Dragons of the Market

“There was a most specially greedy, strong and wicked worm called Smaug.”

The dragons of Middle-earth are not just powerful forces of nature – but rather intelligent, calculating creatures.  According to Thorin, “they hardly know a good bit of work from a bad, though they usually have a good notion of the current market value.”  Dragons are, as it were, creatures of the market, though especially brutal ones.  They are also parasites, since “they can’t make a thing for themselves, not even mend a loose scale of their armour.”

Gandalf laments the absence of heroes to fight the dragon: “Swords in these parts are mostly blunt, and axes are used for trees, and shields as cradles or dish-covers; and dragons are comfortably far-off (and therefore legendary).”  Yet Bilbo is able to imagine “plundering dragons settling on his quiet Hill and kindling it all to flames.”

 

 

In our world, there may not be dragons – but there are cold, calculating things, greedy, brutal, and cruel.  Let us hope that there are also heroes and wizards enough to defend us from them – or that we find, in ourselves, some forgotten heroism and wizardry.

Image: My photography mixed with art by Arthur Rackham

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:04_rackham_poe_decoration.jpg

 

Note: The use of the Atlas statue is not intended as commentary upon Rockefeller Center or its affiliates.  It just looked interesting.  The statue is, however – curiously enough – associated with Ayn Rand…