As well as "dragon", Tolkien called them "drake" (from Old English draca, in turn from Latin draco and Greek δράκων), and "worm" (from Old English wyrm, "serpent", "dragon"). Tolkien named four dragons in his Middle-earth writings. Like the Old Norse dragon Fafnir, they are able to speak, and can be subtle of speech.
Smaug's ability to speak, the use of riddles, the element of betrayal, his enemy's communication via birds, and his weak spot could all have been inspired by the talking dragon Fafnir of the Völsunga saga. Shippey identified several points of similarity between Smaug and Fafnir.
While not the first treasure-obsessed dragon to terrorize villagers in the history of literature, Smaug is one of the most memorable and widely portrayed. This is possibly because he was one of the first and still one of the few who speaks.
Glaurung was the first of the dragons and one of the foremost lieutenants of Morgoth during the First Age. He had four legs, and a fiery breath, but no wings and could not fly. He was sentient and could talk and understand speech.
The rebellious Noldor, who followed their leader Fëanor to Middle-earth, spoke only Quenya.
Tolkien invented the name "Balrog", providing an in-universe etymology for it as a word in his invented Sindarin language. He may have gained the idea of a fire demon from his philological study of the Old English word Sigelwara, which he studied in detail in the 1930s.
Smaug asks Bilbo's name. Bilbo doesn't want to give Smaug his name for fear of evil spells, but he also doesn't want to refuse Smaug's request for fear of angering the dragon (neither would we). So Bilbo calls himself a number of fancy names – "Barrel-rider" being the primary one.
He decides to go back down to Smaug and see if he can find his weak spot. Bilbo is invisible because he is wearing his ring, but Smaug can smell him. They talk about the treasure-trove and the dwarves' intent to reclaim it.
Smaug's dragon-fine would not have been hot enough to destroy the One Ring. The malevolence that Sauron put inside of the Ring could only be destroyed in the Cracks of Doom, so Frodo was compelled to make the journey to Mordor.
Smaug is still a huge and devastating beast, especially compared to little Bilbo Baggins, but Balerion's height comes out victorious. However, Smaug was far from the largest Dragon in Middle-earth, as some are said to be as big as a mountain.
Yet, with Smaug being a dragon, he may have shared the same traits as real-world reptiles -- most notably, their ability to go long periods without eating. Many reptiles have a form of hibernation called brumation, where they'll slow down to conserve energy over winter and not require any food.
The Extended Edition of The Desolation of Smaug confirms Gandalf the Grey's fears of Smaug being in league with Sauron as Thráin reveals in Dol Guldur. Should the Dragon have survived its attack upon Lake-town, then the Dark Lord would have used him to devastating effect against the Free Peoples in the North.
Drogon Daenerys Targaryen's mount from Game of Thrones, ended up being 50 meters long, plus or minus 10. Smaug from The Hobbit is a staggering 140 meters long, give or take 15.
Undeniably, Smaug is the Greatest Dragon left in Middle Earth during the Third Age. Yet, he is not the strongest in its history. That title falls to Ancalagon the Black, the largest dragon ever to have existed in Middle-earth.
Towards the end of An Unexpected Journey, a thrush appears to the Dwarves and it is considered as a sign of hope. The bird flies to the Lonely Mountain and breaks an nut, which wakes Smaug.
So, one glimpse into Smaug's eyes and the Balrog falls under the spell. Even if it's just for a second—a moment of hesitation or distraction, it'd be enough. Smaug would snatch up Durin's Bane and gobble him up with his sword-sharp teeth (and we know swords can kill Balrogs). There you have it.
Smaug the Magnificent is a dragon – a gigantic flying, fire-breathing reptile into whose lair Bilbo Baggins, the hobbit hero, must venture.
It wouldn't be easy–the most common descriptor of a dragon is “fire-breathing,” after all. But unlike other aspects of the book and now the film that are wholly magic, Smaug's burning breath is actually one of the least magical, and can be wrangled into plausibility.
Why does Smaug hoard gold/gems? It is in the nature of dragons to do so. Magpies collect shiny objects, trapdoor spiders build trapdoors, and dragons hoard treasure. Morgoth originally bred the dragons as weapons, but some escaped the War of Wrath and became feral, living in the wastes of the north.
Smaug Lost Two Legs
The idea was to get the fear through his bulk. In fact, if you go back and look at the first film and the scenes that he was in, he was actually a four-legged dragon because we just had him stomping through Erebor in all of those flashback scenes," Letteri said.
A title given to the Dragon Smaug by the Dwarves of Thorin's Company, using 'Worm' in its older sense of 'Serpent' or 'Dragon'.
God is the most powerful entity in Tolkien's Lord of the Rings universe. The Elvish name for him is actually Eru Ilúvatar, meaning “the one, father of all.” So the question becomes: Who is the second-most powerful being? Originally, it was Melkor, “he who arises in might,” the most powerful of the Ainur (or angels).
For more than five millennia, the Balrog hibernated in his deep hiding place at the roots of the mountains in Khazad-dûm. He remained undisturbed throughout the Second Age and most of the Third, before the mithril-miners of dwarf-King Durin VI awoke him in T.A. 1980.
In the end Tolkien stated that there were probably "at most" seven Balrogs: In the margin my father wrote: 'There should not be supposed more than say 3 or at most 7 ever existed.