“The Somebody I spoke of—a very great person. You must all be very polite when I introduce you. I shall introduce you slowly, two by two, I think; and you must be careful not to annoy him, or heaven knows what will happen. He can be appalling when he is angry, though he is kind enough if humouredl"

I did do last chapter's reading, but I never wrote a post, & now I think that it will be better to just forge on without back-tracking. 

When the dwarves arrived at Bilbo's hobbit hole, they arrived two-by-two, which is the same way that they arrive to meet Beorn. Somehow, however, I doubt that Bilbo was described as a "very great person," nor do I suppose that Gandalf described him as "appalling when he is angry." I wish we were privy to the conversation that preceded their descent upon Bilbo, but I suppose we shall never know.

But Beorn is a very great somebody, and is undoubtedly appalling when angry. There is, nonetheless, something about this interlude that has always reminded me of the Tom Bombadil chapter in LOTR. I think it is the solitary nature of the two personages, and the interesting blend of nature and humanity that they each represent.

Beorn is primarily wild - both his human and his bear description are formidable indeed. His home, however, has many of the accoutrements of an Anglo-Saxon mead hall.

Although, indeed, his serving help is quite different. Mead was an important drink to the Anglo-Saxons, being a drink of fermented honey and water. Beorn, a bear, has combined his love of all things honey into most of his food and, presumably, drink as well.

I love the Beorn part of the story. We've now seen three different living spaces in addition to Bilbo's hobbit hole: Rivendell and the last Homely House, the aeries of the eagles, and Beorn's great hall, and all of them are representative of the creatures who live within them. Beorn is a mixture of wild animal and civilized man.

"There are no safe paths in this part of the world. Remember you are over the Edge of the Wild now, and in for all sorts of fun wherever you go."

Gandalf and the rest of the party splits up at the end of this chapter, with Gandalf heading off to take care of wizard stuff in a different part of the world altogether, and the dwarves and Bilbo heading into the darkness of Mirkwood. So far, Bilbo has been more hindrance than help on the journey.

That is about to change.

There are few moments in the Tolkien legendarium that are of more far reaching consequence than Chapter 5 of The Hobbit. Titled Riddles in the Dark, it could be subtitled "wherein Bilbo Baggins meets his destiny and changes the course of history for all to come."

There are so many things to think about in this chapter, and I am going to focus on but a few of them. 

First, I want to talk about the first time I heard this chapter. My first experience with The Hobbit was as a child, and my mother read the book aloud to me. This is the chapter that I remember most clearly, and not just because Bilbo found a magic ring, but also because I was so charmed by the riddle game. I remember quite clearly being totally out of my depth with the riddles - I couldn't have guessed a single one of them. They stuck with me, though, especially the two riddles about the teeth and the egg, which together, somehow, put me in mind of humpty-dumpty. Even now, when I read the teeth riddle, I mentally picture all of the king's horses and all of the king's men on their white steeds at the top of the hill, trying to put the poor broken egg of a humpty-dumpty back together again. Childhood imagination is a powerful thing that can reach back decades.

Now, as well, let's talk about the finding of the ring - Bilbo reaches out his hand, and there it is, on the floor, just in the place that he has found himself knocked out and shunted aside. Is this coincidence? Is this more of Bilbo's possibly supernaturally helped along luck? In order to talk about this chapter the way that I want to, I am going to have to reach into the future, to the Lord of the Rings, and bring up some of the elements that we see in later books.

But, before I get there, I also want to talk about the history of Chapter 5 because there are actually two of them. There is the Chapter 5 which Tolkien wrote and which was published in the first edition in 1937, which - apparently, because I've never actually had the opportunity to read it - had a very different tone that the current version of the Chapter. In that version, Gollum was friendlier, less dark, and voluntarily bet the ring as a prize in the riddle game. When Tolkien wrote LOTR, years later, he recognized that this behavior of one willingly giving up the ring was entirely inconsistent with the evil and addictive nature of the ring itself, so he rewrote the chapter in later editions.

Tolkien was incredibly clever in the way that he did this - as a scholar of medieval works, he was familiar with the way that a narrative will develop over time (only one example would be the Arthurian legend, which has been told and retold so many times throughout history that there are nearly as many Arthurs as there are individuals who have told his story) and, as well, in the way that the perspective of the tale-teller can alter the truthfulness of a narrative. The Hobbit was from Bilbo's perspective - he is, therefore, our frame narrator. To suggest that Bilbo, essentially, first told a sanitized version of the way he obtained the ring - giving Bilbo an honest claim of right to the thing, was convincing and consistent with human (and Hobbit) nature. We are left with a sense, therefore, that this second version is more truthful than the first, because it is less flattering to Bilbo. And while the essence of his claim to the ring is diminished by the truth of the way that he obtained it, through theft instead of by gift, it is still not so bad as it could be.

All we know of the ring, at this point, is that it is a powerful magical object that allows the wearer to become invisible. The truth about the ring's nature is one that we will not learn until the we get to the Lord of the Rings. Even so, though, there are some things about this chapter that line us up for what is coming, and that I will want to look back at once we arrive at the relevant part of LOTR.

