The Lord of the Rings: The Hobbit

Description

Dzhon Ronal'd Ruel Tolkien. Hobbit

     In  this  reprint several  minor  inaccuracies, most of  them noted  by
readers, have been  corrected. For example, the text  on pages 32 and 62 now
corresponds  exactly with the runes  on Thror's Map.  More  important is the
matter  of Chapter  Five. There the true story of the ending of  the  Riddle
Game, as it was eventually revealed (under pressure) by Bilbo to Gandalf, is
now  given according to the Red Book, in  place  of the version Bilbo  first
gave to his friends, and actually set down in his diary. This departure from
truth  on  the  part  of  a  most  honest  hobbit  was a  portent  of  great
significance. It does not, however, concern the present story, and those who
in  this edition make  their  first acquaintance  with  hobbit-lore need not
troupe about it. Its explanation lies in the history of the Ring, as  it was
set out in the chronicles of the Red Book  of Westmarch,  and is now told in
The Lord of the Rings.

     A final note may be added, on a point raised by several students of the
lore of the period. On  Thror's Map is  written Here of old was  Thrain King
under the Mountain; yet Thrain was the son of Thror, the last King under the
Mountain before the coming of the dragon. The Map, however, is not in error.
Names  are  often  repeated  in  dynasties, and the genealogies show  that a
distant ancestor of Thror was  referred to, Thrain I, a fugitive from Moria,
who first  discovered the  Lonely  Mountain, Erebor, and ruled  there  for a
while, before his people moved on to the remoter mountains of the North.


Chapter I. An Unexpected Party

     In  a hole in the ground there lived a  hobbit. Not a  nasty, dirty, wet
hole, filled  with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare,
sandy  hole  with  nothing  in  it  to sit  down  on  or  to eat: it  was  a
hobbit-hole, and that means comfort.
     It had a  perfectly  round  door like a porthole, painted green, with a
shiny  yellow  brass knob  in  the exact  middle. The door  opened  on to  a
tube-shaped hall  like a tunnel: a very comfortable  tunnel  without  smoke,
with panelled walls, and floors tiled and carpeted,  provided  with polished
chairs,  and lots  and lots of pegs for hats and coats - the hobbit was fond
of visitors. The tunnel wound on and on, going fairly but not quite straight
into the side of the hill - The Hill, as all the people for many miles round
called it - and many little  round doors opened out of it, first on one side
and then on another. No going upstairs for  the hobbit: bedrooms, bathrooms,
cellars, pantries (lots of these), wardrobes  (he had whole rooms devoted to
clothes), kitchens, dining-rooms, all were on the same floor,  and indeed on
the same  passage. The best rooms were all on the left-hand side (going in),
for these were the only ones to have windows, deep-set round windows looking
over his garden and meadows beyond, sloping down to the river.
     This hobbit was a very well-to-do hobbit, and his name was Baggins. The
Bagginses had  lived in  the neighbourhood of The Hill for time out of mind,
and  people considered them very respectable, not only because  most of them
were rich, but  also because they never had  any adventures  or did anything
unexpected:  you could tell what a Baggins would say on any question without
the bother of asking him. This is a story of how a Baggins had an adventure,
found himself doing and  saying  things  altogether unexpected.  He may have
lost the neighbours' respect, but he gained-well,  you  will see  whether he
gained anything in the end.
     The mother of our particular  hobbit  ... what is a hobbit?  I  suppose
hobbits need some  description nowadays, since they have become rare and shy
of  the Big People,  as  they call us. They  are (or were)  a little people,
about half our height, and smaller than the bearded Dwarves. Hobbits have no
beards. There is little or no magic about them, except the ordinary everyday
sort  which helps them to  disappear quietly  and quickly  when large stupid
folk like you  and me come blundering along,  making a  noise like elephants
which they can hear a mile off. They are inclined to  be at in the  stomach;
they dress  in  bright colours (chiefly green  and yellow); wear  no  shoes,
because their feet grow  natural leathery  soles and  thick  warm brown hair
like  the stuff on  their heads  (which  is  curly); have long  clever brown
fingers, good-natured faces, and laugh deep  fruity laughs (especially after
dinner,  which  they have twice a  day when they can  get it). Now you  know
enough to go on with. As I was saying, the mother of this hobbit -  of Bilbo
Baggins,  that is  -  was  the  fabulous Belladonna Took,  one of  the three
remarkable  daughters of the Old Took, head  of the hobbits who lived across
The Water, the small  river that ran at the foot  of The Hill. It  was often
said (in other families) that long ago one  of the Took  ancestors must have
taken  a fairy  wife. That was,  of course, absurd, but certainly there  was
still  something not entirely hobbit-like  about them, - and once in a while
members  of the  Took-clan would  go  and have  adventures.  They discreetly
disappeared, and  the family hushed  it  up; but the fact  remained that the
Tooks were not as respectable as the Bagginses, though they were undoubtedly
richer. Not that  Belladonna Took ever  had any adventures after she  became
Mrs. Bungo Baggins. Bungo, that was Bilbo's father, built the most luxurious
hobbit-hole for her (and partly  with her money) that was to be found either
under The Hill or over The Hill or across The Water, and there they remained
to the  end of their days.  Still it  is  probable that Bilbo, her only son,
although he looked and  behaved exactly like a  second edition of  his solid
and  comfortable father, got  something a bit queer in  his makeup from  the
Took side,  something that only waited for  a chance to come out. The chance
never arrived, until Bilbo Baggins was grown up, being about fifty years old
or so, and living in the beautiful hobbit-hole built by  his father, which I
have just described for you, until  he had in  fact apparently settled  down
immovably.
     By some  curious chance one morning long ago in the quiet of the world,
when  there was  less noise  and  more  green, and  the  hobbits  were still
numerous  and prosperous, and Bilbo  Baggins was standing at  his door after
breakfast smoking an enormous  long wooden pipe that reached nearly down  to
his woolly toes  (neatly brushed) - Gandalf  came by.  Gandalf!  If you  had
heard only a quarter of what I have heard about him, and  I have only  heard
very little of all there is to hear, you would be prepared for any sort I of
remarkable tale.  Tales  and adventures  sprouted  up  all  over  the  place
wherever  he went, in the most extraordinary  fashion. He had not  been down
that way under The Hill for ages and ages, not since his friend the Old Took
died, in fact, and the hobbits had almost forgotten what he looked like.  He
had been away over The  Hill and across  The Water  on business  of his  own
since they were all small hobbit-boys and hobbit-girls.
     All that the unsuspecting Bilbo saw that morning was  an old man with a
staff. He had a tall pointed blue  hat, a long grey cloak,  a  silver  scarf
over which a white beard hung down below his waist, and immense black boots.
     "Good  morning!" said Bilbo,  and he meant it. The sun was shining, and
the grass was very  green. But  Gandalf looked at him from  under long bushy
eyebrows that stuck out further than the brim of his shady hat. "What do you
mean?" be  said. "Do you wish me a good morning, or mean that  it is  a good
morning whether I want not; or that you feel good  this morning; or that  it
is morning to be good on?"
     "All of them at once,"  said Bilbo. "And a very fine morning for a pipe
of tobacco out of doors, into the bargain. If you have a pipe about you, sit
down and have a fill of mine! There's no hurry, we  have all  the day before
us!" Then Bilbo sat down  on a seat by his door, crossed his legs, and  blew
out a  beautiful grey ring of  smoke  that  sailed up  into the air  without
breaking and floated away over The Hill.
     "Very pretty!"  said  Gandalf. "But I have no time to blow  smoke-rings
this morning.  I am looking for someone to share  in an adventure that  I am
arranging, and it's very difficult to find anyone."
     "I should think  so - in these parts! We are plain quiet folk  and have
no use for adventures. Nasty .disturbing uncomfortable things! Make you late
for dinner! I can't think what anybody sees in them," said our Mr.  Baggins,
and  stuck  one  thumb  behind  his braces, and blew out another even bigger
smoke-ring.  Then  he  took out his morning  letters,  and  begin  to  read,
pretending to take no more notice of the old man. He had decided that he was
not quite his sort, and wanted him to go away. But the old man did not move.
He  stood leaning on  his  stick  and gazing at the  hobbit  without  saying
anything, till Bilbo got quite uncomfortable and even a little cross.
     "Good morning!" he said at last. "We  don't want  any  adventures here,
thank  you!  You might try  over The Hill or  across The Water." By this  he
meant that the conversation was at an end.
     "What a lot of things you do use Good morning  for!" said Gandalf. "Now
you mean  that you want to get rid of me, and that it won't be good  till  I
move off."
     "Not at all, not at all, my dear sir! Let me see, I don't  think I know
your name?"
     "Yes, yes, my dear sir  - and I do know  your name,  Mr. Bilbo Baggins.
And you do know my name, though you don't remember that I belong to it. I am
Gandalf,  and Gandalf means me!  To think  that  I  should  have lived to be
good-morninged by Belladonna Took's son, as if  I was selling buttons at the
door!"
     "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!" You will notice already that Mr. Baggins was not quite so prosy as
he liked to believe, also that he  was very fond of flowers. "Dear  me!" she
went  on. "Not the Gandalf  who was responsible  for so many  quiet lads and
lasses going off into the  Blue for mad  adventures. Anything  from climbing
trees  to visiting  Elves - or  sailing  in ships, sailing to other  shores!
Bless me, life  used to  be quite inter - I mean,  you used to upset  things
badly in these parts once upon a time. I beg your pardon, but I had  no idea
you were still in business."
     "Where  else  should I be?" said the wizard. "All the same I am pleased
to find you remember  something about me. You seem  to remember my fireworks
kindly, at  any rate, land that is  not without  hope. Indeed for  your  old
grand-father  Took's sake, and for  the sake of poor Belladonna, I will give
you what you asked for."
     "I beg your pardon, I haven't asked for anything!"
     "Yes, you have! Twice  now. My pardon. I give it you. In fact I will go
so far  as to send you on this adventure. Very amusing for me, very good for
you and profitable too, very likely, if you ever get over it."
     "Sorry!  I don't  want  any  adventures,  thank  you. Not  today.  Good
morning! But please come to tea - any time  you like! Why not tomorrow? Come
tomorrow! Good-bye!"
     With that the hobbit  turned and scuttled  inside his round green door,
and shut it as quickly as he  dared, not to seen rude. Wizards after all are
wizards.
     "What on earth  did I ask him to tea for!" he  said to  him-self, as he
went  to the pantry. He  had only just had break fast, but he thought a cake
or two and a drink of something  would do him good after his fright. Gandalf
in the meantime was still standing outside  the  door, and laughing long but
quietly.  After a while  he stepped up,  and  with  the spike  of  his staff
scratched a queer sign on the  hobbit's beautiful  green front-door. Then he
strode  away, just about the time  when Bilbo was  finishing his second cake
and beginning to think that he had escape adventures very well.
     The next day he had almost forgotten about Gandalf He did  not remember
things  very  well,  unless  he put them down on his Engagement Tablet: like
this:  Gandalf  '  Wednesday.  Yesterday he had  been too flustered to  do
anything of the  kind. Just before tea-time there came a tremendous ring  on
the front-door  bell,  and  then  he  remembered! He  rushed and put  on the
kettle, and put out another cup and saucer and an extra cake or two, and ran
to the door.
     "I am  so sorry to keep you waiting!" he was going to say, when  he saw
that it was not Gandalf at all. It was a dwarf with a blue beard tucked into
a golden belt, and very bright eyes under his dark-green hood. As soon a the
door was opened, he pushed inside, just as if he had been expected.
     He hung  his  hooded cloak on the  nearest  peg,  and "Dwalin  at  your
service!" he said with a low bow.
     "Bilbo Baggins  at yours!"  said the hobbit,  too surprised to  ask any
questions  for  the  moment.  When  the  silence  that followed  had  become
uncomfortable,  he added: "I am just  about to take tea;  pray come and have
some  with me." A little stiff  perhaps, but  he  meant  it kindly. And what
would you do, if an uninvited dwarf came and hung his things up in your hall
without a word of explanation?
     They had not  been at table long, in fact they  had  hardly reached the
third cake, when there came another even louder ring at the bell.
     "Excuse me!" said the hobbit, and off he went to the door.
     "So you have got here at last!" was what he was going to say to Gandalf
this time.  But  it was  not Gandalf.  Instead there was a very  old-looking
dwarf on the step  with a white beard and a scarlet hood; and he too  hopped
inside as soon as the door was open, just as if he had been invited.
     "I see they have begun to arrive already," he said when he caught sight
of  Dwalin's  green hood hanging up.  He  hung his red one  next  to it, and
"Balin at your service!" he said with his hand on his breast.
     "Thank you!" said  Bilbo with a gasp. It was not the  correct thing  to
say,  but  they  have  begun to  arrive  had flustered  him badly.  He liked
visitors, but he liked to know them before they arrived, and he preferred to
ask them himself. He had a horrible thought that the cakes might run  short,
and then he-as the host: he knew his duty and stuck to it however painful-he
might have to go without.
     "Come along in,  and have some tea!" he  managed to say after taking  a
deep breath.
     "A  little beer would suit me better, if it is  all the same to you, my
good  sir,"  said  Balin  with  the  white  beard.  "But  I don't mind  some
cake-seed-cake, if you have any."
     "Lots!"  Bilbo found  himself answering,  to  his own surprise; and  he
found himself scuttling off, too, to the cellar to fill a pint beer-mug, and
to  the pantry to  fetch two  beautiful round seed-cakes which  he had baked
that afternoon for his after-supper morsel.
     When he got  back Balin  and Dwalin were  talking at the table like old
friends  (as  a matter  of fact they were brothers). Bilbo  plumped down the
beer and the cake in front of them, when loud came a ring at the bell again,
and then another ring.
     "Gandalf  for certain this  time,"  he thought as he puffed  along  the
passage.  But  it was not. It was two more  dwarves, both  with  blue hoods,
silver belts, and yellow beards; and each of them carried a bag of tools and
a spade. In they hopped, as soon as the door began to open-Bilbo  was hardly
surprised at all.
     "What can I do for you, my dwarves?" he said. "Kili  at your  service!"
said the  one. "And Fili!" added  the other; and they both  swept  off their
blue hoods and bowed.
     "At yours and your family's!"  replied  Bilbo,  remembering his manners
this time.
     "Dwalin  and Balin  here already, I see,"  said Kili.  "Let us join the
throng!"
     "Throng!"  thought  Mr.  Baggins.  "I  don't like the sound  of that. I
really must sit down for a minute and collect my wits, and have a drink." He
had only just had a sip-in the corner, while the four dwarves sat around the
table, and  talked about mines  and  gold and troubles with the goblins, and
the depredations of  dragons,  and lots of  other things  which he  did  not
understand, and did not want to, for they sounded much too adventurous-when,
ding-dong-a-ling-'  dang,  his  bell  rang again, as if  some naughty little
hobbit-boy was trying to  pull  the handle off. "Someone  at  the  door!" he
said,  blinking.  "Some  four,  I  should  say  by  the sound,"  said  Fili.
"Be-sides, we saw them coming along behind us in the distance."
     The poor little hobbit sat  down  in the  hall  and put his head in his
hands, and wondered  what  had happened, and what  was  going to happen, and
whether they would all  stay to supper. Then the bell rang again louder than
ever, and he had to run to the door. It was not four  after all, t was FIVE.
Another  dwarf  had come  along while  he was wondering in the hall.  He had
hardly turned the knob, be-x)re they were all inside, bowing and saying  "at
your service" one after another.  Dori, Nori, Ori, Oin, and Gloin were their
names;  and very soon  two  purple hoods, a  grey hood, a  brown hood, and a
white hood  were hanging on the pegs, and off  they marched with their broad
hands  stuck in their gold and silver belts  to join the others. Already  it
had almost become a  throng. Some called for ale,  and some for  porter, and
one for coffee, and all of them for cakes; so  the hobbit was kept very busy
for a while.
     A big jug of coffee bad just  been  set  in  the hearth, the seed-cakes
were gone, and the dwarves were starting on a round of buttered scones, when
there came-a loud knock.  Not  a ring, but a  hard rat-tat  on the  hobbit's
beautiful green door. Somebody was banging with a stick!
     Bilbo rushed along  the passage,  very angry, and altogether bewildered
and  bewuthered-this was the  most awkward Wednesday he  ever remembered. He
pulled open the  door with a jerk, and they all fell in, one  on  top of the
other. More dwarves, four more! And there was Gandalf behind, leaning on his
staff and  laughing. He  had made quite a dent on the beautiful door; he had
also, by the way, knocked  out the secret  mark that  he had  put  there the
morning before.
     "Carefully! Carefully!"  he said. "It  is not like you,  Bilbo, to keep
friends waiting on the mat,  and then  open the  door like a pop-gun! Let me
introduce Bifur, Bofur, Bombur, and especially Thorin!"
     "At your service!"  said  Bifur, Bofur,  and Bombur standing  in a row.
Then they hung up two yellow hoods and a pale green one; and also a sky-blue
one with a  long silver tassel. This  last belonged to Thorin, an enormously
important dwarf, in fact no other than the great Thorin Oakenshield himself,
who was not at all pleased at falling flat on Bilbo's mat with Bifur, Bofur,
and Bombur  on top of him. For one thing Bombur was immensely fat and heavy.
Thorin indeed was very haughty, and said nothing about service; but poor Mr.
Baggins said he was sorry so many times, that at last he grunted "pray don't
mention it," and stopped frowning.
     "Now we are all here!"  said Gandalf, looking at the  row  of  thirteen
hoods-the best detachable party hoods-and  his own hat hanging on  the pegs.
"Quite a merry gathering!
     I hope there is something left for  the  late-comers to eat  and drink!
What's that? Tea! No thank you! A  little red  wine,  I think, for me." "And
for me,"  said Thorin. "And raspberry  jam and apple-tart," said Bifur. "And
mince-pies and  cheese," said Bofur. "And pork-pie and  salad," said Bombur.
"And  more cakes-and ale-and  coffee, if  you don't mind,"  called the other
dwarves through the door.
     "Put on a  few eggs, there's a good fellow!" Gandalf called after  him,
as the  hobbit stumped  off to  the pantries. "And just bring out  the  cold
chicken and pickles!"
     "Seems  to know as much about the inside of my larders as I do myself!"
thought Mr. Baggins, who was feeling positively flummoxed, and was beginning
to  wonder whether a  most  wretched  adventure had not come right  into his
house. By  the time he had got all  the bottles  and  dishes  and knives and
forks and glasses and plates and spoons and things piled up on big trays, he
was getting very hot, and red in the face, and annoyed.
     "Confusticate and  bebother these dwarves!"  he said aloud. "Why  don't
they come and lend a hand?"  Lo and behold! there stood  Balin and Dwalin at
the door of the kitchen, and Fili and Kili behind  them, and before he could
say knife they  had whisked the trays and a couple of small tables into  the
parlour and set out everything afresh.
     Gandalf  sat at the head of  the  party with the  thirteen, dwarves all
round:  and Bilbo sat on a stool at the fireside, nibbling at a biscuit (his
appetite  was quite taken  away), and  trying  to look as  if  this was  all
perfectly  ordinary and. not in the least  an adventure. The dwarves ate and
ate,  and talked  and talked, and time  got  on.  At last they  pushed their
chairs back, and Bilbo made a move to collect the plates and glasses.
     "I suppose you  will  all  stay  to supper?" he  said in  his  politest
unpressing  tones.  "Of course!"  said  Thorin. "And  after.  We  shan't get
through  the business till late, and  we must have some music first.  Now to
clear up!"
     Thereupon the  twelve  dwarves-not Thorin, he was  too  important,  and
stayed  talking to Gandalf-jumped to their feet  and made  tall piles of all
the  things.  Off they  went,  not waiting  for trays, balancing columns  of
plates, each with a bottle on the  top, with one hand,  while the hobbit ran
after them almost squeaking with fright:  "please be careful!" and  "please,
don't trouble! I can manage." But the dwarves only started to sing:

