#middlearth #fantasy #tolkien #dragons
Q: How Big Were Tolkien’s Dragons?
ANSWER: I received the following question in June 2021: “How big were Dragons like Smaug, Ancalagon, Glaurung and Scatha in Tolkien’s books?”
Ancalagon was large enough to destroy mountain peaks in his fall from the sky. So I’m guessing he was pretty big.
To the best of my knowledge, the only dragon for whom Tolkien provided any kind of approximate reference in size was Glaurung (ADDED ON EDIT: Nope. See the comments below for a detail about Smaug’s size). Here is a key passage from The Silmarillion that provides a couple of clues to Glaurung’s size near the end of his life:
Then Túrin sped back to Nargothrond, mustering such of the rout as he met with on the way; and the leaves fell from the trees in a great wind as they went, for the autumn was passing to a dire winter. But the host of the Orcs and Glaurung the Dragon were there before him, and they came suddenly, ere those that were left on guard were aware of what had befallen on the field of Tumhalad. In that day the bridge over Narog proved an evil; for it was great and mightily made and could not swiftly be destroyed, and the enemy came readily over the deep river, and Glaurung came in full fire against the Doors of Felagund, and overthrew them, and passed within.
And even as Túrin came up the dreadful sack of Nargothrond was well nigh achieved. The Orcs had slain or driven off all that remained in arms, and were even then ransacking the great halls and chambers, plundering and destroying; but those of the women and maidens that were not burned or slain they had herded on the terraces before the doors, as slaves to be taken into Morgoth’s thraldom. Upon this ruin and woe Túrin came, and none could withstand him; or would not, though he struck down all before him, and passed over the bridge, and hewed his way towards the captives.
And now he stood alone, for the few that followed him had fled. But in that moment Glaurung issued from the gaping doors, and lay behind, between Túrin and the bridge. Then suddenly he spoke, by the evil spirit that was in him, saying: ‘Hail, son of Húrin. Well met!’
Then Túrin sprang about, and strode against him, and the edges of Gurthang shone as with flame; but Glaurung withheld his blast, and opened wide his serpent-eyes and gazed upon Túrin. Without fear Túrin looked into them as he raised up the sword; and straightway he fell under the binding spell of the lidless eyes of the dragon, and was halted moveless. Then for a long time he stood as one graven of stone; and they two were alone, silent before the doors of Nargothrond. But Glaurung spoke again, taunting Túrin, and he said: ‘Evil have been all thy ways, son of Húrin. Thankless fosterling, outlaw, slayer of thy friend, thief of love, usurper of Nargothrond, captain foolhardy, and deserter of thy kin. As thralls thy mother and thy sister live in Dor-lÛmin, in misery and want. Thou art arrayed as a prince, but they go in rags; and for thee they yearn, but thou carest not for that. Glad may thy father be to learn that he hath such a son; as learn he shall.’ And Túrin being under the spell of Glaurung hearkened to his words, and he saw himself as in a mirror misshapen by malice, and loathed that which he saw.
And while he was yet held by the eyes of the dragon in torment of mind, and could not stir, the Orcs drove away the herded captives, and they passed nigh to Túrin and crossed over the bridge. Among them was Finduilas, and she cried out to Túrin as she went; but not until her cries and the wailing of the captives was lost upon the northward road did Claiming release Túrin, and he might not stop his ears against that voice that haunted him after.
Then suddenly Glaurung withdrew his glance, and waited; and Túrin stirred slowly, as one waking from a hideous dream. Then coming to himself he sprang upon the dragon with a cry. But Glaurung laughed, saying: ‘If thou wilt be slain, I will slay thee gladly. But small help will that be to Morwen and Nienor. No heed didst thou give to the cries of the Elf-woman. Wilt thou deny also the bond of thy blood?’ But Túrin drawing back his sword stabbed at the dragon’s eyes; and Glaurung coiling back swiftly towered above him, and said: ‘Nay! At least thou art valiant; beyond all whom I have met. And they lie who say that we of our part do not honour the valour of foes. See now! I offer thee freedom. Go to thy kin, if thou canst. Get thee gone! And if Elf or Man be left to make tale of these days, then surely in scorn they will name thee, if thou spurnest this gift.’
But there’s another passage that provides a slightly better context for Glaurung’s eyes:
But Glaurung was aware of all that they did, and he came forth in heat of wrath, and lay into the river; and a vast vapour and foul reek went up, in which Mablung and his company were blinded and lost Then Glaurung passed east over Narog.
Seeing the onset of the dragon the guards upon Amon Ethir sought to lead Morwen and Nienor away, and fly with them with all speed back eastwards; but the wind bore the blank mists upon them, and their horses were maddened by the dragon-stench, and were ungovernable, and ran this way and that, so that some were dashed against trees and were slain, and others were borne far away. Thus the ladies were lost, and of Morwen indeed no sure tidings came ever to Doriath after. But Nienor, being thrown by her steed, yet unhurt, made her way back to Amon Ethir, there to await Mablung, and came thus above the reek into the sunlight; and looking westward she stared straight into the eyes of Glaurung, whose head lay upon the hill-top.
So if we assume that Túrin was at least 6 feet tall, and his sister only slightly shorter than him, Glaurung’s head may have stood 6 to 8 feet when he laid it on the ground. But I’m just guessing as I don’t know anything about the biology of dragons (nor the biology of animal heads). Glaurung would have been lizard-like in Tolkien’s imagination (and illustrations).
On the other hand, Glaurung was slain by Túrin’s sword (Gurthang), originally wielded by Beleg the Sindarin Elf. It was probably a lengthy sword. And Smaug was slain by the black arrow of Bard the Bowman. He could not have fired a huge harpoon-sized bolt as shown in the movies. Instead, it would have been an arrow suitable for a man-sized bow (maybe a long bow in Tolkien’s imagination – he described it as “a great yew bow”).
