Dark Diets & Dodgy Legends: Did Gollum Feast on Flesh?
A look into subterranean diets and Middle-earth myths — what’s real and what’s pure legend.
One of the creepiest characters in The Lord of the Rings has to be Gollum — the former hobbit twisted beyond recognition by the One Ring, spending countless years lurking in the caves of the Misty Mountains.
His bizarre behaviour didn’t just puzzle the Fellowship; it’s fuelled endless fan speculation. Chief among the dark rumours? That Gollum feasted on babies. But is there any truth to it?
Who Was Gollum — and How Did He Change?
Long before becoming the pitiful creature we know, Gollum was simply Sméagol, a hobbit-like being fond of good food and the quiet life. But after he found the Ring, it slowly hollowed him out, body and soul. Isolated underground, he not only lost his hobbitish looks but also abandoned their gentle diets.
The Ring — his "precious" — warped his mind, and with it, his appetite.
A Cave Cuisine: Fish and Orcs
Tolkien makes it quite clear that Gollum survived mainly on raw fish — pale, blind creatures from the dark lakes of his cavern home. However, there are tantalising hints that he also stalked young orcs in the pitch-black tunnels.
Is that cannibalism? Not exactly. While orcs in Tolkien’s legendarium were once twisted elves, they’re hardly the same as hobbits or men. Still, they’re sentient beings, which adds a grisly undertone to Gollum’s meals.
The Baby-Eating Myth
Stories of Gollum snatching human infants spread through Middle-earth itself, later seized on by fans as a deliciously dark theory. But dive into Tolkien’s books and letters, and you won’t find a single shred of evidence that Gollum ever hunted human babies.
The idea of the "baby-eating shadow cannibal" is more a chilling fireside tale than anything truly canonical.