We will find out, later, that up to this point, the transfer of the ring from Gollum to Bilbo is apparently the first time in history that such a transfer has occurred without the ring being taken by force through murder. Bilbo steals the ring, but he does not harm Gollum in the stealing. This turns out to be incredibly important because the ring thrives on domination and what could be more dominant than to murder someone to obtain a prize. Bilbo's soul, such as it is, remains basically unscathed by his taking of the ring - it is not broken or scarred by the fact that he has been compelled to kill to possess the ring. 

So that moment, at the end of the chapter, when Bilbo feels pity for Gollum is, quite possibly, the most important moment in all of the books about Middle Earth. It is so simple that it passes, almost unremarked upon:

A sudden understanding, a pity mixed with horror, welled up in Bilbo’s heart: a glimpse of endless unmarked days without light or hope of betterment, hard stone, cold fish, sneaking and whispering. All these thoughts passed in a flash of a second. He trembled. And then quite suddenly in another flash, as if lifted by a new strength and resolve, he leaped.

But it is there, and we are reminded of the innate goodness of Bilbo. The difference between his life - of warmth and light and fellowship and laughter - and that of Gollum doesn't stir in him a sense of superiority, or a feeling that he is somehow better than Gollum and therefore privileged to kill him. It stirs in him empathy and compassion. And it is just that empathy and compassion that allows him to resist the evil of the ring when so many others (perhaps, even, all others) would have immediately fallen to it.

Bilbo Baggins is quite possibly the only individual who could have taken on the ring without trying to master its true power for himself. He had no wish to dominate, and so he treated it like a trinket, and carried it in his pocket for decades without ever once drawing on its power to subjugate. How remarkable this is only becomes clear when we look backwards, at the ring's history, and forwards at the ring's future. Even at this early moment, the War of the Ring is beginning, and the forces opposed to Sauron have achieved a great advantage in the fact that possession has passed to Bilbo Baggins without violence.

"Long days after they had climbed out of the valley and left the Last Homely House miles behind, they were still going up and up and up. It was a hard path and a dangerous path, a crooked way and a lonely and a long."

Until this point, Bilbo & Co. had been largely within the boundaries of the settled world. By leaving the Last Homely House, and Rivendell, they've passed into that part of the land that, in ancient maps, would be identified with the words "Here Be Dragons."

Although, in this case, it is initially goblins that they encounter first.

Bilbo is able to recognize that they've passed a point of no return. He tells himself:

He knew that something unexpected might happen, and he hardly dared to hope that they would pass without fearful adventure over those great tall mountains with lonely peaks and valleys where no king ruled.

I'm going to pause for a moment to talk about that phrase "where no king ruled." So far, we've met at least two kings - Thorin, who is a king of dwarves, and Elrond, who is a king of elves. Elrond rules his people well, and Thorin is a king without a realm. We're given no indication about whether this is a region that has previously had a king, or not, or what kind of a king there might be. It is clear that Tolkien doesn't consider the Goblin King, whom we are about to meet, to stand as a ruler of the land above ground. I bring this up only because when we get to Lord of the Rings, we're going to hear much about what has happened to the land in the years since the King of Gondor left the throne, and how things in many parts of the world have fallen into ruin.

I love the way that Tolkien describes the goblins:

"Now goblins are cruel, wicked, and bad-hearted. They make no beautiful things, but they make many clever ones. They can tunnel and mine as well as any but the most skilled dwarves, when they take the trouble, though they are usually untidy and dirty. Hammers, axes, swords, daggers, pickaxes, tongs, and also instruments of torture, they make very well, or get other people to make to their design, prisoners and slaves that have to work till they die for want of air and light. It is not unlikely that they invented some of the machines that have since troubled the world, especially the ingenious devices for killing large numbers of people at once, for wheels and engines and explosions always delighted them, and also not working with their own hands more than they could help; but in those days and those wild parts they had not advanced (as it is called) so far."

So, goblins share some similarities with dwarves, in that they make things, although the things that they make are "clever" as opposed to "beautiful."

Tolkien published The Hobbit in 1937, during the interwar period. He had, himself, fought in WWI and spent time in the trenches, an experience which informs his writing. And while he very firmly resisted people claiming that LOTR, in particular was an allegory for the war, saying that he has always disliked allegory, this reference is interesting in the sense that it opines that, perhaps, the goblins are responsible for "some of the machines that have since troubled the world," after personally experiencing the first war in which "wheels and engines and explosions" were genuinely used to kill "large numbers of people at once."

As part of this reread, I decided to use one of my audible credits to buy the audiobook of The Hobbit. This is the first week in which I implemented a new process: first, I read the chapter, then I read the chapter in the companion book by Corey Olsen, and last, I listen to the chapter. Listening to the chapter provides a whole new experience and one which allows me to focus much more on the literary tone of the book - one of my favorite quotes from this chapter:

 

The yells and yammering, croaking, jibbering and jabbering; howls, growls and curses; shrieking and shriking, that followed were beyond description. Several hundred wild cats and wolves being roasted slowly alive together would not have compared with it.

was a result of the narration. The onomatopoetic and alliterative nature of the description of the sounds the goblins were making was delightful, and Tolkien has a lovely tendency to make up words that sound just like what they are meant to be - in this case "shriking" (another one was "bewuthered", from an earlier chapter). 