     Chip the glasses and crack the plates!
     Blunt the knives and bend the forks!
     That's what Bilbo Baggins hates-
     Smash the bottles and burn the corks!

     Cut the cloth and tread on the fat!
     Pour the milk on the pantry floor!
     Leave the bones on the bedroom mat!
     Splash the wine on every door!

     Dump the crocks in a boiling bawl;
     Pound them up with a thumping pole;
     And when you've finished, if any are whole,
     Send them down the hall to roll !

     That's what Bilbo Baggins hates!
     So, carefully! carefully with the plates!

     And of  course they did  none of these dreadful  things, and everything
was cleaned and put away safe  as quick as lightning,  while the  hobbit was
turning round and round in the middle of the kitchen trying to see what they
were  doing. Then  they went  back,  and  found Thorin with  his feet on the
fender smoking  a  pipe. He  was blowing the  most enormous smoke-rings, and
wherever he told one  to go, it went-up the chimney, or behind the clock  on
the man-telpiece, or  under  the  table, or round and round the ceiling; but
wherever it went it was  not quick enough to escape Gandalf.  Pop! he sent a
smaller smoke-ring  from his short clay-pipe  straight through  each  one of
Thorin's. The Gandalf's smoke-ring would go  green  and come back  to  hover
over the wizard's head.  He had quite a cloud of them about him already, and
in the dim light it made him look strange  and sorcerous. Bilbo  stood still
and  watched-he loved  smoke-rings-and then be blushed to think how proud he
had been yesterday morning of the smoke-rings he  had sent up the  wind over
The Hill.
     "Now for some music!" said Thorin. "Bring out the instruments!"
     Kili  and  Fili rushed for their bags and brought back  little fiddles;
Dori, Nori, and  Ori  brought out flutes from somewhere inside their  coats;
Bombur produced a drum from the hall; Bifur and Bofur went out too, and came
back  with clarinets that  they had left among the walking-sticks Dwalin and
Balin said: "Excuse me, I left mine in the  porch!" "Just bring mine in with
you," said Thorin. They came back with viols as big as themselves,  and with
Thorin's harp wrapped in a green cloth. It was a beautiful gold-en harp, and
when Thorin struck it the music began all at once, so  sudden and sweet that
Bilbo  forgot  everything else,  and was swept away  into  dark lands  under
strange moons, far  over The Water and  very far  from his hobbit-hole under
The Hill.
     The  dark came into the room from the  little window that opened in the
side of The Hill; the firelight flickered-it was April-and still they played
on, while the shadow of Gandalf's beard wagged against the wall.
     The dark  filled all the room, and the fire died down, and  the shadows
were lost, and still they played on. And suddenly first one and then another
began to sing as they  played, deep-throated singing of the  dwarves in  the
deep places of their ancient  homes; and  this is like a  fragment of  their
song, if it can be like their song without their music.

     Far over the misty mountains cold
     To dungeons deep and caverns old
     We must away ere break of day
     To seek the pale enchanted gold.

     The dwarves of yore made mighty spells,
     While hammers fell like ringing bells
     In places deep, where dark things sleep,
     In hollow halls beneath the fells.

     For ancient king and elvish lord
     There many a gloaming golden hoard
     They shaped and wrought, and light they caught
     To hide in gems on hilt of sword.

