Shelob's Lair

Last night we learned where Tolkien got the inspiration for Shelob. We went to dinner at the Eagle and Child with Brian, a friend from back home who is in Oxford through a different study abroad program (for his perspective on all things Oxford, check out his blog, Across the Sea); Joanna, another friend visiting on spring break; and Joanna's cousin, a wonderful person whose name I sadly cannot recall. While we were enjoying our treacle sponge, Joanna's cousin said, "There's a rather large insect behind you." Turning around we beheld suddenly, issuing from a black hole of shadow under the wall, the most loathly shape that we have ever beheld, horrible beyond the horror of an evil dream. Most like a spider it was, but huger than the greatest hunting beasts, and more terrible than they because of the evil purpose in its remorseless eyes. Those eyes were lit with a fell light, clustering in its out-thrust head. Great horns it had, and behind its short stalk-like neck was its huge swollen body, a vast bloated bag, swaying and sagging between its legs; its great bulk was black, blotched with livid marks, but the belly underneath was pale and luminous and gave forth a stench. Its legs were bent, with great knobbed joints high above its back, and hairs that stuck out like steel spines, and at each leg's end there was a claw. (JRR gave me a hand with this description).

Sadly I held not the Light of Elendil, but I did have a napkin and I squished it. It was one of the largest wolf spiders I have ever seen. It fell behind Christine's coat, and she was freaked out the rest of the evening. So when I saw another one making its way across the wall, I suggested that we go home. I didn't tell Christine about the second one until we were outside.

I've spent most of this morning writing my Iliad essay. I still prefer Hector to Achilles, but writing this paper has helped my understand why Achilles was the grander hero in the mind of the Greeks.

Tonight Desperate Housewives is on. Yay!