13 Facts About Shelob

Shelob is a fictional demon in the form of a giant spider from JR R Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings.

Shelob's hide is tough enough to resist sword-strokes, and the strings of her webs are likewise resilient to ordinary blades, though the magical Sting manages to cut them.

Shelob's descendants include the Giant Spiders of Mirkwood defeated by Bilbo Baggins in The Hobbit.

Shelob's lair was Torech Ungol, below Cirith Ungol, along the path that the Hobbits Frodo Baggins and Sam Gamgee took into Mordor, where Shelob had encountered Gollum during his previous trip to Mordor, and he apparently worshipped her.

Shelob cornered them; but Frodo used the Phial of Galadriel's light to drive her off, and used Sting to cut the webs blocking the tunnel.

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Gollum waylaid the pair and tried to strangle Sam, while Shelob paralysed Frodo; but Sam fought off Gollum and then wielded Sting against Shelob.

Milbank writes more specifically that the ancient Shelob's adversary is another ancient female character, the elf-queen Galadriel.

Tolkien scholar Carol Leibiger writes that Shelob is presented as a disgusting female monster in the story.

Scholar of children's literature Zoe Jaques writes that Shelob is the "embodiment of monstrous maternity"; Sam's battle with Shelob could be interpreted as a "masculine rite of passage" where a smaller, weaker male penetrates and escapes the vast female body and her malicious intent.

Shelob writes that Tolkien derived Shelob from multiple myths: Sigurd killing Fafnir the dragon; Theseus killing the Minotaur; Ariadne and the spider; and Milton's Sin in Paradise Lost.

In Peter Jackson's film trilogy, Shelob's appearance is delayed until the third movie, The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King.

Shelob's appearance is based on the New Zealand tunnel-web spider, which Jackson hates.

Shelob is a major character in the video game Middle-earth: Shadow of War, where she serves as both the narrator and an ally to player character Talion.