     On silver necklaces they strung
     The flowering stars, on crowns they hung
     The dragon-fire, in twisted wire
     They meshed the light of moon and sun.

     Far over the misty mountains cold
     To dungeons deep and caverns old
     We must away, ere break of day,
     To claim our long-forgotten gold.

     Goblets they carved there for themselves
     And harps of gold; where no man delves
     There lay they long, and many a song
     Was sung unheard by men or elves.

     The pines were roaring on the height,
     The winds were moaning in the night.
     The fire was red, it flaming spread;
     The trees like torches biased with light,

     The bells were ringing in the dale
     And men looked up with faces pale;
     The dragon's ire more fierce than fire
     Laid low their towers and houses frail.

     The mountain smoked beneath the moon;
     The dwarves, they heard the tramp of doom.
     They fled their hall to dying -fall
     Beneath his feet, beneath the moon.

     Far over the misty mountains grim
     To dungeons deep and caverns dim
     We must away, ere break of day,
     To win our harps and gold from him!

     As they sang the hobbit felt the love of beautiful things made by hands
and by cunning  and by magic moving through  him, a fierce and jealous love,
the  desire of the hearts of dwarves. Then  something Tookish woke up inside
him,  and  he  wished  to  go  and see  the  great mountains,  and  hear the
pine-trees  and  the  waterfalls, and explore  the caves,  and  wear a sword
instead of a walking-stick.  He looked out of the window. The stars were out
in  a dark  sky  above  the  trees. He thought of the jewels of the  dwarves
shining in dark caverns. Suddenly in the wood beyond The Water a flame leapt
up--probably somebody  lighting a  wood-fire-and  he  thought of  plundering
dragons  settling on  his  quiet Hill and  kindling  it all  to  flames.  He
shuddered; and very quickly he was plain Mr. Baggins of Bag-End, Under-Hill,
again.
     He got  up  trembling. He had less than half a mind to fetch  the lamp,
and more  than half a  mind  to pretend  to, and go and hide behind the beer
barrels in the cellar, and not come out again until all the dwarves had gone
away. Suddenly he found that the music and the singing had stopped, and they
were all looking at him with eyes shining in the dark.
     "Where are you going?" said Thorin, in  a tone that seemed to show that
he guessed both halves of the hobbit's mind.
     "What about a little light?" said Bilbo apologetically.
     "We like the dark,"  said  the dwarves. "Dark  for dark business! There
are many hours before dawn."
     "Of course!" said Bilbo, and  sat down in a  hurry. He missed the stool
and sat in the fender, knocking over the poker and shovel with a crash.
     "Hush!" said Gandalf. "Let Thorin speak!" And this is bow Thorin began.
     "Gandalf, dwarves and Mr.  Baggins! We are not together in the house of
our  friend  and  fellow  conspirator,  this  most  excellent and  audacious
hobbit-may the hair on his toes never fall out! all praise to  his wine  and
ale!-"  He paused for  breath and  for a polite remark from the hob-bit, but
the  compliments  were quite lost on-poor Bilbo Baggins, who was wagging his
mouth  in  protest  at being  called  audacious  and  worst  of  all  fellow
conspirator, though no noise came out, he  was so flummoxed.  So Thorin went
on:
     "We are met  to discuss our plans, our ways, means, policy and devices.
We  shall soon  before the break of day start on our long journey, a journey
from  which  some  of  us,  or  perhaps all  of  us (except our  friend  and
counsellor, the ingenious wizard  Gandalf)  may never return. It is a solemn
moment. Our object is, I take it, well known to us all. To the estimable Mr.
Baggins, and perhaps  to one or two of the younger dwarves (I think I should
be right in naming Kili and Fili, for instance), the exact situation  at the
moment may require a little brief explanation-"
     This was Thorin's  style. He  was an important dwarf. If  he  had  been
allowed, he would  probably  have  gone on like  this  until he was  out  of
breath, without telling any one there 'anything  that was not known already.
But he  was rudely  interrupted. Poor Bilbo couldn't bear it any longer.  At
may never return he began to  feel a shriek coming up inside,  and very soon
it  burst out like the whistle of an engine coming out of a tunnel.  All the
dwarves sprang Bp knocking over the table. Gandalf struck a  blue  light  on
the end of his magic staff, and in its firework glare the poor little hobbit
could be  seen kneeling  on the hearth-rug, shaking  like a jelly  that  was
melting. Then he fell flat on  the floor, and kept on calling out "struck by
lightning, struck by lightning!"  over and over again; and that was all they
could get  out of him for a  long time. So they took him and laid him out of
the  way  on the drawing-room sofa with a drink  at his elbow, and they went
back to their dark business.
     "Excitable little  fellow," said Gandalf, as they sat down again. "Gets
funny queer fits,  but he is one of the best, one of the best-as fierce as a
dragon in a pinch."
     If you have ever seen a  dragon in a pinch, you  will realize that this
was only poetical exaggeration  applied to  any  hobbit, even to  Old Took's
great-granduncle Bullroarer, who  was so  huge (for a hobbit) that he  could
ride a horse.  He  charged  the ranks of the goblins  of Mount Gram  in  the
Battle of the Green Fields, and knocked their king  Gol-firnbul's head clean
off with a wooden club. It sailed a  hundred  yards through the air and went
down a rabbit hole, and in this way the  battle was won and the game of Golf
invented at the same moment.
     In the meanwhile, however, Bullroarer's gentler descendant was reviving
in the  drawing-room. After a  while and  a drink  he crept nervously to the
door of the  parlour. This  is  what he heard, Gloin  speaking: "Humph!" (or
some snort more or  less  like that).  "Will  he do, do you think? It is all
very well for Gandalf to talk about this hobbit being fierce, but one shriek
like  that in a moment of excitement would be enough to  wake the dragon and
all  his relatives, and kill  the  lot of  us.  I think it sounded more like
fright than excitement!  In fact, if  it bad not  been for  the sign on  the
door,  I should have been sure we had come to the wrong house. As  soon as I
clapped eyes on the little fellow  bobbing  and puffing on the mat, I had my
doubts. He looks more like a grocer-than a burglar!"
     Then Mr. Baggins  turned the handle and went in. The Took side had won.
He suddenly felt he would go without bed and breakfast to be thought fierce.
As  for little fellow bobbing on  the  mat it almost made him really fierce.
Many a time  afterwards the Baggins part  regretted what he  did now, and he
said to himself: "Bilbo, you were a  fool; you walked right in and  put your
foot in it."
     "Pardon me," he said, "if I  have overheard words that you were saying.
I don't pretend to understand what  you are talking about, or your reference
to burglars,  but I think I  am right  in believing" (this is what he called
being on his dignity) "that you think  I am no good. I will show you. I have
no signs on my door-it was painted a week ago-, and I am quite sure you have
come to the wrong house. As soon as I saw your funny faces on the door-step,
I had my doubts.  But treat it as the right one. Tell me what you want done,
and I will try it, if I have to walk from here to the East of East and fight
the wild Were-worms in the Last Desert. I bad a great-great-great-granduncle
once, Bullroarer Took, and --"
     "Yes, yes, but that  was  long ago,"  said Gloin. "I  was talking about
you.  And  I assure you  there is a mark on this door-the  usual  one in the
trade,  or used  to be. Burglar  wants a good job, plenty of Excitement  and
reasonable Reward,  that's  how  it  is  usually  read.  You ^an say  Expert
Treasure-hunter  instead of Burglar if you like.  Some of them do.  It's all
the same to us. Gandalf told us  that  there was a man  of the sort in these
parts looking for a Job at once, and that he had arranged for a meeting here
this Wednesday tea-time."
     "Of course there is a mark,"  said Gandalf. "I put it there myself. For
very good reasons.  You asked  me  to  find  the  fourteenth  man  for  your
expedition, and I chose Mr. Baggins. Just let any  one say I chose the wrong
man or the wrong house,  and you can stop  at thirteen and have all the  bad
luck you like, or go back to digging coal."
     He  scowled so  angrily  at Gloin that  the dwarf  huddled back  in his
chair; and  when Bilbo tried to open his mouth to ask a question,  he turned
and  frowned at  him and stuck oat his bushy  eyebrows,  till Bilbo shut his
mouth tight with a snap. "That's right,"  said Gandalf. "Let's  have no more
argument. I have chosen Mr. Baggins and that ought to !6te enough for all of
you.  If I say he is  a Burglar, a  Burglar he  is, or will be when the time
comes. There is a  lot more in him  than  you guess, and a deal more than he
has any idea of  himself. You may  (possibly)  all live to thank me yet. Now
Bilbo, my boy, fetch the lamp, and let's have little light on this!"
     On the table in the light  of a big lamp  with  a red shad he spread  a
piece of parchment rather like a map.
     "This was made by Thror, your grandfather, Thorin, he said in answer to
the dwarves' excited questions. "It is a plan of the Mountain."
     "I don't see that this will help us  much," said Thorin  disappointedly
after a glance. "I remember the Mountain well enough and the lands about it.
And I know where Mirkwood is, and the Withered Heath where the great dragons
bred."
     "There is a  dragon marked in  red on the Mountain, said Balin, "but it
will be easy enough to find him without that, if ever we arrive there."
     "There  is one point that you  haven't  noticed," said the wizard, "and
that  is the secret entrance.  You see that  rune on the West side, and  the
hand pointing to it from the other  runes?*(  That marks a hidden passage to
the Lower Halls.
     "It may have been secret  once,"  said Thorin, "but how do we know that
it is secret  any longer? Old Smaug had lived there long enough now to  find
out anything there is to know about those caves."
     "He may-but he can't have used it for years and years. "Why?"
     "Because it is too small. 'Five feet  high the door and three  may walk
abreast' say the runes, but Smaug could not creep into a hole that size, not
even when  he  was  a young dragon, certainly not after devouring so many of
the dwarves and men of Dale."
     "It  seems  a  great big  hole  to  me,"  squeaked  Bilbo  (who  had no
experience  of dragons and  only of hobbit-holes) He was getting excited and
interested again, so that  he forgot to  keep his mouth shut. He loved maps,
and  in  his hall  there hung a large one of the  Country Round with all his
favourite walks marked on it in  red  ink. "How could  such a large door  be
kept secret from everybody outside, apart from the dragon?" he asked. He was
only a little hobbit you must remember.
     "In lots of  ways," said  Gandalf. "But in  what way  this one has been
hidden we don't know without  going to see. From what it  says  on the map I
should guess there is a closed door which has been made to look exactly like
the side of the Mountain. That is the usual dwarves' method- I think that is
right, isn't it?" "Quite right," said Thorin.
     "Also," went on Gandalf, "I forgot to  mention that with the map went a
key, a small and curious key. Here it is!" he  said, and  handed to Thorin a
key with a long barrel and intricate wards, made of silver. "Keep it safe!"
     "Indeed I will," said Thorin, and he fastened it upon a fine chain that
hung about his neck and  under his  jacket. "Now things  begin to look  more
hopeful. This  news alters them much  for-the better. So far we  have had no
clear idea what to do.  We thought of going East, as quiet and careful as we
could, as far as the Long Lake. After that the trouble would begin."
     "A  long  time before  that, if I know anything about  the loads East,"
interrupted Gandalf.
     "We might  go from  there up  along the River Running,"  went on Thorin
taking no notice, "and so to the  ruins of  Dale-the old town in  the valley
there, under the shadow of the Mountain. But we none of us liked the idea of
the Front  Gate. The river runs right out of it through the great  cliff  at
the South of the Mountain, and out of it comes the dragon too-far too often,
unless he has changed."
     "That would  be  no  good,"  said the  wizard,  "not  without  a mighty
Warrior, even a  Hero.  I tried to find one;  but warriors are busy fighting
one another  in  distant lands, and in this neighbourhood heroes are scarce,
or  simply lot to be found. Swords in these parts are mostly blunt, and axes
are used for trees, and shields as  cradles or dish-covers; and  dragons are
comfortably  far-off (and  therefore  legendary). That  is why  I settled on
burglary-especially when I remembered the existence of a Side-door. And here
is our little Bilbo Baggins, the  burglar, the chosen and  selected burglar.
So now let's get on and make some plans."
     "Very well then," said Thorin, "supposing  the  burglar-expert gives us
some ideas or suggestions." He turned with mock-politeness to Bilbo.
     "First I should like to know a bit more about things," said he, feeling
all confused  and a bit shaky inside, but so  far still lookishly determined
to go on with things. "I mean about the gold and  the dragon,  and all that,
and how it got there, and who it belongs to, and so on and further."
     "Bless me!" said Thorin,  "haven't you  got a map? and  didn't you hear
our song? and haven't we been talking about all this for hours?"
     "All  the same,  I  should  like  it  all  plain and  clear,"  said  he
obstinately, putting on his business manner (usually reserved for people who
tried  to borrow  money off him), and  doing  his  best to  appear wise  and
prudent and professional and live  up to  Gandalf's recommendation. "Also  I
should like to  know about risks, out-of-pocket expenses, time  required and
remuneration,  and so forth"-by which he meant: "What am  I going to get out
of it? and am I going to come back alive?"
     "O very well," said Thorin. "Long  ago in my grandfather  Thror's  time
our family was  driven out of  the  far North,  and came back with all their
wealth and  their tools to this Mountain on the map. It  had been discovered
by my  far ancestor, Thrain the  Old, but now they mined and they  tunnelled
and they made  huger  halls and greater workshops -and in addition I believe
they found a good deal of gold and a great many jewels too. Anyway they grew
immensely rich  and famous, and  my  grandfather was King under the Mountain
again and treated with great reverence by the  mortal men, who lived to  the
South, and were gradually  spreading  up the  Running River  as  far  as the
valley overshadowed by the Mountain. They built the merry town of Dale there
in those days.  Kings used to send for our smiths, and reward even the least
skilful most richly. Fathers would beg us to take their sons as apprentices,
and  pay us handsomely, especially in food-supplies, which we never bothered
to grow or find for ourselves. Altogether  those  were good days for us, and
the  poorest of us  had  money to  spend  and  to lend, and leisure to  make
beautiful  things just  for  the. fun  of  it,  not  to  speak  of  the most
marvellous and magical  toys, the  like of which is not to  be found in  the
world now-a-days. So my grandfather's halls became full of armour and jewels
and  carvings and  cups, and the  toy-market of  Dale was the wonder  of the
North.
     "Undoubtedly that  was what brought the dragon. Dragons steal  gold and
jewels,  you know, from men and elves and dwarves,  wherever  they  can find
them;  and  they  guard  their  plunder  as  long  as they  live  (which  is
practically forever, unless they  are killed), and never  enjoy a brass ring
of it.  Indeed they hardly know a good  bit of work from a bad, though  they
usually have a good notion of the current market value; and they can't  make
a thing for themselves, not even mend a little  loose scale of their armour.
There were lots of dragons in the North in those days, and gold was probably
getting scarce  up there,  with the  dwarves flying south or getting killed,
and all the general waste and destruction  that dragons make  going from bad
to  worse. There was a most specially greedy, strong and wicked  worm called
Smaug. One day he flew up into the air and came south. The first we heard of
it was a noise like a hurricane coming from the North, and the pine-trees on
the  Mountain  creaking and cracking  in  the wind. Some of  the dwarves who
happened to  be outside (I was one luckily -a  fine adventurous lad in those
days, always wandering  about, and it saved  my  life that day)-well, from a
good way off we saw  the dragon settle on our mountain  in a spout of flame.
Then he came down the slopes and when  he reached the woods they all went up
in  fire. By that time all the bells  were ringing  in Dale and the warriors
were  arming. The dwarves rushed out of their great gate;  but there was the
dragon waiting for them. None escaped that way. The river rushed up in steam
and a fog fell on Dale, and in the fog the dragon came on them and destroyed
most of  the warriors-the usual unhappy  story, it was  only too  common  in
those days. Then he went back and crept in through the Front Gate and routed
out all  the halls, and  lanes,  and tunnels, alleys,  cellars, mansions and
passages. After that there were no dwarves left alive  inside, and  he  took
all their wealth for himself. Probably, for that is the dragons' way, he has
piled it all up in a  great heap  far inside, and  sleeps  on it  for a bed.
Later he used to crawl  out of the great gate and come by night to Dale, and
carry away people, especially maidens,  to eat, until  Dale  was ruined, and
all  the  people  dead or  gone. What  goes on there  now  I don't  know for
certain,  but I don't suppose anyone  lives nearer  to the Mountain than the
far edge of the Long Lake now-a-days.
     "The few of  us that  were well outside  sat and  wept  in hiding,  and
cursed  Smaug;  and there  we were  unexpectedly joined by my father  and my
grandfather with  singed  beards. They looked  very grim but they said  very
little. When I asked how  they had got away, they told me to hold my tongue,
and said that one day in the proper time  I should know. After that we  went
away, and we have had to earn our livings as  best we could up and down  the
lands, often  enough  sinking as low as blacksmith-work  or even coalmining.
But  we have never forgotten  our stolen treasure. And even now, when I will
allow we have a  good bit laid by and  are  not so  badly  off"-here  Thorin
stroked the gold chain round  his neck-"we still mean to get it back, and to
bring our curses home to Smaug-if we can.
     "I have often wondered about my father's and my grandfather's escape. I
see now they must have  had a private Side-door which only  they knew about.
But apparently they made a map, and I  should  like to know how Gandalf  got
hold of it, and why it did not come down to me, the rightful heir."
     "I did not 'get hold of it,' I was given it," said the wizard.
     "Your grandfather Thror was killed, you remember, in the mines of Moria
by Azog the Goblin --"
     "Curse his name, yes," said Thorin.
     "And Thrain your  father  went away  on the twenty-first  of  April,  a
hundred years ago last Thursday, and has never been seen by you since--"
     "True, true," said Thorin.
     "Well, your father gave me this to give to you; and if I have chosen my
own  time and  way of handing  it over, you can hardly blame me, considering
the trouble I had to find you.  Your father could not remember his  own name
when he  gave me the paper, and he never  told me yours;  so on the whole  I
think  I ought to  be praised and thanked. Here it is," said  he handing the
map to Thorin.
     "I don't understand," said Thorin, and  Bilbo  felt he would have liked
to say the same. The explanation did not seem to explain.
     "Your grandfather," said the wizard slowly and grimly, "gave the map to
his son for safety before he went to the  mines  of Moria.  Your father went
away  to try his luck with  the map after your grandfather was  killed;  and
lots of adventures of a most unpleasant sort he had,  but he  never got near
the Mountain. How he got there I  don't know, but I found him a prisoner  in
the dungeons of the Necromancer."
     "Whatever  were you doing there?" asked Thorin  with a shudder, and all
the dwarves shivered.
     "Never you  mind.  I was  finding things out,  as  usual; and  a  nasty
dangerous  business it was. Even  I,  Gandalf, only just escaped. I tried to
save your father, but it was too late. He was witless and wandering, and had
forgotten almost everything except the  map and the key." "We  have long ago
paid  the goblins of  Moria," said Thorin;  "we must give  a thought to  the
Necromancer." "Don't  be absurd! He is an enemy quite beyond  the powers  of
all the dwarves put together, if they could all be collected again from  the
four corners of the world. The one thing your father wished was for his  son
to read the map and use the key. The dragon  and the Mountain are  more than
big enough tasks for you!"
     "Hear, hear!" said  Bilbo, and accidentally said it aloud, "Hear what?"
they all said turning suddenly towards him, and he was so  flustered that he
answered "Hear what I have got to say!" "What's that?" they asked.
     "Well,  I  should say that you ought to go East and  have a look round.
After  all there  is  the Side-door,  and  dragons must  sleep sometimes,  I
suppose. If you sit on the doorstep long enough, I daresay you will think of
something. And well, don't you know, I think  we have talked long enough for
one night, if  you see what I mean. What about bed, and  an early start, and
all that? I will give you a good breakfast before you go."
     "Before  we go, I  suppose  you  mean,"  said  Thorin. "Aren't  you the
burglar?  And isn't  sitting  on the door-step your  job,  not to  speak  of
getting inside  the door? But I  agree  about bed and breakfast. I like eggs
with my ham, when starting on  a  journey: fried  not  poached, and mind you
don't break 'em."
     After all the others had ordered their  breakfasts without so much as a
please (which annoyed Bilbo  very much), they  all got up. The hobbit had to
find room  for  them  all, and filled all his spare-rooms and  made  beds on
chairs and sofas,  before he got them all stowed and went to his  own little
bed  very tired and not altogether happy. One thing he did make his mind  up
about was not to  bother to get  up  very  early  and cook  everybody else's
wretched  breakfast.  The Tookishness  was wearing off, and he  was  not now
quite so sure that he was going on any journey in the morning. As he lay  in
bed he could  hear Thorin still humming to himself in the best  bedroom next
to him:

     Far over the misty mountains cold
     To dungeons deep and caverns old
     We must away, ere break of day,
     To find our long-forgotten gold.

     Bilbo  went  to  sleep  with that  in  his  ears, and it gave  him very
uncomfortable dreams. It was long after the break of day, when he woke up.


Chapter 2. Roast Mutton

     Up  jumped  Bilbo,  and  putting  on  his dressing-gown  went  into the
dining-room. There he saw nobody, but all the signs of  a large and  hurried
breakfast.  There  was  a fearful  mess in the  room,  and piles of unwashed
crocks  in the kitchen. Nearly every pot and pan he possessed seemed to have
been  used.  The washing-up was so dismally real that  Bilbo  was forced  to
believe  the party of the night  before had not been part of his bad dreams,
as he had  rather  hoped. Indeed he was really  relieved after all  to think
that they had all gone  without him,  and without  bothering to wake him  up
("but  with never a  thank-you" he thought); and yet in a  way  he could not
help feeling just a trifle disappointed. The feeling surprised him.
     "Don't  be  a  fool, Bilbo Baggins!"  he said  to himself, "thinking of
dragons  and  all that outlandish  nonsense at your age!"  So  be put  on an
apron, lit fires, boiled  water, and washed up.  Then  he had a nice  little
breakfast in the kitchen  before turning out the  dining-room. By  that time
the sun  was shining; and the front door was  open, letting in a warm spring
breeze. Bilbo began to whistle loudly and to forget about the night  before.
In fact  he was just sitting down to  a nice little  second breakfast in the
dining-room by the open window,  when  in  walked Gandalf. "My dear fellow,"
said he, "whenever are you going  to come? What about  an  early  start?-and
here  you are having  breakfast, or whatever  you call it, at half past ten!
They left you the message, because they could not wait."
     "What message?" said poor Mr. Baggins all in a fluster.
     "Great  Elephants!" said Gandalf, "you are  not  at  all  yourself this
morning-you have never dusted the mantel- piece!"
     "What's that got to do with it? I have had enough to do with washing up
for fourteen!"
     "If you had dusted the mantelpiece you would have found this just under
the clock,"  said Gandalf, handing Bilbo a note (written, of course, on  his
own note-paper).
     This is what he read:

     "Thorin and Company to Burglar Bilbo greeting!
     For  your  hospitality  our sincerest  thanks, and  for  your offer  of
professional assistance our grateful acceptance. Terms: cash on delivery, up
to and not exceeding one fourteenth of total profits (if any); all traveling
expenses guaranteed in any event; funeral  expenses to be  defrayed by us or
our  representatives, if occasion  arises and  the matter  is not  otherwise
arranged for.
     "Thinking  it  unnecessary  to  disturb your esteemed  repose,  we have
proceeded  in  advance to make requisite  preparations, and shall await your
respected  person at  the  Green Dragon Inn,  Bywater,  at  II  a.m.  sharp.
Trusting that you will be punctual.

