Encyclopedia of Arda: Scatha

One of the greatest of the dragons to infest the Grey Mountains of the north. Of his life little is known, except that he was slain by Fram son of Frumgar (an ancestor of Eorl the Young) in the early days of the Éothéod.

His recovered hoard was the subject of great dispute between the Men of the Éothéod and the Dwarves of that region, who claimed the hoard as their own. Fram rebuked their claim, and sent them the teeth of the dragon, with the words, "Jewels such as these you will not match in your treasuries, for they are hard to come by."² Thereafter there was war between the Éothéod and the Dwarves, a war in which Fram met his end.

However this dispute was resolved (we are not told), it seems that Fram's people retained at least some of the hoard, and brought it south with them when they settled in Rohan. The horn that Éowyn gave to Merry Brandybuck after the War of the Ring (many hundred years later) was said to have come from it.

Notes

There is no annal or record of Scatha's death, so identifying the correct date is problematic. The only known date that's remotely related is that of Frumgar's foundation of the Éothéod in III 1977. Frumgar was the father of Fram, who slew Scatha, but these bare facts leave considerable leeway for speculation.

The earliest possible date for Scatha's death, then, would be III 1977, the year of the Éothéod's founding (though we might expect the event to be specially remarked if this were the case). At the other end of the scale, we might assume that Frumgar was a young man when he led his people northwards, that Fram was born late in his father's life, and that he didn't slay Scatha until advanced in years himself. Under those conditions, the date might extend as far as - at a real stretch - III 2100. As a compromise, we've assumed a date here of roughly III 2000, a few decades after the establishment of the Éothéod.

The Lord of the Rings Appendix A II; The House of Eorl

Scatha

A mighty Long-worm of the Grey Mountains

Notes

See also...