When Smaug fell, he destroyed Esgaroth, but it appears it was his death throes that destroyed the town: “Full on the town he fell. His last throes splintered it to sparks and gledes. The lake roared in. A vast steam leaped up, white in the sudden dark under the moon. There was a hiss, a gushing whirl, and then silence.”
Maybe the idea that these huge creatures could be slain by man-sized weapons is too fantastic to be realistic. I don’t know. But Smaug could not have been Godzilla-sized if Bard could kill him with an arrow.
I doubt Smaug was smaller than Glaurung and may have been larger than him. And yet even if you assume a certain dimensionality for Smaug’s head based on my rough estimate of Glaurung’s head, they had different body shapes. Smaug was a winged dragon and his wings would have been large enough to carry him into the sky (more-or-less). However, Tolkien drew more than one depiction of Smaug and there is no consistency in perspective between them. In one image, Smaug is flying around the Lonely Mountain at night and he is absolutely huge (or, his wingspan is huge). It’s hard to imagine Bard’s black arrow killing something that big.
That’s an argument for assuming the black arrow was magical (made by Dwarves, as it was). But in the final analysis we just don’t have enough information about Smaug or Glaurung to guess their sizes, let alone the sizes of dragons Tolkien described with less or no detail.
See also
Why Would Smaug Need to Cross A Bridge To Attack Lake-town?
Make Room for Dragons (Classic Essay)
Where Have All the Dragons Gone? (Classic Essay)
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Have you read our other Tolkien and Middle-earth Questions and Answers articles?
Just one thing concerning Ancalagon smiting the towers of Thangorordrim in his ruin. We get a similar phraseology when Gandalf and the Balrog fight. Specifically, TTT has this passage
‘There upon Celebdil was a lonely window in the snow, and before it lay a narrow space, a dizzy eyrie above the mists of the world. The sun shone fiercely there, but all below was wrapped in cloud. Out he sprang, and even as I came behind, he burst into new flame. There was none to see, or perhaps in after ages songs would still be sung of the Battle of the Peak.’ Suddenly Gandalf laughed. ‘But what would they say in song? Those that looked up from afar thought that the mountain was crowned with storm. Thunder they heard, and lightning, they said, smote upon Celebdil, and leaped back broken into tongues of fire. Is not that enough? A great smoke rose about us, vapour and steam. Ice fell like rain. I threw down my enemy, and he fell from the high place and broke the mountain-side where he smote it in his ruin.
And the Balrog is specifically described as being about human sized. Whatever caused the side of Celebdil to cave in is an aftershock of the highly magical battle between Durin’s Bane and Gandalf. I’m guessing Ancalagon’s destruction of Thangorordrim’s towers is similar in nature, not because he was just colossal.
Very good point.
In addition to that, I think there’s also the simple matter of the dragon’s heat. In “The Shadow of the Past,” Gandalf implies that Ancalagon’s inner fire was very hot. “It has been said that dragon-fire could melt and consume the Rings of Power, but there is not now any dragon left on earth in which the old fire is hot enough; nor was there ever any dragon, not even Ancalagon the Black, who could have harmed the One Ring, the Ruling Ring, for that was made by Sauron himself.” It sounds like he’s implying that Ancalagon had some of the hottest fire that had ever been known to exist.
After Eärendil slew Ancalagon, and his dead body hit Thangorodrim, I could imagine all that heat being released from his broken body all at once in what could be described as an extremely powerful bomb.
I’d like to ask where it’s clearly written that the Balrog is about the same size as a human?
At the start of the encounter with the Balrog of Moria, the narrative says that at the core of the shadow is something of “man shape, maybe, yet greater”, without saying how much greater. The description is pretty vague overall (perhaps because the literary conceit is that the episode was reported by one or other of the hobbits, who had no idea what the entity was), but the liberal use of “seemed” or “appeared” throughout suggests that while it had the power to expand its shadowy aura, its body remained much the same size. So, maybe bigger than an average man, but not gigantic.
I received the following private comment via the contact form. This is also a great point.
“Re the size of dragons, I recall that, in the Hobbit, the tunnel Bilbo traverses to get to the great hall is said to be ‘five feet high and three may walk abreast’, which I’m guessing makes it about five feet wide as well. And Smaug could not fit his head into it, so that tells us something about his size as well.”
Now, Chrysophylax…?
The Dragons must be quite large otherwise I doubt they would be so terrifying that virtually no one has the gumption to stand and fight.
In the scenes near the forest of Brethil just before Turin kills him Glaurung bridges his body across the ravine of the river Teiglin. This ravine is large enough for Turin and his companions to climb down one cliff ford the River, which was big enough to scare one companion sufficiently that he would not do it, and then climb back up the other.
If the ravine was much narrower than 10 feet they would have just jumped across so Glaurung is large enough to throw his front half across a 10+ foot gap with enough body and muscle either side to support himself. He is also large enough that when Turing shoves a 4 foot long sword up to the hilts in his belly that one end of him has sufficient mass that the other doesn’t drag him in to the ravine.
All in all I would suggest that we have at least 10 foot of body for the gap and a minimum of another 10 foot either end to support this manoeuvre. This gives at least 30 feet long and, given he isn’t just a big snake, sufficient girth to hold the muscle to move all that.
My guess is that we are looking at a creature which is at least 40 feet long and 6 to 7 feet wide
(This is a completely incredible guesstimate using human body waist is c. half the height so using 2xPixR we get a 20 feet circumference and diameter of 6 to 7 feet)
It’s certainly large for a land animal, although it would be dwarfed by a ninety foot long blue whale or the largest dinosaurs. So not totally incredible, but pretty awe inspiring if you had to fight it!