardian is a German power metal band formed in the mid-1980s in Krefeld, West Germany. They are often credited as one of the seminal and most influential bands in the power metal and speed metal subgenres...

's album Nightfall in Middle-Earth

Nightfall in Middle-Earth

Nightfall in Middle-Earth is a concept album by Blind Guardian, released in 1998. It is also Blind Guardian's sixth studio album.The album is based upon J. R. R. Tolkien's The Silmarillion, a book of tales from the First Age of Middle-earth, recounting the War of the Jewels. The album contains not...

, the song "Into the Storm" expresses the lust of Ungoliant for the Silmarils after devouring the Two Trees and the broken promise of Melkor.

In the massively multiplayer online role-playing game

Massively multiplayer online role-playing game

Massively multiplayer online role-playing game is a genre of role-playing video games in which a very large number of players interact with one another within a virtual game world....

 Ragnarok Online

Ragnarok Online

Ragnarok Online , often referred to as RO, is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game or MMORPG created by GRAVITY Co., Ltd. based on the manhwa Ragnarok by Lee Myung-jin. It was first released in South Korea on 31 August 2002 for Microsoft Windows and has since been released in many other...

Ungoliant is a miniboss class creature in the form of a giant ant.

Ungoliant is also the namesake of Nemesia ungoliant, a species of Nemesiidae

Nemesiidae

The Nemesiidae are a spider family of the infraorder Mygalomorphae, and the only member of the superfamily Nemesioidea. They were formerly considered part of the Dipluridae family.-Description:...

spiders which was described in 2007.