It is the 32nd day of Rhîw
In the 3015th year of the Sun
Of the Third Age of Middle-earth

The wind was on the withered heath,
but in the forest stirred no leaf:
there shadows lay by night and day,
and dark things silent crept beneath.^[1]

Cold winter has fallen on Mirkwood, and in the frozen forest hunger has emboldened the giant spiders to hunt ever nearer to the borders of the Woodland Realm; and great indeed must be their desire for meat for them to overcome both the elven virtue of our land and the fear of our deadly arrows.

And thus were gathered two bands of our folk, one to search north and west of the Forest River, the other southwards along the Elf-path until the Enchanted River; hooded and cloaked against the sleet and armed with blades and bows, we set forth to hunt the hunters. Now this is a common task for the Tawarwaith, but this was my first scouring for I am now deemed old enough to play my part! My heart was astir with mingled joy and dread as I followed closely behind Angeleg, our leader, as she silently wove between the frosted trees. But in my mind there was also a call of duty, and though aforetime my Laegrim forebears forswore the hunting of wild creatures of the woods and fields -- the birds and beasts that are our friends -- these fell creatures are perilous, cunning and evil, and we needs must protect our fair realm.

The bow I carry was fashioned for me when I was but a child with barely the strength of arm to bend it^[2], by Echeleb Túbeng my father's father, who is renowned among our kin for his skill as an archer. Cúlalf it is named, for it is made from a bough of elm which to his mind recalls the elm-woods of Ossiriand wherein he was born many long years ere the War of Wrath. It is a stout bow, its wood rich and warm, and its arrow shafts are of birch, fletched with goose feathers; but I had yet to slay aught with it. But now it has found its purpose... beware, creatures of shadow, beware!

Following the swift-flowing Forest River westwards in the dim grey light of the forest-dawn, we soon met with the first of these foul creatures in a drear hollow, drawn by the sound of their loathsome hissing voices. They were feasting on the fresh remains of a luckless hart, for such was their hunger that they had not even hung their prey within their strangling webs as is their wont. Swift and sure were our bowshots, our hearts pitiless, and their black blood stained the snow. More we found a scant hour later stalking some white deer, a hind and fawns that glimmered in the shadows; once more our bowstrings sang and the spiders perished.

For four days and nights we skirted the icy fringes of the Woodland Realm where the beeches give way to ivy-clad trees with gnarled trunks and twisted barren boughs, and the murk and gloom are a hindrance to even our elven eyes. By noon on the fifth day our waterskins were spent, and so we returned home; our tally was fourscore and seven of the vile creatures which will prey no more upon the beasts and birds of the forest, nor again defile our home. The carcasses we left to rot into the soil and so feed the earth, the only good these horrors had ever done in the course of their miserable lives!

The elders of our kindred say that aforetime, when Taur-nu-Fuin was yet Eryn Galen and wholesome, the spiders and other fell creatures of their ilk dwelt not beneath the forest-roof. Whence then had they come in the after-days, I wondered? And were they always evil, or had they once been but blameless beasts, tainted by Darkness? As is oft my custom when my thoughts are burdened with questions, I wended my way to the abode of Teithoron, scribe of King Thranduil, whose friendship to me has been a great boon these short years of my life; he it was who first taught to me the art of reading and the runes of writing. For though he says he is no loremaster, his memory is long and there is much wisdom that he learned in the halls of Menegroth ere the ruin of Doriath.

Thus over a cup of Dorwinion wine he told to me the tale of Ungoliant in the Elder Days, who is also named Delduthling in Sindarin. She was an evil thing; not a spider, but a fell spirit that took spider-form and wove vast webs of Unlight to cover her lair in Avathar. Whence she came no one can say, but it was she that aided Melkor the fallen Ainu in the Darkening of Valinor: the ruin of silver Galathilion and golden Melthinorn, the Two Trees that Yavanna sang into being upon the Green Mound. Thereafter Ungoliant fled to the Ered Gorgoroth in Beleriand, and the vale in which she dwelt was called Nan Dungortheb by the Iathrim.

Among her spawn was the great spider Shelob who fled the ruin of Beleriand and removed to the Ephel Dúath, west-wall of Mordor, and it was from her foul broods that the spiders of Mirkwood had come skittering hither across the empty Berennyr, and for nigh two thousand years have they spread ever northwards through the benighted forest. But were they summoned by the Shadow of the Forest, or simply drawn to its evil, I wondered? For I deem that they are neither allies nor servants of the Dark Lord, but merely fell creatures, ill-natured and cruel, living out their dreadful days in our once-fair wood. Teithoron knows not.

[1] The Hobbit, 'Queer Lodgings' - The Wind Was On The Withered Heath

[2] "[... a man who watched elf-children at play] might indeed have wondered at the small limbs and stature of these children, judging their age by their skill in words and grace in motion. For at the end of the third year mortal children began to outstrip the Elves, hastening on to a full stature while the Elves lingered in the first spring of childhood. Children of Men might reach their full height while Eldar of the same age were still in body like to mortals of no more than seven years."

- Morgoth's Ring, 'The Laws and Customs Among the Eldar'

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