     "We have the honour to remain
     "Yours deeply
     "Thorin & Co."

     "That leaves you just ten minutes. You will have to run," said Gandalf.
     "But--" said Bilbo.
     "No time for it," said the wizard.
     "But--"said Bilbo again.
     "No time for that either! Off you go!"
     To the end of his days Bilbo could  never remember how he found himself
outside, without a hat,  walking-stick or say 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 whole mile or more. Very puffed  he was,
when he got to  Bywater just on the stroke of eleven,  and found he had come
without a pocket-handkerchief!
     "Bravo!" said  Balin who  was standing at the  inn door looking out for
him.
     Just  then all  the others  came  round the corner of the road from the
village. They were  on ponies,  and each pony was slung about with all kinds
of  baggages, packages, parcels, and  paraphernalia.  There was a very small
pony, apparently for Bilbo.
     "Up you two get, and off we go!" said Thorin.
     "I'm awfully sorry," said Bilbo, "but I have come without my hat, and I
have left my  pocket-handkerchief  behind, and I haven't  got  any money.  I
didn't get your note until after 10.45 to be precise."
     "Don't  be precise," said  Dwalin, "and don't worry!  You will have  to
manage without  pocket-handkerchiefs, and  a good many  other things, before
you  get to the journey's end.  As for a  hat, I have got  a spare  hood and
cloak in my luggage."
     That's how  they all came to start, jogging off from the inn  one  fine
morning just before May, on laden ponies; and Bilbo was wearing a dark-green
hood (a little weather-stained) and a dark-green cloak borrowed from Dwalin.
They  were too large for  him, and  he looked rather comic. What  his father
Bungo would have thought of him, I daren't think.  His  only  comfort was he
couldn't be mistaken for a dwarf, as he had no beard.
     They had not been riding  very long when up  came Gandalf very splendid
on a white  horse. He had brought a lot of pocket-handkerchiefs, and Bilbo's
pipe and tobacco. So after  that the party went along very merrily, and they
told stories or sang songs as  they rode  forward all  day, except of course
when they stopped for meals. These didn't come quite as often as Bilbo would
have liked them, but still he began  to feel that adventures were not so bad
after all. At first they had passed through hobbit-lands, a wild respectable
country inhabited by decent folk,  with good roads, an  inn or  two, and now
and then a dwarf or a farmer ambling by on business. Then they came to lands
where  people spoke strangely, and sang songs Bilbo had never heard  before.
Now  they had gone  on far into the Lone-lands, where  there  were no people
left, no inns, and the roads  grew steadily worse. Not far ahead were dreary
hills, rising higher and higher, dark with  trees. On some of them were  old
castles with  an  evil look,  as  if they  had  been built by wicked people.
Everything seemed gloomy, for the weather that  day had  taken a nasty turn.
Mostly it had been as good as  May can  be, even in  merry tales, but now it
was cold and wet. In the Lone-lands they had to camp when they could, but at
least it had been dry. "To think it will soon be June," grumbled Bilbo as he
splashed  along  behind the  others  in  a  very muddy  track. It  was after
tea-time;  it  was  pouring with rain,  and had been  all  day; his hood was
dripping into his eyes, his cloak was full  of water; the pony was tired and
stumbled on stones; the others were  too  grumpy to talk. "And  I'm sure the
rain  has got  into the dry clothes and into the food-bags," thought  Bilbo.
"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!
     Still the  dwarves jogged on, never  turning round or taking any notice
of the hobbit. Somewhere behind the grey clouds the sun must have gone down,
for it began to get dark. Wind  got up, and the willows along the river-bank
bent and sighed.  I don't know what river it was, a rushing red one, swollen
with the  rains of the last  few  days, that came  down  from the hills  and
mountains in front of them. Soon it was nearly  dark. The winds broke up the
grey clouds, and a waning moon appeared above the  hills between  the flying
rags. Then  they stopped, and  Thorin  muttered something about supper, "and
where shall we get a dry patch to sleep on?" Not  until then did they notice
that  Gandalf was missing. So far he had come all the  way with them,  never
saying if he  was  in the  adventure  or merely keeping  them company  for a
while. He had  eaten  most, talked most, and laughed most. But now he simply
was not there at all!
     "Just when a wizard would have been most useful, too," groaned Dori and
Nori (who shared the hobbit's views  about regular meals, plenty and often).
They decided in the end that they would have to camp where they were. So far
they  had not  camped before on this journey, and though they knew that they
soon would have  to camp regularly, when they were among the Misty Mountains
and far from the lands of respectable people, it seemed a bad wet evening to
begin, on. They  moved to a clump of  trees,  and though it was  drier under
them, the wind  shook the rain off the leaves, and the drip, drip, was  most
annoying. Also  the mischief  seemed to have  got into the fire. Dwarves can
make a fire almost anywhere out of almost anything, wind  or  no  wind;  but
they could not do it that night, not even Oin and Gloin,  who were specially
good at it.
     Then one of the ponies took fright  at nothing  and bolted. He got into
the river before they could catch  him;  and  before they could get  him out
again, Fili and Kili  were  nearly  drowned,  and  all the  baggage that  he
carried was washed away off him. Of course it was mostly food, and there was
mighty little left for supper, and  less  for breakfast. There they all  sat
glum and wet and muttering, while Oin and  Gloin went on trying to light the
fire, and quarrelling about  it.  Bilbo was sadly reflecting that adventures
are not all pony-rides  in May-sunshine, when Balin,  who was  always  their
look-out man, said: "There's a light over  there!" There was a hill some way
off  with trees on  it, pretty thick in parts. Out of the dark  mass  of the
trees they  could now  see a light shining,  a  reddish  comfortable-looking
light, as it  might be a fire or  torches twinkling. When they had looked at
it for some while, they fell to arguing. Some said "no" and some said "yes."
Some said they  could but go  and see, and anything was  better than  little
supper, less breakfast,  and wet clothes all the night.  Others said: "These
parts are none too well  known,  and are  too near the mountains. Travellers
seldom come this way  now.  The old maps are no use: things have changed for
the worse and the road is unguarded. They have seldom even heard of the king
round  here, and  the  less  inquisitive you  are as you  go along, the less
trouble you are likely to find." Some said: "After all there are fourteen of
us." Others said:  "Where has Gandalf got to?" This  remark was repeated  by
everybody. Then the rain  began to pour down  worse than ever,  and  Oin and
Gloin began to fight. That settled it. "After all we have got a burglar with
us," they said; and so they made off, leading their ponies (with all due and
proper caution)  in the direction of the light. They  came to the  hill  and
were soon  in the wood. Up the hill they went; but there  was no proper path
to be seen, such as might lead to a house or a farm;  and do what they could
they made a deal of rustling and crackling and creaking (and  a good deal of
grumbling and drafting), as they went through the trees in the pitch dark.
     Suddenly the  red light shone out very  bright through the  tree-trunks
not  far ahead.  "Now it is  the  burglar's turn," they said, meaning Bilbo.
"You must go  on and find out all about that light, and  what it is for, and
if all is perfectly safe and canny," said Thorin to the hobbit. "Now scuttle
off, and come back  quick,  if all is well. If not, come back if you can! It
you  can't, hoot twice  like  a barn-owl and once like a screech-owl, and we
will do what we can."
     Off  Bilbo  had to go, before  he could explain  that he could not hoot
even once like any kind of owl any more than fly like a bat. But at any rate
hobbits can move quietly in woods,  absolutely quietly. They take a pride in
it, and  Bilbo  had sniffed  more than  once  at what  he  called  "all this
dwarvish racket," as they went along, though I don't sup-pose you or I would
notice  anything  at  all on a  windy night, not if  the whole cavalcade had
passed  two feet off. As for Bilbo walking primly  towards the  red light, I
don't  suppose  even  a  weasel would  have stirred  a whisker  at  it.  So,
naturally, he  got  right up to the fire-for  fire it was without disturbing
anyone. And this is  what he saw.  Three very large persons  sitting round a
very large fire of  beech-logs. They were  toasting mutton on  long spits of
wood, and  licking the gravy off their fingers.  There  was a fine toothsome
smell. Also there was a barrel of good drink at hand, and they were drinking
out of jugs. But they were trolls. Obviously trolls. Even Bilbo, in spite of
his  sheltered life, could see that: from the great heavy faces of them, and
their  size, and  the shape  of their legs,  not  to mention their language,
which was not drawing-room fashion at all, at all.
     "Mutton  yesterday,  mutton  today,  and blimey, if  it don't look like
mutton again tomorrer," said one of the trolls.
     "Never a blinking bit of manflesh  have we had for long enough," said a
second.  "What  the 'ell  William was  a-thinkin' of to bring us  into these
parts  at all, beats me - and the drink runnin' short, what's more," he said
jogging the elbow of William, who was taking a pull at his jug.
     William  choked. "Shut yer  mouth!" he said  as  soon as he could. "Yer
can't expect  folk  to stop here for ever  just to be  et by  you and  Bert.
You've  et a village and a half  between  yer, since  we come  down from the
mountains. How much more d'yer  want? And time's been up our way, when yer'd
have said 'thank yer  Bill'  for  a nice bit o' fat valley mutton like  what
this  is." He took  a big bite off a sheep's leg he was  toasting, and wiped
his lips on his sleeve.
     Yes, I am afraid  trolls  do behave like that, even those with only one
head each. After hearing  all this Bilbo ought  to  have  done  something at
once.  Either  he should have gone back quietly and warned  his friends that
there were three fair-sized trolls  at hand in a nasty mood, quite likely to
try toasted dwarf, or even pony, for a change; or else he should have done a
bit of good quick burgling. A really first-class and legendary burglar would
at this point have picked the trolls' pockets-it is nearly always worthwhile
if you can manage it-,  pinched the very mutton off the spite, purloined the
beer, and walked  off without their  noticing him. Others more practical but
with less professional pride would perhaps have stuck  a dagger into each of
them before they observed it. Then the night could have been spent cheerily.
     Bilbo knew it. He had read of  a good many things he had never  seen or
done. He was very much  alarmed, as well  as disgusted;  he wished himself a
hundred miles away, and yet-and yet somehow he could not go straight back to
Thorin and Company empty-handed.  So  he stood and hesitated in the shadows.
Of  the various burglarious proceedings he had heard of  picking the trolls'
pockets seemed the least  difficult, so at last he crept behind a  tree just
behind William.
     Bert and Tom went off to the barrel. William was  having another drink.
Then Bilbo plucked up courage  and put his little hand in William's enormous
pocket. There was a purse in it, as  big as a bag to Bilbo. "Ha!" thought he
warming  to  his  new  work  as  he lifted it  carefully  out,  "this  is  a
beginning!"
     It  was!  Trolls' purses are the mischief, and this was no exception. "
'Ere, 'oo are you?" it  squeaked, as it left the  pocket; and William turned
round at once and grabbed Bilbo by the neck, before he could duck behind the
tree.
     "Blimey, Bert, look what I've copped!" said William.
     "What is it?" said the others coming up.
     "Lumme, if I knows! What are yer?"
     "Bilbo Baggins, a  bur-- a  hobbit," said poor Bilbo, shaking all over,
and wondering how to make owl-noises before they throttled him.
     "A burrahobbit?"  said they  a bit startled. Trolls  are  slow  in  the
uptake, and mighty suspicious about anything new to them.
     "What's a burrahobbit got to do with my pocket, anyways?" said William.
     "And can yer cook 'em?" said Tom.
     "Yer can try," said Bert, picking up a skewer.
     "He wouldn't  make above a mouthful," said William, who had already had
a fine supper, "not when he was skinned and boned."
     "P'raps there are more  like him round about, and we might make a pie,"
said  Bert. "Here you,  are there any more of your  sort a-sneakin' in these
here woods, yer nassty little rabbit," said he looking at the hobbit's furry
feet; and he picked him up by the toes and shook him.
     "Yes, lots," said  Bilbo, before he remembered not  to give his friends
away. "No, none at all, not one," he said immediately afterwards.
     "What  d'yer mean?" said Bert,  holding him right away up,  by the hair
this time.
     "What I say," said Bilbo gasping. "And please don't cook me, kind sirs!
I am a good cook myself,  and cook  bet-ter than I cook,  if  you see what I
mean.  I'll  cook beautifully for  you, a perfectly beautiful breakfast  for
you, if only you won't have me for supper."
     "Poor little blighter," said William. He had already had as much supper
as he could hold; also he had had lots of  beer. "Poor  little blighter! Let
him go!"
     "Not till he says what he means by lots and none at all," said Bert. "I
don't want to have  me  throat  cut in me sleep. Hold his toes in  the fire,
till he talks!"
     "I won't have it," said William. "I caught him anyway."
     "You're  a  fat fool, William,"  said  Bert,  "as I've said afore  this
evening."
     "And you're a lout!"
     "And I won't take that from you. Bill Huggins," says Bert, and puts his
fist in William's eye.
     Then  there was  a gorgeous row. Bilbo  had just enough wits left, when
Bert dropped  him on the ground, to scramble out of  the  way of their feet,
before they  were  fighting like dogs, and calling  one another all sorts of
perfectly true  and applicable names in  very  loud  voices. Soon they  were
locked in one another's  arms, and  rolling nearly into the fire kicking and
thumping,  while  Tom  whacked  at then both with a branch to bring  them to
their senses-and that of course only made them  madder than ever. That would
have been the time for Bilbo to have left. But his poor little feet had been
very squashed in Bert's big paw, and  he had no breath in his  body, and his
head was going round; so there  he lay for a while panting, just outside the
circle of firelight.
     Right  in the  middle of the fight up came Balin. The dwarves had heard
noises from a  distance, and  after wait-ing for some time for Bilbo to come
back,  or to hoot like an owl, they started off one by  one to creep towards
the light as quietly as they could.  No  sooner did Tom see Balin  come into
the light than he gave an awful howl. Trolls simply detest the very sight of
dwarves (uncooked). Bert and Bill stopped fighting immediately, and "a sack,
Tom,  quick!" they said, before Balin, who was  wondering where in all  this
commotion Bilbo was, knew what was happening, a  sack was over his head, and
he was down.
     "There's more to come yet," said Tom, "or I'm mighty mistook. Lots  and
none  at all, it  is," said  he. "No burra- hobbits, but  lots of these here
dwarves. That's about the shape of it!"
     "I reckon you're  right," said  Bert,  "and  we'd best  get out of  the
light."
     And so they did. With sacks in their hands, that they used for carrying
off mutton and other plunder, they waited in the shadows. As each dwarf came
up and looked  at the fire, and the spilled  jugs, and the gnawed mutton, in
surprise, pop! went a nasty smelly sack over his head, and he was down. Soon
Dwalin  lay by Balin, and Fili  and Kili together, and Dori and Nori and Ori
all in a heap,  and  Oin and Gloin  and Bifur  and Bofur  and  Bombur  piled
uncomfortably near the fire.
     "That'll teach 'em," said Tom; for Bifur and Bombur  had given a lot of
trouble, and fought like mad, as dwarves will when cornered.
     Thorin  came last-and  he was  not caught unawares.  He  came expecting
mischief, and didn't need to see his friends' legs sticking out of sacks  to
tell him that things were not all well. He stood outside in the shadows some
way off, and said: "What's all this trouble? Who has been knocking my people
about?"
     "It's  trolls!" said Bilbo  from  behind a tree. They had forgotten all
about him. "They're hiding in the bushes with sacks," said he.
     "O! are  they?" said Thorin, and he  jumped forward to the fire, before
they could leap  on him.  He caught up a big branch  all on fire at one end;
and Bert got that end in his eye  before he  could step aside. That put  him
out of the  battle for a bit.  Bilbo  did his best. He caught hold of  Tom's
leg-as well as he could, it was thick as a young tree-trunk -but he was sent
spinning up into the top of  some  bushes, when Tom kicked the  sparks up in
Thorin's face.
     Tom got  the  branch in  his  teeth for that, and lost one of the front
ones. It made him howl, I can tell you. But just at that moment William came
up behind  and popped a sack right over Thorin's head  and down to his toes.
And so the fight  ended. A nice pickle they were all in now: all neatly tied
up in  sacks, with three  angry  trolls  (and two  with burns and bashes  to
remember) sitting by them, arguing whether they should roast them slowly, or
mince them  fine and boil them,  or just sit on them one  by one  and squash
them into jelly: and Bilbo up in a bush, with his clothes and his skin torn,
not daring to move for fear they should hear him.

