Black arrow

The black arrow was an heirloom of the Lords of Dale that was passed down to Bard.The Hobbit, Chapter XIV: "Fire and Water"
==History==
Sometime after TA 2589 during the reign of Thrór as King under the Mountain in the Third Age,The Lord of the Rings, Appendix A: Annals of the Kings and Rulers, "Durin's Folk" the black arrow was made in the forges beneath the Lonely Mountain.
Sometime after the forging of the black arrow, a Lord of Dale somehow obtained possession of the black arrow from the Dwarves. Thus, the black arrow then became an heirloom of the Lords of Dale.
During the Sack of Erebor by the Dragon Smaug in TA 2770,The Lord of the Rings, Appendix B: The Tale of Years (Chronology of the Westlands), "The Third Age" the family of Girion, the present Lord of Dale, "had escaped down the River Running" to Lake-town, taking the black arrow with them. The heirloom continued to be passed down until it eventually fell into the hands of Bard. While it is unknown whether or not the black arrow bore any magical properties, Bard always recovered it because it never failed him, nor ever broke.
In the year 2941 when the Dragon Smaug attacked Lake-town, a company of archers had defended the town against him, but soon fled after their captain, Bard, had used up all his arrows save only the black arrow. Just as Bard bent his great yew bow, the thrush who had previously overheard a conversation between Bilbo Baggins and Smaug, directed him to shoot at the small chink in the scales upon Smaug's left chest.
After praising the black arrow, Bard shot it with remarkable speed into the dragon's only weak spot. The entirety of the black arrow vanished completely within the hollow. Smaug was felled by the shot, flying into the air before falling back down, crushing Lake-town.
==Background==
In The History of The Hobbit: Mr Baggins and Return to Bag-End, John D. Rateliff suggested that Dailir, the arrow of Beleg, may have had some influence on J.R.R. Tolkien's development of Bard's black arrow. This is despite not being a direct predecessor since the Noldorin word for black arrow "would have been something like Morlin or Morhlin (mor- ‘black’, as in Moria and Mordor, + lhinn ‘arrow’; cf. Parma Eldalamberon XIII page 163)".The History of The Hobbit: Mr Baggins and Return to Bag-End, The Second Phase, "The Death of Smaug", (ii) The Black Arrow, pg. 558 (note 6)
==In adaptations==
===J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit (1966 film)===
In the short 1966 film, J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit, significant changes were made. For instance, the black arrow and the Arkenstone were merged and it was Bilbo Baggins, rather than Bard, who killed Smaug.
===The Hobbit (1977 animated film)===
In the 1977 animated film, the death of Smaug by the black arrow is lifted directly from the book with only minimal changes.
===The Lord of the Rings: Aragorn's Quest===
In the Wii and PS3 versions of The Lord of the Rings: Aragorn's Quest, the player can obtain tips of black arrows to allow Aragorn to lock on to multiple enemies and shoot them all at once with his bow. This Artifact does come with one downside: it will deplete his ammunition quite quickly.
===The Hobbit film trilogy===
In Peter Jackson's The Hobbit film trilogy, the black arrow is not a single regular-sized arrow, but rather one in a series of large metal quarrels, designed to be fired by a "Wind lance" ballista for attacking dragons. The arrows themselves are roughly two metres in length with heavy twisted steel heads, combining elements of both spears and harpoons. Black arrows were the only known weapons with enough power to pierce the armoured hide of dragons.
As seen in the extended edition of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, and again in The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, all but one of the black arrows are spent on Smaug as Girion, the Lord of Dale, attempted to shoot him down in defence of the city. One of his shots managed to break off an armoured scale protecting the left side of the dragon's chest. However, Girion was himself killed by Smaug before taking a final shot. It is later revealed that the last black arrow was kept as an heirloom by Girion's descendants.
After Thorin and Company accidentally release Smaug upon Lake-town, Bard, a direct descendent of Girion, retrieves the arrow from his home and attempts to reach Lake-town's wind lance ballista, intent on slaying Smaug. However he is arrested by the corrupt Master of Lake-town  before reaching the weapon, prompting his son Bain to instead hide the arrow in a boat, narrowly avoiding it being seized by the Master's guards.
During The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies, Bain retrieves the arrow in the midst of Smaug's assault upon Lake-town, bringing it to Bard whilst he is attempting to shoot down the dragon with regular arrows fired from a longbow.  During this exchange, Smaug attacks the bell tower they are standing on, shattering the limbs of Bard's bow. Improvising, Bard attaches his bowstring to the ruined tower's posts and, using his son as a stand, fires the black arrow into the weak spot on the dragon's chest, puncturing his exposed skin and piercing his heart. Enraged, Smaug soars into the sky before succumbing to the arrow's wound, his corpse falling onto the town's burning ruins, crushing the Master and sinking his boat.
