The History of the Hobbit Read online

  (iv)

  Durin’s Day

  By contrast with the elvish material, Durin’s Day represents a new element in the mythology. We have already touched on Durin himself (see commentary p. 77); now we learn a bit more about dwarven culture, and that their new year begins ‘as everyone knows’ (a typical Tolkienism) on ‘the day of the first moon of autumn’ – a detail probably inspired by the Jewish calendar, which is also lunar in nature and begins its new year in late September or early October (in contrast to the traditional medieval year, which began on the first day of spring).16 Durin’s Day was originally a much simpler affair than it later became, and the oddity of the dwarves’ having a new year’s day that they can’t predict (‘it passes our skill in these days to guess when such a time will come again’ – DAA.96) is avoided. It is significant also that originally Durin’s Day arrives on the first moon of autumn, changed before publication (actually in an emendation to the First Typescript) to the last new moon of autumn – a date more in keeping with the Celtic calendar, which began the new year on 1st November. This change created an error or inconsistency in the next chapter that was not corrected until 1995: in Chapter III and Chapter XI, Durin’s Day occurs on the last moon of autumn, as per the emendation. But Tolkien missed the reference in Chapter IV, where the dwarves upon leaving Elrond ‘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’ (DAA.101–2).

  Finally, a few miscellaneous points. This chapter reinforces (p. 111) the ‘homesick’ motif, first introduced in the previous chapter (p. 90) and later to play such a large part in Mr. Baggins’ characterization. It is easy to understand the wizard’s embarrassment over Elrond’s discovery of the moon letters – Bladorthin had, after all, had the map in his possession for the better part of a century without discovering this vital clue – but the serendipity of Elrond’s chance discovery is of an order comparable with the finding of the key in the troll lair in the previous chapter, or Bilbo’s discovery of the Ring later on; one particular phase of the moon would only coincide with a specific night of the year roughly once per century. It is also noteworthy that Gandalf’s hiding the key under his jacket enables him to keep it through the goblin and wood-elf encounters that are shortly to follow, suggesting that one or both of these plot-elements had already been anticipated.

  Chapter IV

  Goblins

  As before, the text continues on the same page (Ms. page 39; Marq. 1/1/3:7), with what would later become the chapter break indicated only by a short gap of a few lines in mid-page and a slightly larger opening letter on the first word of the new section.

  There are many paths that lead up into those mountains and many passes over them. But most of the paths are cheats and deceptions, and lead nowhere or to bad ends; and most of the passes are infested by wicked things and dreadful dangers.

  The dwarves and Bilbo helped by the good advice of Elrond and by the wisdom and memory of Bladorthin, took the right path to the right pass.

  Long days after they 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 way and long. Now they could look back on the lands behind laid out below them. Far far away in the west where things were blue and faint Bilbo knew his own country was 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. Also boulders came galloping down the mountain sides at times, and passed among them (which was lucky) or over their heads (which was alarming). And nights were comfortless and chill, and they did not dare to sing or talk loud, for the echoes were uncanny, and the silence did not seem to want [> seemed to dislike] being broken – except for [> by] the noise of water and the wail of wind, and the crack of stone.

  ‘The summer is getting on’ thought Bilbo, ‘and haymaking is going on, and picnics. They will be harvesting and blackberrying before we are [> even begin to go] down the other side at this rate’.

  And he was quite right. When they said goodbye to Elrond they had had the notion of coming to the side-door of the Lonely Mountain perhaps that very next first moon of autumn – and ‘perhaps it will be Durin’s Day’ they had said. Perhaps. But they were not going to get there to see [> so soon to see].TN1

  Even the good plans of wise wizards like Bladorthin and good friends like Elrond go wrong sometimes when you are off on such peculiarly dangerous adventures over the Edge of the Wild.

  Now you will want to know what [added: really] happened; and I expect you guessed quite rightly that they would never get over those great tall mountains and those lonely [> with their lonely] peaks and valleys where no king ruled without some fearful adventure.