     It was just then that Gandalf came back. But no one saw him. The trolls
had just decided to roast the dwarves now and eat them later-that was Bert's
idea, and after a lot of argument they had all agreed to it.
     "No  good roasting  'em  now, it'd take all night,"  said a voice. Bert
thought it was William's.
     "Don't  start  the argument all over-again. Bill," he said, "or it will
take all night."
     "Who's  a-arguing?" said  William,  who thought it  was. Bert  that had
spoken.
     "You are," said Bert.
     "You're a liar,"  said William; and so the argument beg all over again.
In the  end  they decided  to  mince  them fine and boil them. So they got a
black pot, and they took out their knives.
     "No good boiling 'em! We ain't got no water, and it's a long way to the
well and all," said a voice. Bert and William thought it was Tom's.
     "Shut up!" said they,  "or we'll never have done. And yer can fetch the
water yerself, if yer say any more."
     "Shut up yerself!" said Tom, who thought it was William's voice. "Who's
arguing but you. I'd like to know."
     "You're a booby," said William.
     "Booby yerself!" said Tom.
     And so the argument began all over again, and went on hotter than ever,
until at  last they decided to sit on the sacks one by one  and squash them,
and boil them next time.
     "Who shall we sit on first?" said the voice.
     "Better sit on the  last  fellow first," said Bert, whose eye  had been
damaged by Thorin. He thought Tom was talking.
     "Don't talk to yerself!" said Tom. "But if you wants to sit on the last
one, sit on him. Which is he?"
     "The one with the yellow stockings," said Bert.
     "Nonsense,  the  one  with  the  grey  stockings,"  said  a voice  like
William's.
     "I made sure it was yellow," said Bert.
     "Yellow it was," said William.
     "Then what did yer say it was grey for?" said Bert.
     "I never did. Tom said it."
     "That I never did!" said Tom. "It was you."
     "Two to one, so shut yer mouth!" said Bert.
     "Who are you a-talkin' to?" said William.
     "Now stop it!" said Tom and Bert together. "The night's gettin' on, and
dawn comes early. Let's get on with it!"
     "Dawn  take you all, and  be stone  to  you!" said a voice that sounded
like William's.  But it wasn't. For just  at that moment the light came over
the hill, and  there  was  a mighty twitter  in the branches.  William never
spoke for  he stood  turned to  stone as he stooped; and  Bert and  Tom were
stuck  like rocks as they looked at him.  And there they stand  to this day,
all alone, unless the birds perch on them; for trolls, as you probably know,
must  be  underground  before  dawn, or they  go back  to  the stuff of  the
mountains they are made of, and never move again. That is  what had happened
to Bert and Tom and William.
     "Excellent!" said Gandalf, as he stepped from behind a tree, and helped
Bilbo to climb  down out of a thorn-bush. Then Bilbo  understood. It was the
wizard's voice that had kept the trolls bickering and quarrelling, until the
light came and made an end of them.
     The next thing  was to untie the  sacks and let out  the dwarves.  They
were nearly suffocated, and very annoyed: they had  not at all enjoyed lying
there listening  to the trolls making  plans for roasting them and squashing
them and mincing them. They had to hear Bilbo's account of what had happened
to him twice over, before they were satisfied.
     "Silly time to go practising pinching and pocket-picking," said Bombur,
"when what we wanted was fire and food!"
     "And that's just what you  wouldn't have got of those fellows without a
struggle, in any case," said Gandalf.
     "Anyhow  you are  wasting time  now. Don't you realize that the  trolls
must have  a cave or  a hole dug somewhere near to hide from  the sun in? We
must look into it!"
     They searched about, and soon found  the  marks of  trolls' stony boots
going away through  the trees. They followed the tracks up  the  hill, until
hidden  by bushes they came on a big door  of stone  leading to a cave.  But
they  could not open  it,  not though  they  all pushed while Gandalf  tried
various incantations.
     "Would this be any good?" asked Bilbo, when they were getting tired and
angry. "I found it  on the ground where the trolls had their fight." He held
out a largish  key, though no doubt William had thought  it  very small  and
secret. It  must have fallen out  of his pocket, very luckily, before he was
turned to stone.
     "Why on earth didn't you mention it before?" they cried.
     Gandalf grabbed it and fitted it into the key-hole. Then the stone door
swung back with one big push, and they all went inside. There  were bones on
the floor and a nasty smell  was in  the air; but there  was a good  deal of
food jumbled carelessly on shelves and on the ground, among an untidy litter
of  plunder,  of all sorts from  brass buttons to  pots full  of gold  coins
standing  in  a corner.  There were  lots  of clothes,  too, hanging on  the
walls-too small  for trolls,  I am afraid they belonged to victims-and among
them were  several swords of various  makes, shapes, and  sizes. Two  caught
their  eyes particularly, because of their beautiful  scabbards and jewelled
hilts. Gandalf and Thorin each took one of these; and  Bilbo took a knife in
a leather sheath. It would have made only  a tiny pocket-knife for a  troll,
but it was as good as a short sword for the hobbit.
     "These look like good blades," said  the  wizard, half drawing them and
looking  at  them curiously. "They were not  made by  any troll, nor by  any
smith  among men in these parts and days; but when we can read  the runes on
them, we shall know more about them."
     "Let's get  out of this horrible smell!" said Fili So  they carried out
the pots of coins,  and such food as was un-touched and  looked fit  to eat,
also one  barrel of ale which was still  full.  By that time  they felt like
breakfast, and being very  hungry they did  not turn their noses up  at what
they had got from the trolls' larder. Their own provisions were very scanty.
Now they had bread and cheese, and  plenty of ale, and bacon to toast in the
embers  of the  fire. After  that  they  slept,  for  their  night had  been
disturbed; (and  they  did  nothing more  till  the afternoon. Then  they  I
brought up their ponies, and carried  away the pots of gold, and buried them
very secretly  not  far from  the  track  by the river, putting a great many
spells  over them, just in  case they ever  had the-chance to  come back and
recover them. When that was done, they  all  mounted  once  more, and jogged
along again on the path towards the East.
     "Where did you go to,  if  I may ask?" said Thorin to  Gandalf as  they
rode along.
     "To look ahead," said he.
     "And what brought you back in the nick of time?"
     "Looking behind," said he.
     "Exactly!" said Thorin; "but could you be more plain?"
     "I  went on  to spy out  our  road. It will  soon  become dangerous and
difficult.  Also  I  was  anxious  about replenishing  our  small  stock  of
provisions. I had not gone very far, however, when I met a couple of friends
of mine from Rivendell."
     "Where's that?" asked Bilbo,
     "Don't interrupt!" said Gandalf. "You will get there in a few days now,
if we're lucky,  and  find out  all about it As  I was saying I  met  two of
Elrond's people. They  were hurrying  along  for fear of the trolls. It  was
they who  told me  that  three of  them had come down from the mountains and
settled  in  the woods  not far from the road;  they had frightened everyone
away from the district, and they waylaid strangers.
     "I immediately  had a feeling that I was wanted back. Looking  behind I
saw a fire in the  distance and made for it. So now you know. Please be more
careful, next time, or we shall never get anywhere!"
     "Thank you!" said Thorin.


