Shelob

The ancient giant spider who guards the pass of Cirith Ungol.

Shelob is a giant spider in J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, whose lair lies in Cirith Ungol, the pass of the spider leading into Mordor.

Quick Facts

Series: Middle-earth
Race: Spider

Facts from the source article.

Background

The Two Towers calls her the last child of Ungoliant, an evil thing in spider-form living high in the Ephel Dúath on the borders of Mordor. She was there before Sauron and before the first stone of Barad-dûr, serves none but herself, and stays independent of the Dark Lord, who leaves her alone as a useful guard on the pass and sometimes feeds prisoners to her. Her descendants include the giant spiders of Mirkwood that Bilbo Baggins fights in The Hobbit.

Her bite injects a venom that can paralyse or kill, her hide resists sword-strokes and her webs resist ordinary blades, but her eyes are her weak point. The Orcs of the Tower of Cirith Ungol call her Her Ladyship, and call Gollum, who apparently worships her, Her Sneak.

Gollum leads Frodo Baggins and Sam Gamgee into her lair, Torech Ungol, planning to recover the One Ring once she has consumed them. Frodo drives her off with the light of the Phial of Galadriel and cuts the webs with Sting, but later she paralyses him while Gollum attacks Sam. Sam fights off Gollum and turns on Shelob with Sting; trying to crush him, she impales herself on the blade and, nearly blinded by the Phial, flees. Tolkien says her eventual fate is not told.

In a letter to his son Tolkien explained that her name is only she + lob, lob being an archaic English word for spider. Her look in Peter Jackson's film trilogy was based on the New Zealand tunnel-web spider.