Tolkien é,frequentemente, considerado suspeito de ter medo de aranhas, um pavor provocado pelo fato dele ter sido picado por uma tarântula quando era um quase bebê, aos três anos, na África do Sul.
Já adulto, ele disse que isso nada tinha a ver com a idéia dele ter criado Shelob ou Ungoliant e que ele não tinha nenhum medo especial de aranhas e que essa aversão pelos aracnídeos era um atributo de seu filho Michael Tolkien que era, assim, homenageado pelo autor.
Regarding this, Tolkien says in Letters no. 163 (7 June 1955): And if that has anything to do with my being stung by a tarantula when a small child, people are welcome to the notion (supposing the improbable, that any one is interested). I can only say that I remember nothing about it, should not know it if I had not been told; and I do not dislike spiders particularly, and have no urge to kill them. I usually rescue those whom I find in the bath!Humphrey Carpenter says in J.R.R. Tolkien: A Biography:
...when Ronald was beginning to walk, he stumbled on a tarantula. It bit him, and he ran in terror across the garden until the nurse snatched him up and sucked out the poison. When he grew up he could remember a hot day and running in fear through long, dead grass, but the memory of the tarantula itself faded, and he said that the incident left him with no especial dislike of spiders.According to The Annotated Hobbit by Douglas A. Anderson, Tolkien was interviewed on January 15, 1957 by Ruth Harshaw for an American radio show called ‘Carnival of Books’, and said (concerning The Hobbit):
I put in the spiders largely because this was, you remember, primarily written for my children (at least I had them in mind), and one of my sons in particular dislikes spiders with a great intensity. I did it to thoroughly frighten him and it did!Anderson continues:
Throughout his life, Tolkien’s son Michael had what he called “a deep-rooted abhorrence of spiders.”
Entretanto, nos anos sessenta, ao responder indagação de Richard A. Lupoff a respeito da possível influência de dois monstros da série John Carter de Marte sobre Shelob, Tolkien disse que ele tinha por Tarzan ( outra criação de ERB que, óbvio, não tinha NADA a ver com o assunto em pauta) uma aversão AINDA MAIOR do que a que ele tinha por aranhas, o que, claramente sugere que ele TINHA SIM especial repulsa pelos tais bichos.