Chapter 3. A Short Rest

     They did not sing or tell stories  that day, even  though  the  weather
improved; nor the next day, nor the day after.  They had  begun to feel that
danger was  not far away  on  either side. They camped under the stars,  and
their horses had more to eat than they  had; for there was plenty of  grass,
but there was not much in their bags,  even with  what they had got from the
trolls. One morning they forded a river at a  wide shallow place full of the
noise of stones and foam. The far bank was steep and slippery. When they got
to the top  of it, leading  their ponies, they saw that the  great mountains
had marched down very near to them. Already they I seemed  only a day's easy
journey from the feet of the nearest. Dark and drear it looked, though there
were patches of  sunlight on  its  brown sides, and behind its shoulders the
tips of snow-peaks gleamed.
     "Is that The Mountain?" asked Bilbo  in a solemn voice, looking  at  it
with round eyes. He had never seen a thing that looked so big before.
     "Of course not!" said  Balin. "That is only the beginning  of the Misty
Mountains, and we  have to get through, or  over, or  under  those  somehow,
before we can come into Wilderland beyond. And it is  a deal  of a  way even
from  the other side of them to  the Lonely Mountain in the East Where Smaug
lies on our treasure."
     "O!" said Bilbo, and  just at  that moment he felt  more fared than  he
ever  remembered  feeling  before.  He  was   thinking  once  again  of  his
comfortable  chair  before  the  fire in his favourite  sitting-room  in his
hobbit-hole, and of the kettle singing. Not for the last time!
     Now Gandalf  led the way. "We  must  not miss the road, or we shall  be
done for," he said. "We need  food, for one  thing, and  rest in  reasonable
safety-also it is very necessary to tackle the Misty Mountains by the proper
path, or else you will get lost in them, and have to come  back and start at
the beginning again (if you ever get back at all)."
     They asked him where he was making for,  and he answered: "You are come
to the very edge  of the  Wild, as some  of you  may know. Hidden  somewhere
ahead of us is the fair valley of Rivendell  where Elrond lives in the  Last
Homely House. I sent a message by my friends, and we are expected."
     That sounded nice and comforting, but they  had not got  there yet, and
it was not  so easy as  it sounds to  find the Last Homely House west of the
Mountains. There seemed to be no trees and no valleys and  no hills to break
the ground  in  front of them, only one vast slope going slowly up and up to
meet the feet of the nearest mountain, a wide land the colour of heather and
crumbling  rock,  with patches  and  slashes  of grass-green and  moss-green
showing where water might be.
     Morning  passed,  afternoon came; but in all the silent waste there was
no sign  of any dwelling. They were growing anxious, for they  now saw  that
the house might be  hidden  almost  anywhere between them and the mountains.
They came  on  unexpected  valleys, narrow  with  deep  sides,  that  opened
suddenly at their  feet, and they  looked  down surprised to see trees below
them  and  running water at the bottom. There  were gullies  that they could
almost leap  over;  but  very deep with waterfalls in them. There  were dark
ravines that one could neither jump nor climb into. There were bogs, some of
them green pleasant places  to look at with flowers growing bright and tall;
but a pony  that walked there with a pack on its back would never  have come
out again.
     It was indeed  a  much wider land from the ford to the  mountains  than
ever you would have  guessed. Bilbo was astonished. The only path was marked
with white  stones  some of which  were small, and others were  half covered
with moss or heather. Altogether it  was a very  slow business following the
track, even guided by Gandalf, who seemed to know his way about pretty well.
     His head  and beard  wagged  this  way and that as he  looked  for  the
stones, and they followed his head, but they  seemed no nearer to the end of
the search when the day began  to fail. Tea-time had long  gone  by,  and it
seemed  supper-time would  soon  do  the  same. There were  moths fluttering
about, and the light became very dim, for  the  moon had not  risen. Bilbo's
pony  began to  stumble over roots  and stones. They  came  to the edge of a
steep fall in  the ground  so  suddenly that Gandalf s horse  nearly slipped
down the slope.
     "Here it is at last!" he called, and the others  gathered round him and
looked over the edge. They saw a valley far below. They could hear the voice
of hurrying water in rocky  bed at the bottom; the scent of trees was in the
air; and there was a  light on the valley-side across the water. Bilbo never
forgot the way they slithered and slipped in the dusk down the steep zig-zag
path into  the secret  valley of Rivendell. The air grew  warmer as they got
lower, and the smell of  the pine-trees  made him drowsy, so  that every now
and  again he  nodded and  nearly fell off, or bumped his nose on the pony's
neck. Their  spirits rose as  they  went down and down. The trees changed to
beech and oak,  and hire was a comfortable feeling in the twilight. The last
green had almost faded out of the grass, when they came at length to an open
glade not far above the banks of the stream.
     "Hrnmm! it smells  like elves!" thought Bilbo, and he looked up  at the
stars. They were  burning  bright and blue.  Just then there came a burst of
song like laughter in the trees:

     O! What are you doing,
     And where are you going?
     Your ponies need shoeing!
     The river is flowing!
     O! tra-la-la-lally
     here down in the valley!

     O! What are you seeking,
     And where are you making?
     The faggots are reeking,
     The bannocks are baking!
     O! tril-lil-lil-lolly
     the valley is jolly,
     ha! ha!

     O! Where are you going
     With beards all a-wagging?
     No knowing, no knowing
     What brings Mister Baggins,
     And Balin and Dwalin
     down into the valley
     in June
     ha! ha!

     O! Will you be staying,
     Or will you be flying?
     Your ponies are straying!
     The daylight is dying!
     To fly would be folly,
     To stay would be jolly
     And listen and hark
     Till the end of the dark
     to our tune
     ha! ha.'

     So  they  laughed and sang  in  the  trees; and pretty  fair nonsense I
daresay you think it. Not that they would care they would only laugh all the
more  if you told  them  so. They were elves  of  course. Soon  Bilbo caught
glimpses of them as the darkness deepened. He loved elves, though he  seldom
met them; but he was a  little  frightened of them too. Dwarves don't get on
well with them. Even decent enough dwarves like Thorin and his friends think
them foolish (which is a very foolish thing to  think), or get annoyed  with
them. For some elves tease them and laugh at them,  and most of all at their
beards.
     "Well, well!" said a voice. "Just look! Bilbo the hobbit on a  pony, my
dear! Isn't it delicious!"
     "Most astonishing wonderful!"
     Then off they went into another song  as  ridiculous as the  one I have
written  down in full.  At last one, a tall young fellow,  came out from the
trees and bowed to Gandalf and to Thorin.
     "Welcome to the valley!" he said.
     "Thank you!" said Thorin a bit gruffly; but Gandalf was already off his
horse and among the elves, talking merrily with them.
     "You are a little out of your  way," said the elf: "that is, if you are
making for the  only path  across the water and to the house beyond. We will
set you right,  but you had best get on foot, until you are over the bridge.
Are you going  to stay a bit  and sing  with us, or will you go straight on?
Supper  is preparing over there," he said. "I can smell  the  Wood-fires for
the cooking."
     Tired  as he was, Bilbo would have liked to stay awhile. Elvish singing
is not a thing to miss, in  June under the stars,  not if you care  for such
things. Also  he  would have  liked to have  a few  private words with these
people that seemed to know his name and all about him, although he had never
been  them before.  He thought their  opinion  of  his  adventure  might  be
interesting. Elves know a lot and are wondrous  folk for news, and know what
is  going  on among the peoples  of the  land,  as quick  as water flows, or
quicker. But the dwarves were all for supper as soon 'as possible just then,
and would not stay. On they all went,  leading their ponies,  till they were
brought to a good path and so at last to the very brink of the river. It was
flowing fast and noisily,  as mountain-streams do  of a summer evening, when
sun has been all day  on the  snow far up above.  There  was  only a  narrow
bridge of stone without  a parapet, as narrow as a pony could well walk  on;
and over that they had to go, slow and careful, one by one, each leading his
pony  by the bridle. The elves had brought bright lanterns to the shore, and
they sang a merry song as the party went across.
     "Don't dip your beard in the foam,  father!" they cried  to Thorin, who
was bent  almost  on to his hands  and  knees. "It  is  long  enough without
watering it."
     "Mind Bilbo doesn't eat all the cakes!"  they called. "He is too fat to
get through key-holes yet!"
     "Hush, hush! Good People! and good night!" said Gandalf, who came last.
"Valleys have ears, and some elves have over merry tongues. Good night!"
     And  so at last they  all came to the Last Homely House,  and found its
doors flung wide.
     Now it  is a strange  thing,  but things that are good to have and days
that are good to spend are soon told about, and not much to listen to; while
things that are uncomfortable,  palpitating, and even gruesome,  may  make a
good tale, and take a deal  of telling anyway. They stayed long in that good
house,  fourteen days at least, and they found it hard to leave. Bilbo would
gladly have stopped there for ever and ever-even supposing a wish would have
taken him right back to his hobbit-hole without trouble. Yet there is little
to tell about their stay.
     The  master of the house  was  an elf-friend-one of those people  whose
fathers came into  the strange stories before the beginning  of History, the
wars of  the evil goblins and the  elves and  the first men in the North. In
those days of  our tale there were still some people who had both  elves and
heroes  of the North for ancestors, and Elrond the master  of the  house was
their chief. He was as noble and as fair in  face as  an elf-lord, as strong
as a warrior, as wise as a wizard, as venerable as a king of dwarves, and as
kind  as  summer. He comes into.  many  tales, but his part in  the story of
Bilbo's great adventure is only a  small one, though  important, as you will
see, if we ever get to the end  of  it.  His house was perfect,  whether you
liked food, or sleep, or work, or story-telling, or singing, or just sitting
and  thinking best, or a pleasant mixture  of them all. Evil things did  not
come into that valley.
     I wish I had time to tell  you even a few of the tales or one or two of
the songs that  they heard in that  house. All of  them, the ponies as well,
grew refreshed and strong in a few  days there. Their clothes were mended as
well as their bruises, their tempers and their hopes. Their bags were filled
with food and  provisions light to  carry but strong to  bring them over the
mountain passes. Their plans were improved with the best advice. So the time
came to mid- summer eve, and they were  to go on again with the early sun on
midsummer morning.
     Elrond knew all about runes of  every kind.  That day  he looked at the
swords they had brought  from the trolls' lair, and he  said: "These are not
troll-make.  They are old swords,  very old swords of the High Elves of  the
West, my kin. They were made in Gondolin for the Goblin-wars. They must have
come from a  dragon's hoard or  goblin  plunder,  for  dragons  and  goblins
destroyed that city many ages ago. This, Thorin, the runes name Orcrist, the
Goblin-cleaver  in the  ancient tongue of  Gondolin; it  was a famous blade.
This, Gandalf,  was  Glamdring, Foe-hammer  that the  king of Gondolin  once
wore. Keep them well!"
     "Whence did the trolls get them, I  wonder?" said Thorin looking at his
sword with new interest.
     "I could not say," said Elrond, "but one may guess that your trolls had
plundered other plunderers, or come on the remnants of old robberies in some
hold  in the  mountains of  the North.  I  have heard that there  are  still
forgotten  treasures of old to be found in the deserted caverns of the mines
of Moria, since the dwarf and goblin war."
     Thorin  pondered these  words. "I will keep  this sword in honour,"  he
said. "May it soon cleave goblins once again!"
     "A wish  that is likely  to be granted  soon enough  in the mountains!"
said Elrond. "But show  me now your map!" He took  it and gazed  long at it,
and he shook his head; for if he did  not altogether  approve of dwarves and
their love  of  gold,  he hated  dragons and their cruel wickedness, and  he
grieved  to remember the  ruin of the town of  Dale and its merry bells, and
the  burned banks  of the bright  River Running.  The moon was  shining in a
broad silver crescent. He held up the map and the  white light shone through
it. "What is this?" he said. "There  are moon-letters here, beside the plain
runes which say 'five feet high the door and three may walk abreast.' "
     "What are moon-letters?" asked  the hobbit full of excitement. He loved
maps,  as I have told you before;  and he  also liked  runes and letters and
cunning  handwriting, though when  he  wrote himself  it was  a bit thin and
spidery.
     "Moon-letters are rune-letters, but you cannot see them,"  said Elrond,
"not when  you  look straight at  them. They can  only be seen when the moon
shines behind them, and what is more, with the more cunning sort  it must be
a moon of the same shape and season as the  day when they were written.  The
dwarves invented them and wrote them with silver pens, as your friends could
tell you. These must have been written on  a midsummer's eve  in  a crescent
moon, a long while ago."
     "What do  they  say?"  asked  Gandalf and Thorin together, a bit  vexed
perhaps that  even Elrond should  have found  this out first,  though really
there  had not  been a chance before,  and there would not have been another
until goodness knows when.
     "Stand by the grey stone when the thrush knocks," read Elrond, "and the
setting  sun  with  the  last light  of Durin's  Day  will  shine  upon  the
key-hole."
     "Durin,  Durin!" said Thorin. "He was the father of  the fathers of the
eldest  race  of  Dwarves,  the Longbeards, and my first ancestor: I am  his
heir."
     "Then what is Durin's Day?" asked Elrond.
     "The  first day  of the dwarves'  New  Year," said Thorin, "is  as  all
should know the first,  day of the last moon of  Autumn on the threshold  of
Winter. We still call it Durin's Day when the  last  moon of  Autumn and the
sun are in the sky  together. But this will not help us much, I fear, for it
passes our skill in these days to guess when such a time will come again."
     "That remains to be seen," said Gandalf. "Is there any more writing?"
     "None to be  seen  by this moon," said Elrond, and he gave the map back
to Thorin;  and then they went down to the water  to see the elves dance and
sing upon the midsummer's eve.
     The next morning was a midsummer's morning as  fair and fresh  as could
be dreamed: blue sky  and never a  cloud,  and the sun dancing on the water.
Now  they rode away amid songs of farewell and good speed, with their hearts
ready for more adventure, and with a  knowledge of the road they must follow
over the Misty Mountains to the land beyond.