  One day they met a thunderstorm – no not a thunderstorm a thunder-battle. You know how terrific a really big thunderstorm can be down in the land and in a river-valley; perhaps you have even seen two thunderstorms meet and clash. But have you seen thunder and lightening in the mountains at night, when storms meet and their warring shakes the rocks and . . . the valleysTN2 [> when storms come up from East and West and make war]? The lightning splinters on the peaks, and rocks crash [> shiver], and the great crashes split the air and go rolling and tumbling into every cave and hollow; and the darkness is filled with fearful noise and sudden light.

  Bilbo had never seen anything of the kind. They were high up on a narrow track, with a dreadful fall into a dim valley on one side. [The night was >] There they were sheltering under a hanging rock for the night, and he lay under a blanket and shook from head to toe.

  He peeped out and 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 crashed among the trees far below or splintered into little bits with a dreadful noise.

  Then came a wind and a rain, and the wind whipped the rain and 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 were whinnying with fright. They could hear the giants guffawing and laughter and shouting all over the mountain-sides.

  ‘This won’t do at all’ said Gandalf. ‘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 [think we >] know of anywhere better take us there’ said Bladorthin who was feeling very grumpy, and wasn’t very happy about the giants either. And the end of their argument was that they sent Fili and Kili who had very sharp eyes – and being the youngest of the dwarves usually got these sort of jobsTN3 (when they could see that it was absolutely no use sending Bilbo). There is nothing like looking if you want to find something. You usually find something if you look, though it may not be quite the something you were after. 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 corner, and ponies and all could get inside’.

  ‘Have you thoroughly explored it?’ asked the wizard, who knew that caves up in the mountains were not often unoccupied.

  ‘Yes yes’ they said, though everybody knew they couldn’t have been long about it, they had been too quick. ‘It isn’t all that big, and it doesn’t seem to go far back’.

  That is of course the dangerous part about caves – you don’t know how far they go back, or where a passage behind may lead to, or what is waiting for you inside.

  In the end they went. The wind was howling, and the thunder still growling, and they had a business getting themselves and their ponies along. Still it wasn’t very far, and before long they came to a big rock standing out into the path. If you slipped behind (there wasn’t much room to do it, except perhaps for l
ittle Bilbo) you found a low arch in the side of the mountain, just high enough for a small pony to get under.TN4 Under that arch they went, and it was good to hear the wind and the rain outside instead of all round them, and to feel safe from the giants and their rocks.

  Bladorthin lit up his wand (like he did that day in Bilbo’s dining room, if you remember) and they explored the cave. It seem quite a good size, but not too big 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 to be there) and they had their nose bags on for a treat. Oin and Gloin [lit a fire near the arch >] wanted to light a fire at the door to dry their clothes, but Bladorthin wouldn’t allow it. So they spread out their wet things on the floor, got dry ones out of their bundles, made their blankets comfy, got out their pipes, and blew smoke rings, which Bladorthin turned into different colours and set a dancing up on the roof to amuse them. They talked and talked and forgot about the storm, and [made plans >] discussed what they would each do with their share of the [gold >] treasure (when they got it which now seemed not so impossible), and so they dropped off to sleep one by one. And they never saw their ponies [added: alive] again, or most of their baggages packages tools and paraphernalia.TN5

  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 time; 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 bigger and opened wider and wider, and he was very afraid but couldn’t call out or do anything save 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. Then 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 now 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 shout, as loud as hobbit could [cry >] make. 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,TN6 and they were all grabbed and carried through the crack before you could have said ‘tinder and flint’. All except Bladorthin. Bilbo’s yell had waked him up wide in a splintered second, and when goblins came to grab him there was a terrific flash like lightning in the cave and several fell dead.

  The crack closed with a snap and Bilbo and the dwarves were on the wrong side of it. But where was Bladorthin? That neither they nor the goblins had any idea, and the goblins did not wait to find out.

  They picked up Bilbo and the dwarves and hurried them along. It was deep deep dark such as only goblins who have taken to living in the heart of the mountains can see through.TN7 The passages there were crossed and tangled, but the goblins seemed to know their way, as well as the way 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 William had picked him up by his toes. He wished again & again for his nice bright hobbit hole – not for the last time.

