Spider

The Spiders of Mirkwood are among the most dangerous and loathsome creatures encountered by Thorin and Company during their quest to reclaim the Lonely Mountain. These are not ordinary spiders but giant, intelligent, and carnivorous arachnids that dwell in the dark heart of the forest, weaving immense webs and preying on anything that moves. Their attack on the dwarves and Bilbo Baggins forces the hobbit into a decisive act of individual courage that transforms his sense of himself and cements his role as the group's unlikely leader.

Identity and Habitat

The spiders of Mirkwood are described as "huge and horrible," with hairy legs, nippers, spinners, and eyes that pop with rage. They are capable of speech, communicating with one another in a "thin creaking and hissing" that Bilbo can partially understand. They live in a dense colony within the forest, where they have constructed a vast network of webs "one behind and over and tangled with another," creating patches of "dense black shadow" that look like "a patch of midnight that had never been cleared away." The spiders are not native to the deeper parts of Mirkwood alone; they also infest the edges of the forest, as Beorn warns the company that "in there the wild things are dark, queer, and savage." The forest itself is described as a place where "dark things silent crept beneath," and the spiders are the most prominent of these lurking horrors.

The Attack and Bilbo's Awakening

The dwarves first fall afoul of the spiders after they leave the path to follow the lights of the Wood-elves' feast, becoming hopelessly lost. During the night, while Bilbo dozes, a great spider creeps up on him and begins to bind him with "strong sticky string." He wakes to find his legs already wrapped, and the spider comes at him, trying to poison him. In a desperate struggle, Bilbo beats the creature off with his hands, then remembers his sword and draws it. He stabs the spider "right in the eyes," killing it after a violent convulsion. This solitary kill, accomplished "all alone by himself in the dark without the help of the wizard or the dwarves or of anyone else," makes a profound difference to Bilbo. He feels "a different person, and much fiercer and bolder in spite of an empty stomach." He wipes his sword on the grass and names it Sting, marking the moment he fully embraces his role as a burglar and a fighter.

The Rescue of the Dwarves

After killing the spider, Bilbo sets out to find his companions. Using his ring to become invisible, he stealthily approaches the spider colony and discovers the dwarves hanging in bundles from a high branch, wrapped in webs. The spiders are discussing their captives, planning to eat them after they have hung for a while. Bilbo realizes he must act. He begins throwing stones at the spiders, hitting them with deadly accuracy, and then taunts them with a song, calling them "Attercop" and "Tomnoddy" to draw them away from the dwarves. He leads the furious spiders on a chase through the forest, cutting through their webs with Sting, until he can double back. He then climbs up to the branch where the dwarves are suspended, kills the guard spider, and begins cutting his friends free. One by one, he rescues Fili, Kili, Bifur, Bofur, Dori, and Nori, while the others are still hanging. When the main body of spiders returns, Bilbo takes off his ring and fights them openly, his sword "shining with delight" as he stabs at them. The battle is desperate, and Bilbo is forced to reveal the secret of his ring to coordinate the dwarves' escape. He vanishes and leads the spiders away again, allowing the dwarves to break through their ring. The spiders, now "mortally afraid of Sting," finally give up the chase, and the company escapes to a ring of elf-fires where the spiders dare not follow.

Narrative Role and Significance

The encounter with the spiders is a crucial episode in Bilbo's hero's journey. It is the first time he acts entirely on his own initiative, without Gandalf or the dwarves to guide him. The killing of the first spider and the naming of his sword Sting represent his acceptance of the dangerous, adventurous life he has been thrust into. The rescue also dramatically changes the dwarves' opinion of him. They had previously doubted his worth, but now they "had begun to have a great respect for him," recognizing that without the hobbit they would all have been dead. The spiders themselves serve as a pure embodiment of the hostile, untamed wildness of Mirkwood, a place where the company's discipline and hope are tested to their limits. Their presence underscores the theme that the journey eastward is not merely a physical trek but a series of moral and psychological trials that force Bilbo to discover resources within himself he did not know he possessed.