The Hobbit Ch. 1-3

1. TheHobbitCh. 1-3 Edited by Mr. C 11/11/15

2. Where are we again?

3. Chapter 4 • Bilbo and company advance upon the Misty Mountains. Thanks to Elrond’s and Gandalf’s advice, they are able to find a good pass over the mountain range among the many dead-end trails and drop-offs. Still, the climb is long and treacherous. A violent thunderstorm breaks suddenly, forcing them to find shelter. Luckily, two of the dwarves (Fili and Kili) find a cave in a side of the mountain. They bring in the ponies and make camp for the night.

4. Chapter 4 • Then what happens?

5. Chapter 4 • In the middle of the night, Bilbo wakes with a start, just in time to see the ponies get dragged into an enormous crack that has opened in the cave wall. He yells, and out of the crack jump dozens of goblins, who tie up and carry off each member of the company except Gandalf, who was forewarned by Bilbo’s yell.

6. Chapter 4 • Then what happens?

7. Chapter 4 • The goblins carry the dwarves and the hobbit down into the mountain to a huge chamber where the Great Goblin sits. He demands to know what the travelers are doing in his mountain. Thorin tries to explain about the storm, but one of the goblins brings forth the sword that Thorin took from the trolls, which he was carrying when captured. This sword, Orcrist, the goblin-cleaver, is well-known among the goblins.

8. Chapter 4 • Then what happens?

9. Chapter 4 • The goblins go into a rage and the Great Goblin lunges at Thorin to eat him. Suddenly, the torches lighting the cavern go out and the great fire in the middle of the chamber throws its sparks onto the goblins. In the darkness and confusion, a great sword flashes and strikes down the Great Goblin. Then a voice guides the captives out of the cavern. It is Gandalf, who leads the dwarves through the passages and deeper into the mountain. The goblins follow quickly after them, and one of the goblins catches up to the dwarf Dori, who has been carrying Bilbo on his back. Bilbo falls off, strikes his head on the ground, and loses consciousness.

10. Chapter 5 • Then what happens? • It’s got to ask uss a question, my preciouss, yes, yess, yess. Jusst one more question to guess, yes, yess.

11. Chapter 5 • When Bilbo regains consciousness, he can see nothing in the darkness. Feeling around on the floor, he happens to come across a ring, which he puts in his pocket. He has no idea where the rest of the company is, or in which direction the exit lies. Picking the path he feels he had been traveling with the dwarves, he soon comes across an underground lake. There, he discovers a strange creature named Gollum. When Gollum sees Bilbo prowling around, obviously lost, he is interested and a bit hungry, so he approaches the hobbit. Bilbo brandishes his sword when he hears Gollum’s hissing voice.

12. Chapter 5 • Gollum does not wish to contend with the sword, so he proposes a riddle game. If Gollum’s riddle stumps Bilbo, he will eat Bilbo, but if Bilbo’s stumps Gollum, Gollum will show Bilbo the way out of the mountain. Bilbo has no choice but to agree, and they begin asking each other riddles.

13. Chapter 5 • Gollum • What has roots as nobody sees,Is taller than trees Up, up, up it goes,And yet never grows? • Answer: Mountain

14. Chapter 5 • Bilbo • Thirty white horses on a red hill,First they champ,Then they stamp,Then they stand still. • Answer: Teeth (on Chestnuts )

15. Chapter 5 • Gollum • Voiceless it cries,Wingless flutters,Toothless bites,Mouthless mutters. • Answer: Wind

16. Chapter 5 • Bilbo • An eye in a blue faceSaw an eye in a green face.'That eye is like to this eye'Said the first eye,'But in low placeNot in high place.' • Answer: Sun shining on daisies

17. Chapter 5 • Gollum • It cannot be seen, cannot be felt,Cannot be heard, cannot be smelt.It lies behind stars and under hills,And empty holes it fills.It comes first and follows after,Ends life, kills laughter. • Answer: Dark

18. Chapter 5 • Bilbo • A box without hinges, key or lid,Yet golden treasure inside is hid. • Answer: Egg

19. Chapter 5 • Gollum • Alive without breath,As cold as death;Never thirsty, ever drinking,All in mail never clinking • Answer: Fish

20. Chapter 5 • Bilbo • No-legs lay on one-leg, two legs sat near on three legs, four legs got some. • Answer: Fish on a little one-legged table, man at table sitting on a three-legged stool, the cat gets the bones