Chapter 4. Over Hill and Under Hill

     There were many paths that led up into those mountains, and many passes
over them.  But most of the paths were cheats and deceptions and led nowhere
or  to  bad ends;  and  most of the passes  were infested by evil things and
dreadful dangers. The dwarves  and the hobbit, helped by the  wise advice of
Elrond  and the knowledge and memory of Gandalf,  took the right road to the
right pass.
     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. Now
they could look back over the lands  they had left, laid out behind them far
below. Far, far  away in the  West, where things were  blue and faint, Bilbo
knew there lay his  own  country  of  safe and comfortable  things, and  his
little hobbit-hole. He shivered. It was getting bitter cold up here, and the
wind  came shrill among  the rocks.  Boulders, too, at times came  galloping
down the mountain-sides,  let loose by midday sun upon the snow,  and passed
among them (which was lucky), or over their heads (which was alarming).  The
nights were comfortless and chill, and they did not dare to sing or talk too
loud,  for the echoes were uncanny, and the silence  seemed to dislike being
broken-except by  the noise of water and the wail of wind and  the  crack of
stone.
     "The summer is getting on down below," thought Bilbo, "and haymaking is
going on and picnics. They  will be  harvesting and blackberrying, before we
even  begin to go  down the  other side at this rate." And  the  others were
thinking  equally  gloomy thoughts, although  when they had said good-bye to
Elrond in  the high hope  of a midsummer morning, they'  had spoken gaily of
the passage of the mountains,  and of  riding swift across the lands beyond.
They  had  thought of  coming to the secret  door in  the  Lonely  Mountain,
perhaps  that very  next  first moon  of  Autumn--"  and perhaps it will  be
Durin's  Day" they  had  said.  Only Gandalf had shaken  his head  and  said
nothing. Dwarves had not passed that  way for many  years,  but Gandalf had,
and he knew how evil and danger had grown and thriven in the Wild, since the
dragons had driven men from the lands, and  the goblins had spread in secret
after the battle of the Mines of Moria. Even the  good plans of wise wizards
like Gandalf and  of good friends like Elrond  go astray  sometimes when you
are off on dangerous adventures over the Edge of the Wild; and Gandalf was a
wise enough wizard to know it.
     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. They  did  not.
All  was well,  until  one  day they  met  a  thunderstorm  -  more  than  a
thunderstorm,  a  thunder-battle.   You  know  how  terrific  a  really  big
thunderstorm can be down  in  the  land and in a river-valley; especially at
times when two great  thunderstorms meet and  clash. More terrible still are
thunder  and lightning in the mountains at night,  when  storms come up from
East and  West and make war. The lightning splinters on the peaks, and rocks
shiver, and great crashes  split  the air  and go rolling  and tumbling into
every cave and hollow; and the  darkness  is filled with  overwhelming noise
and sudden light.
     Bilbo had never seen or imagined  anything of the kind. They  were high
up  in a narrow place, with a dreadful fall into a dim valley at one side of
them. There  they were sheltering under a hanging rock for the night, and he
lay beneath a blanket and shook from head to toe. When he  peeped out in the
lightning-flashes,  he  saw that across the valley the stone-giants were out
and were hurling rocks at one another for a. game,  and  catching them,  and
tossing them down into the darkness where  they smashed among  the trees far
below, or splintered into little bits  with a bang.  Then came  a wind and a
rain, and the wind whipped the rain and  the hail about in every  direction,
so that an overhanging rock was no protection at all. Soon they were getting
drenched  and  their  ponies  were standing with their heads down  and their
tails  between their legs, and some of them were whinnying with fright. They
could hear the giants guffawing and shouting all over the mountainsides.
     "This  won't do at all!"  said Thorin. "If we don't get  blown  off  or
drowned, or  struck  by  lightning, we shall be picked up  by some giant and
kicked sky-high for a football."
     "Well, if you  know of  anywhere better, take us there!" said  Gandalf,
who was  feeling  very  grumpy, and  was far from  happy  about  the  giants
himself.
     The end of their argument was that they sent Fill and Kili to look  for
a better shelter.  They had  very sharp eyes, and being the  youngest of the
dwarves by  some  fifty  years  they  usually got  these  sort of jobs (when
everybody could see that it  was  absolutely no use sending Bilbo). There is
nothing like looking, if  you  want  to find something (or so Thorin said to
the young dwarves).  You certainly usually find something, if  you look, but
it  is not always quite the something  you were after. So  it proved on this
occasion.
     Soon Fili and Kili came  crawling back, holding on to  the rocks in the
wind. "We have found a dry cave," they said, "not far round the next corner;
and ponies and all could get inside."
     "Have you thoroughly explored it?" said the wizard, who knew that caves
up in the mountains were seldom unoccupied.
     "Yes, yes!" they said,  though everybody  knew they could not have been
long about it; they had come back  too quick. "It isn't all that big, and it
does not go far back."
     That, of course, is the dangerous part about caves: you  don't know how
far they go back, sometimes, or where a passage behind may  lead to, or what
is waiting for you inside. But now Fili and Kill's news seemed good  enough.
So  they  all  got up  and prepared  to move. The  wind  was howling and the
thunder still growling, and they had a business getting themselves and their
ponies along. Still it was not very far to go, and before long they  came to
a big rock standing out  into the  path. If you  stepped behind, you found a
low arch in the side of the mountain. There  was just room to get the ponies
through with a  squeeze, when they had been unpacked and unsaddled.  As they
passed under  the  arch, it was good to  hear the  wind and the rain outside
instead of all about them, and to feel safe from the giants and their rocks.
But the wizard  was taking no risks. He lit up his wand - as he did that day
in Bilbo's  dining-room that seemed so long ago, if you remember--,  and  by
its light they explored the cave from end to end.
     It seemed quite a fair size, but not too large and mysterious. It had a
dry  floor  and some comfortable nooks. At one  end  there was room for  the
ponies;  and  there  they stood (mighty  glad of  the change)  steaming, and
champing in their nosebags. Oin and Gloin wanted to light a fire at the door
to dry their clothes,  but Gandalf would not hear of it. So they spread  out
their wet things on the floor, and got dry  ones out of their bundles;  then
they  made their blankets comfortable,  got out  their pipes and  blew smoke
rings, which Gandalf turned into different colours and set dancing up by the
roof to amuse them. They talked and talked,  and forgot about the storm, and
discussed what each  would do with his share of the  treasure (when they got
it, which at the moment did not seem so impossible); and so they dropped off
to  sleep one by one. And  that was the last time that they used the ponies,
packages, baggages, tools and paraphernalia that they had brought with them.
     It turned  out a good  thing  that  night  that they had brought little
Bilbo with them, after all. For somehow, he could not go to sleep for a long
while;  and when he did sleep,  he had very nasty dreams. He dreamed  that a
crack in  the wall at the back of the cave got bigger and bigger, and opened
wider and  wider,  and  he  was  very afraid but  could not call out  or  do
anything  but lie and look. Then  he  dreamed that the floor of the cave was
giving way, and he was slipping-beginning to fall down, down, goodness knows
where to.
     At that he woke up with  a horrible start,  and found  that part of his
dream was true. A crack  had opened at the back of the cave, and was already
a wide  passage. He  was just in time  to see the last of the  ponies' tails
disappearing into it. Of course  he gave a very loud yell, as loud a yell as
a hobbit can give, which is surprising for their size.
     Out  jumped the goblins, big  goblins, great ugly-looking goblins, lots
of goblins, before  you  could  say rocks and blocks. There were six to each
dwarf, at least,  and two even  for  Bilbo;  and they  were  all grabbed and
carried  through the crack, before you could say tinder and  flint. But  not
Gandalf. Bilbo's yell had done that much good. It had wakened him up wide in
a splintered second, and when goblins came to grab him, there was a terrible
flash like  lightning  in the  cave, a smell like gunpowder,  and several of
them fell dead.
     The crack  closed with a  snap,  and Bilbo and the  dwarves were on the
wrong  side of it!  Where was  Gandalf? Of that neither they nor the goblins
had any idea, and the  goblins did not wait to find  out. It was deep, deep,
dark, such as only goblins that  have taken to living in  the heart  of  the
mountains can  see through. The passages there were crossed  and  tangled in
all directions, but the goblins  knew their  way,  as well as you  do to the
nearest post-office;  and the  way  went down  and  down, and  it  was  most
horribly stuffy. The goblins were very  rough, and pinched unmercifully, and
chuckled and  laughed in their  horrible stony  voices; and  Bilbo  was more
unhappy even  than when th