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Please tell me about "Dragon sickness"

noWizardme
Half-elven


Jun 23 2014, 6:44pm

Post #1 of 4 (330 views)
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Please tell me about "Dragon sickness" Can't Post

Dragon sickness is an idea which surfaces in The Hobbit. As far as I recall (apologies for working from memory!) Tolkien does not explain a whole lot about whether the dragon sickness is real, or is something the characters imagine is happening. Fairly characteristically, he does not choose to provide mechanistic detail!

My own reading was either:
That there was a curse on treasure that had been in a dragon's hoard.

...Or, that people thought there was such a curse (that in itself might drive behaviour in the self-fulfilling prophecy kind of way).

...Or that it should be taken as metaphor: that people were sometimes inclined to behave in a dragon-like way, hoarding wealth in a pathological way: this might not require a dragon as a direct causative factor to be called "dragon sickness".

Any of those explanations would cover Thorin's disastrous intransigence about sharing Smaug's hoard, and also the Master of Laketown's fate (runs off with the money, but ends unhappily).

Separately, or perhaps related, I have seen allusions to the idea that gold & precious metals in Middle-earth have a sort of Morgothian influence attached to them. But that's all I know of this - I'd be interested to hear more.

Lastly, and perhaps related, I think I recall that "dragon sickness" was a plot-line Tolkien considered in early drafts of LOTR: there would be some moral or magical comeback from the treasure Bilbo had gained from Smaug's hoard, and this would be the engine of a further adventure. However, I think that Tolkien then abandoned this in favour of a new idea: that Bilbo's ring was perilous and being sought by evil powers. Of course that later became that it was an Ultimate Peril and was being sought by the Ultimate Evil Power. So maybe dragon sickness is a discarded idea that has no role in LOTR, or maybe you know different...

~~~~~~

"… ever let your aim be to come at truth, not to conquer your opponent. So you never shall be at a loss in losing the argument, and gaining a new discovery.”
Arthur Martine

"nowimë I am in the West, Furincurunir to the Dwarves (or at least, to their best friend) and by other names in other lands. Mostly they just say 'Oh no it's him - look busy!' "
Or "Hold off! unhand me, grey-beard loon!"


CuriousG
Half-elven


Jun 23 2014, 9:26pm

Post #2 of 4 (216 views)
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Middle-earth conspiracy theory? [In reply to] Can't Post

My first thought was that dragon sickness is when Smaug coughs up woolly hair balls from all the sheep he's eaten. Or what he claims to have when he calls up Boss Sauron and says he can't come in to work and lay waste to Elves and Men, 'cuz he's got da dragon flu, and it could spread 'round the office, couldn't it? *sneeze cough*

But more seriously, I think of it the way you describe Option B, that people act dragony about hoarding gold, but it's not a permanent state of being, and less a magic curse and more a psychological or emotional fault line that people have, like being too proud or getting too angry in other situations.


Otaku-sempai
Immortal


Jun 23 2014, 9:47pm

Post #3 of 4 (215 views)
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Dragon-sickness [In reply to] Can't Post

The idea of dragon-sickness seems rooted in the legend of Sigurd from the Icelandic Volsunga Saga. The dwarf Fafnir, affected by the curse of Andvari's ring and gold, becomes a dragon. Fafnir the dragon is slain by the hero Sigurd, but not before laying a curse upon him and predicting his doom. Side-note: Fafnir also creates a desolation around his lair that presages the Desolation of Smaug. Tolkien's tale of Hurin and his children contains strong echoes of the story of Sigurd, especially in the characters of Turin, Mim the Dwarf, and the Dragon Glaurung and his hoard. The epic poem Beowulf also includes a cursed dragon-hoard.

Professor Tolkien wrote very matter-of-factly about the power of a dragon-hoard that has been long used as a dragon's bed to inspire "dragon-sickness" on those who may later come into possession of the treasure. It does seem to be a curse laid upon the hoard by the dragon. Some individuals are more resistant to the temptation; others (such as the Master of Lake-town) are much more suceptable.

'There are older and fouler things than Orcs in the deep places of the world.' - Gandalf the Grey, The Fellowship of the Ring


geordie
Tol Eressea

Jun 23 2014, 10:36pm

Post #4 of 4 (253 views)
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Iumona golde galdre bewunden [In reply to] Can't Post

 - is the name of one of tolkien's earliest published poems. It means "The gold of men of long ago enmeshed in enchantment"and is a precursor of the poem published in The Adventures of tom bombadil as 'The Hoard'.

see this link - http://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Iumonna_Gold_Galdre_Bewunden

 
 

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