21. Chapter 5 • Gollum • This thing all things devours:Birds, beasts, trees, flowers;Gnaws iron, bites steel;Grinds hard stones to meal;Slays king, ruins town,And beats high mountain down. • Answer: Time

22. Chapter 5 • Bilbo • What have I got in my pocket? • Answer: The Ring

23. Chapter 5 • This chapter of The Hobbit holds the most importance to The Lord of the Rings as it deals with Bilbo's finding of the One Ring and the introduction of Gollum. • This chapter has been heavily edited by Tolkien to bring it closer in line with the plot of The Lord of the Rings. • In the first edition of The Hobbit, Gollum bets his ring on the riddle game and if Bilbo wins, the ring will be presented as a present. After losing, Gollum seeks for the ring, but cannot find it. He begs for Bilbo's pardon and shows him the way out. • Tolkien made Gollum more aggressive in the second edition to reflect on the concept of the ring's corrupting abilities.

24. Chapter 5 • In the end, Bilbo wins through a bit of ACCIDENTAL trickery. Referring to the ring he had found, he asks, “What have I got in my pocket?” and Gollum cannot guess the right answer. Gollum, however, does not intend to let his meal get away so easily. He goes to his island in the middle of the lake to get his “precious,” a golden ring that makes its wearer invisible—the very ring that Bilbo had found.

25. Chapter 5 • Unable to find the ring, Gollum suspects the hobbit of stealing it and runs at him in a rage. Through sheer luck, Bilbo happens to slip on the ring, and Gollum runs right past him. Realizing the ring’s power, Bilbo follows Gollum, who heads toward the exit thinking that Bilbo is ahead of him. When Gollum gets near the exit, he stops because there are goblins crowded around it. Bilbo leaps over him, runs past the goblins unnoticed thanks to the ring, and just barely manages to squeeze through the door into freedom and fresh air.

26. Chapter 6 • And now what happens?

27. Chapter 6 • Fleeing from the goblins—and still invisible, thanks to the ring—Bilbo looks back and realizes that he has made it to the other side of the Misty Mountains. The tunnels have taken him all the way through the range. Walking along, he stumbles upon Gandalf and the dwarves, who have just been wondering whether they should leave without him. The hobbit slips off the ring and surprises them and then explains how he made his way out of the mountain. However, he refrains from mentioning his discovery of the magic ring and the role it played in his escape from Gollum and the goblins.

28. Chapter 6 • Gandalf implores the company to get moving again since only the sunlight is keeping the goblins from coming after them. The group is a bit north of where they had planned to be, and they have difficult country to cross. Evening comes as they pass through a grove of trees. Suddenly, they hear the howling of wolves and barely have time to scurry up into the trees before the wolves descend upon them. The beasts are actually wolflike creatures called Wargs. The Wargs are allies of the goblins, and they quickly notify the goblins of the situation. The goblins begin to arrive and, laughing at the company’s predicament, light fires under the trees in which Gandalf, the dwarves, and Bilbo are hiding.

29. Chapter 6 • Gandalf prepares to attack the goblins, hoping to kill as many as he can before they kill him. Luckily for the company, the Lord of the Eagles has seen the commotion from his roost high in the mountains. With a number of other eagles, he swoops down, picks up the marooned travelers, and flies them to safety. The eagles are friends of Gandalf’s and enemies of the goblins. They are happy to provide food and rest for the weary travelers, who then continue on their journey.

30. Analysis • Morality & Race? • Bilbo? • Bilbo’s Heroism? • The Magic Ring? • Gollum? • The Eagles?

31. Analysis • The uniform wickedness demonstrated by the goblins in Chapter 4 affirms the connection between race and moral tendencies in Tolkien’s fantasy world. The different races of Middle-Earth possess specific moral characteristics, so that goblins, who are infamous for their ability to make cruel weapons and instruments of torture, are evil, and elves are good. There are no exceptions. The races of Middle-Earth also possess qualities that have little direct bearing on their overall moral standing. Hobbits love food, for instance, and dwarves love gold. Again, there are no exceptions.

32. Analysis • The characteristics of the races result primarily from the mythic theology of Middle-Earth. Under this theology, the gods create certain creatures for very specific purposes. Each race also has a particular relationship with nature. Of the various characters Tolkien depicts, Bilbo seems to be the only one capable of making complex moral choices that test the boundaries of his race.

