Smaug is the dragon who guards the treasure in Tolkien’s 1937 novel The Hobbit.
Smaug occupies the Lonely Mountain, also called Erebor, after driving out the Dwarves of the Kingdom under the Mountain. The dragon’s hoard includes immense wealth, and his presence is the central danger confronting Bilbo Baggins and Thorin Oakenshield’s company. Bilbo’s encounter with Smaug forms one of the novel’s best-known scenes.
Tolkien gives Smaug intelligence, speech, pride, and a talent for psychological manipulation rather than portraying him as a simple beast. Bilbo discovers a vulnerable patch in the dragon’s armour-like underside and later reveals that information to Bard of Dale. The resulting attack ends Smaug’s occupation of the mountain.
Smaug is sometimes confused with Tolkien’s other dragons. Glaurung belongs to the earlier First Age stories, while Ancalagon appears in The Silmarillion. Shelob is a giant spider, not a dragon. Smaug is specifically the major dragon of The Hobbit.