See you next week!

"To the end of his days Bilbo could never remember how he found himself outside, without a hat, a walking-stick or any money, or anything that he usually took when he went out; leaving his second breakfast half-finished and quite unwashed-up, pushing his keys into Gandalf’s hands, and running as fast as his furry feet could carry him down the lane, past the great Mill, across The Water, and then on for a mile or more."

Sometimes circumstances conspire to shove a person onto a path that they wouldn't take if they took the time to consider it more carefully. Bilbo Baggins is not a particularly impulsive hobbit, which makes his action of running out the door to catch up with the dwarfs so remarkable. If he had been given the time to think it through, to put together supplies and a jacket and his pocket hankerchiefs, is there anyone who thinks he actually would've joined the adventure?

I don't think there is a chance that he would've gone adventuring with a clear head following due consideration. Also, the homeowner in me is left wondering about those dirty dishes sitting on the table for months, molding. Earlier this year, I left 1/3 of a Dilly Bar in my trailer freezer after unplugging it and driving across the mountains leaving it behind. I still haven't been able to get the smell out. So, Bilbo, I feel for you man. You probably worried about that small scrap of egg left on the plate and the mug of tea that you left sitting on your table all the way across the damn Misty Mountains. Not to mention whatever was left in the larder after the great dwarf invasion.

A few words about Bilbo - Tolkien spends the beginning of the chapter easing Bilbo into his adventure. They are passing through familiar country that is both civilized and well-tended, and the journey really does resemble nothing more than a long and pleasant walk, albeit one that ends with making a bed on the ground at night. It doesn't take long, however, for the country and the weather to change and the company to find itself cold, wet and hungry. 

“Bother burgling and everything to do with it! I wish I was at home in my nice hole by the fire, with the kettle just beginning to sing!” It was not the last time that he wished that!"

The main bulk of this chapter is taken up by the Cockney Troll Troupe, Bill, Tom and Bert. For some reason, I can't connect the name Bert with anything but Dick Van Dyke singing Chim-Chiminee, which seems about right.

This was one of my favorite chapters growing up - I felt bad for the dwarves, and absolutely awed by the cleverness of Gandalf in keeping the trolls distracted long enough for the sun to come up and turn them to stone. 

Libriomancer posted a prompt in the discussion group:

"Why is it important that Gandalf is not present when the expedition meets the trolls in ch. 2?"

Gandalf's absence gives the dwarves and Bilbo a chance to begin to develop some mutual trust and respect. The dwarves send Bilbo to do some "burgling," and while he is less than thrilled with the idea, he does just that, and rather than following instructions to spy out the lay of the land, he wants to impress them, which causes him to get caught. Rather than leaving him to become troll-stew, the dwarves, one by one, blunder in to rescue him.

I can't decide which of the two of them is less competent, actually. Given that Bilbo is our frame narrator, we know he has no idea what he is doing. But, as a reader, I expect the dwarves to have some sense of self-preservation and/or strategy which they seem utterly to lack here. I wonder what the heck they've been doing up until leaving on this journey - are they as incapable as they appear in this chapter? They lose all the food, and then get captured by trolls. This is a bad sign, right? At this rate, they will be dragon food once they get to the Lonely Mountain - assuming they make it there at all.

“In a hole in the ground, there lived a hobbit.”

So begins Tolkien's first published work - this sentence marks the beginning of the world's experience with Middle Earth. The Hobbit was originally published in 1937, and it was more than 15 years later before the first edition of The Fellowship of the Ring would be released. It's nearly impossible today to recreate the experience of reading The Hobbit in a vacuum, but it's interesting to remember that at the time of original publication, The Hobbit stood alone as the window into Middle Earth.

It was also my personal first experience with Middle Earth. Tolkien wrote it as a story for children, and I was a child when I, first, heard it read to me by my mother, and later, read it for myself. When I read it as a child, it existed as an wholly self-contained entity, a single, simple, delightful fantasy about a hobbit named Bilbo Baggins. My perspective is quite different now - I read it as a more mature, and hopefully more thoughtful, reader, and I read it with the greater understanding of how it fits into Tolkien's larger universe. 

The first chapter introduces the reader to Gandalf, one of the most important figures in the entire mythology. He appears on Bilbo's doorstep like something out of memory or folktale:

“Gandalf, Gandalf! Good gracious me! Not the wandering wizard that gave Old Took a pair of magic diamond studs that fastened themselves and never came undone till ordered? Not the fellow who used to tell such wonderful tales at parties, about dragons and goblins and giants and the rescue of princesses and the unexpected luck of widows’ sons? Not the man that used to make such particularly excellent fireworks! I remember those! Old Took used to have them on Midsummer’s Eve. Splendid! They used to go up like great lilies and snapdragons and laburnums of fire and hang in the twilight all evening!”