===The Lord of the Rings Online===
In The Lord of the Rings Online, there is a quest focused on finding fifteen different "Soggy Pages".Quest:Lost Lore of the North: Men on lotro-wiki.com Upon finding all fifteen of them, the pages combine to form the tale of "The Black Arrows". The tale tells of an archer named Bródda, who became the first Lord of Dale after saving the Dwarf-king Thrór from a band of Orcs. As a reward for saving his life, Thrór gave him a Black Arrow and the name "Geirjarn Ironbolt". For seven generations afterwards, each subsequent Lord of Dale was given a new Black Arrow. Eventually, all seven of them were used up and wasted on Smaug by Girion. However, the hidden eighth one was saved by his son, "Brandjarn". After fleeing, this Black Arrow was passed down from father to son until it was used by Bard to slay Smaug. Many years later, in the Fourth Age, the tradition of Black Arrow forging began again for the King of Dale, Bard II, who eventually used his own Black Arrow to wound "Vethúg Wintermind", one of the great Cold-drakes of the Withered Heath.Item:Copy of Lost Lore: Men of Dale on lotro-wiki.com
==Translations==
Foreign Language 	Translated name
Afrikaans 	Swart Pyl
Albanian 	Shigjeta e Zezë
Amharic 	ጥቁር ቀስት
Armenian 	Բլածկ Արրու
Arabic 	السهم الأسود
Azerbaijani 	Ox Qara
Basque 	Gezi Beltza
Belarusian Cyrillic	чорная стрэлка
Bengali 	কাল তীর
Bosnian 	Crna Strelica
Breton 	Bir Du
Bulgarian Cyrillic 	Черна стрела
Cambodian 	ព្រួញខ្មៅ
Catalan 	Fletxa negra
Cebuano 	Itom nga udyong
Chinese 	黑箭
Cornish 	Seth Du
Croatian 	Crna Strelica
Czech 	Černý Šíp
Danish 	Sort Pil
Dutch 	Zwarte Pijl
Esperanto 	Nigra Sago
Estonian 	Must Nool
Faroese 	Svartur Pílur
Filipino 	Itim na Palaso
Finnish 	Musta Nuoli
French 	Flèche Noire
Georgian 	შავი ისარი
German 	Schwarzer Pfeil
Greek 	Μαύρο βέλος
Gujarati 	બ્લેક એરો
Haiti Creole 	Nwa Flèch
Hebrew 	חץ שחור
Hawaiian 	ʻeleʻele Pua
Hindi 	काले तीर
Hungarian 	Fekete Nyíl
Icelandic 	Svartur Ör
Italian 	Freccia Nera
Indonesian 	Panah Hitam
Irish Gaelic 	Saighead Dubh
Japanese 	黒い矢
Kannada 	ಕಪ್ಪು ಬಾಣದ
Kazakh 	Қара көрсеткі (Cyrillic) Qara körsetki (Latin)
Konkani 	काळो बाण
Korean 	검은색 화살
Kurdish 	Reş Tîr (Kurmanji)
Kyrgyz Cyrillic 	кара жебе
Laotian 	ລູກສອນສີດໍາ
Latin 	Nigrum Sagittam
Latvian 	Melna Bulta
Lithuanian 	Juodoji Strėlė
Luxembourgish 	Schwaarz Pfeil
Macedonian Cyrillic	црна стрелка
Maithili 	कारी तीर
Malayalam 	കറുത്ത അമ്പ്
Malaysian 	Anak panah hitam
Maltese 	Vleġġa Sewda
Manx 	Side Doo
Maori 	Pere Pango
Marathi 	काळा बाण
Mongolian Cyrillic 	хар сум
Nepalese 	कालो तीर
Norwegian 	Svarte Pilen
Pashto 	تور غشی
Persian 	تیر سیاه
Polish 	Czarna Strzała
Portuguese 	Seta Preta (Portugal)
Flecha Negra (Brazil)
Punjabi 	ਕਾਲਾ ਤੀਰ
Romanian 	Săgeată Neagră
Romansh 	Nair Frizza ?
Russian 	Чёрная стрела
Samoan 	Uliuli Aū
Scottish Gaelic 	Dubh Saighead
Serbian 	Црна стрелица (Cyrillic) Crna Strelica (Latin)
Sindhi 	ڪارو تير
Sinhalese 	කළු සරය
Slovak 	Čierna Šípka
Slovenian 	Črna Puščica
Somalian 	Falaar Madow
Spanish 	Flecha Negra
Sundanese 	Panah Hideung
Swahili 	Mshale Mweusi
Swedish 	Svart Pil
Tajik Cyrillic 	тирчаи сиёҳ
Tamil 	கருப்பு அம்புக்குறி
Tatar 	Кара ук
Telugu 	నలుపు బాణం
Thai 	ลูกศรสีดำ
Tigrinya 	ጸሊም ፍላጻ
Turkish 	Kara Ok
Turkmen 	Gara ok
Ukrainian Cyrillic 	Чорну стрілку
Urdu 	بلیک ایرو
Uzbek 	Қора ўқ (Cyrillic) Qora o'q (Latin)
Vietnamese 	Mũi tên màu đen
Welsh 	Saeth Ddu
Xhosa 	Abamnyama Utolo
Yiddish 	שוואַרץ פייַל
Yoruba 	Dudu ọfà
Zulu 	Umcibisholo Omnyama
==References==
de:Schwarzer Pfeil
es:Flecha Negra
fr:Flèche noire
it:Freccia Nera
pl:Czarna Strzała
ru:Чёрная стрела
Category:Arrows
Category:Dwarven objects