33. Analysis • Bilbo’s heroism is somewhat dubious, for though he behaves heroically, his acts seem to be the result of luck, or else destiny, rather than effort on his part. He seems to have a knack for being in the right place at the right time. In his first encounter with the goblins, for example, Bilbo proves useful by shouting enough to awaken Gandalf, who, in turn, ends up saving the whole company. Bilbo is credited for helping the whole party when his companions were unable to do so, even though it was only his chance awakening that enabled him to warn everyone.

34. Analysis • Bilbo’s unintentional heroism is most evident in his discovery of the magic ring. In the history of Middle-Earth, this discovery is the most important event in the novel. Though neither Bilbo nor Gollum (the ring’s previous holder) are aware of it, the ring is in fact an object of awesome power. Created by the Dark Lord Sauron, who appears in The Hobbit as the XXXXXXXX, the ring is central to Sauron’s attempt to conquer and corrupt the world. The ring is pivotal to the plot of The Lord of the Rings. In The Hobbit, its greater importance is only hinted at when Tolkien cryptically comments that Bilbo’s discovery of the ring is a turning point in his career.

35. Analysis • Gollum’s whiny, hissing style of speech marks him as one of the novel’s most unique and memorable characters. Gollum’s riddle game is itself another example of Tolkien’s interaction with epic literature in The Hobbit. Riddles and riddle games are familiar features of Anglo-Saxon and Scandinavian epics, in which heroes are defined almost as much by their prowess with words as they are by their prowess with swords. In fact, many of the riddles exchanged by Bilbo and Gollum come directly from ancient Scandinavian and Anglo-Saxon poems. Bilbo’s victory in the riddle game is an important step in his development, but the eccentric manner in which he wins is closer to that of modern comedy than to that of ancient epic. Bilbo baffles Gollum with the question, “What have I got in my pocket?,” which is, of course, not a true riddle at all. A true riddle must contain clues necessary to solve it. Gollum, with his purely ancient sensibilities, cannot even challenge Bilbo’s question, let alone answer it.

36. Analysis • Although the eagles help the company tremendously, they express that hatred for goblins, rather than love for dwarves, is their main reason for helping the company. Theeagles have no interest in the dwarves’ gold, but as representatives of pure nature, they are the sworn enemies of corrupted nature, represented by the goblins and Wargs. The eagles generally keep distant from the affairs of other races. • It’s a big deal that they come help.

37. Runes • Runes (Proto-Norse: (runo), Old Norse: rún) are the letters in a set of related alphabets known as runic alphabets, which were used to write various Germanic languages before the adoption of the Latin alphabet and for specialized purposes thereafter.

38. Runes

39. Runes • Known as Codex Runicus, a vellum manuscript from c. 1300 containing one of the oldest and best preserved texts of the Scanian law (Skånske lov), written entirely in runes.

40. Runes • The earliest runic inscriptions date from around 150 AD. • The characters were generally replaced by the Latin alphabet as the cultures that had used runes underwent Christianisation, by approximately 700 AD in central Europe and 1100 AD in northern Europe. • Where did it come from?

41. Runes • No one knows. • Historically, the runic alphabet is a derivation of the Old Italic alphabets of antiquity, with the addition of some innovations. Which variant of the Old Italic family in particular gave rise to the runes is uncertain. • At the time, all of these scripts (Etruscan, old Latin, etc.) had the same angular letter shapes suited for epigraphy, which would become characteristic of the runes.

42. Runes • Epigraphy • is the study of inscriptions as writing • (from the Greek: ἐπιγραφή epi-graphē, literally "on-writing", or "inscription")

43. Runes

44. Runes • The earliest runic inscriptions found on artifacts give the name of either the craftsman or the owner, or sometimes, remain a mystery. • Oooooooooh • Due to this, it is possible that the early runes were not used so much as a simple writing system, but rather as magical signs to be used for charms. • Although some say the runes were used for divination, there is no direct evidence to suggest they were ever used in this way. • The name rune itself, taken to mean "secret, something hidden", seems to indicate that knowledge of the runes was originally considered esoteric, or restricted to an elite.

45. Runes – in Mythology • In Norse mythology, the runic alphabet has a divine origin. • Odin grants it to a human.

46. Runes – in The Hobbit • The Anglo-Saxon runes are used on a map to emphasize its connection to the Dwarves. • Keep in mind different Germanic tribes would develop slightly different systems of runes. • They also were used in the initial drafts of The Lord of the Rings, but later were replaced by the Cirth rune-like alphabet invented by Tolkien. • Yes, he invented his own runic language.

47. Runes – in The Hobbit