  And now there came a glimmer of red light before them. Then the goblins began to sing, or croak, keeping time with the flap of their flat feet on the stone, and shaking their prisoners as well.

  Clap! Snap! the black crack!

  Grip, grab! Pinch, nab!

  And down down to Goblin-town

  You go, my lad!

  Clash, crash! Crush, smash!

  Hammer and tongs! Knocker and gongs!

  Pound, pound, far underground!

  Ho, ho! my lad!

  Swish, smack! Whip crack!

  Batter and beat! Yammer and bleat!

  Work, work! Nor dare to shirk,TN8

  While Goblins quaff, and Goblins laugh,

  Round and round far underground

  Below, my lad!

  It sounded very terrifying, and the walls echoed to the ‘clap snap’ and ‘crash smash’ and to the ugly laughter of their ‘ho ho my lad’. The general meaning of the song was only too plain, for now the goblins took out whips and whipped them with a swish smack and set them running as fast as they could [added: go], and more than one of the dwarves were already yammering like anything when they came [> stumbled] into a big cavern.

  It was lit with red fires & torches along the walls,TN9 and was full of goblins. How they laughed and stamped and clapped their hands when the dwarves with poor little Bilbo came running in with the goblin-drivers cracking their whips behind. The ponies were already there, and all the packages and baggages broken open and were being rummaged by goblins, and smelt by goblins, and fingered by goblins, and quarrelled about by goblins.

  I am afraid that was the last they ever saw of those excellent little ponies, for goblins eat horses and ponies and donkeys (and other worse things). Just now they had themselves to think of, though. The goblins chained their hands behind their backs, and chained [> linked] them all together in a line, and dragged them along, with Bilbo tugging at the end of the row, to the far shadows [> end of the cavern]. There in the shadows on a large flat stone sat a very big goblin, and armed goblins were standing round him carrying the axes and the bent swords that they use.

  Now goblins are cruel, wicked, and bad hearted. They make no beautiful things, but make many clever things. They can tunnel and mine as well as any dwarves, and hammers, axes, swords, daggers, pickaxes, and also instruments of torture they make (or get other people to make – prisoners and slaves) very well. Also they make machines, all wheels and noise and stench, and doubtless they invented a great many of the machines – for wheels and engines, always delighted them, and also not working with their hands more than they were obligedTN10 – but in those days and in those wild parts they had not yet advanced (as it is called) so far. They did not hate dwarves especially; in some parts wicked dwarves had even made alliances with them. But goblins did not care who they caught as long as it was done smart and secret, and the prisoners were not able to defend themselves.

  ‘Who are these miserable persons?’ said the big goblin.TN11

  ‘Dwarves and this’ said one of the drivers, pulling at Bilbo’s chain so that he fell forward on to his knees. ‘We found them sheltering in our front door’.

  ‘What do you mean by it?’ said the great goblin turning to Gandalf. ‘Up to no good I will warrant or spying on the private business of my people, I expect! [Come, what have you got to say >] Thieves, I shouldn’t be surprised to learn! Murderers and friends of elves, not unlikely! Come what have you got to say!’

  ‘Gandalf the Dwarf’ he replied ‘at your service’ (which is merely a polite nothing). ‘[Nothing of >] Of the things you suspect and imagine we had no idea at all. We sheltered from a storm in what appeared a convenient cave, and unused; nothing was further from our thought than inconveniencing goblins in any way whatever’ (that was true enough).

  ‘Um’ said the great goblin ‘so you say! Might I ask what you were doing up in the mountains at all, and where you were coming from, and [what >] where you were going to? – and in fact I should like to know all about you’.

  ‘We were on a journey to our relatives, our nephews and niecesTN12 and first, second and third cousins and other descendants of our grandfathers who live on the East side of these truly hospitable mountains’ said Gandalf, not quite knowing what to say all at once in a moment, when obviously the exact truth [was > would have been no >] wouldn’t do at all.

  ‘He is a liar, O truly great and tremendous one’ said one of the drivers. ‘Several of our people were struck by magic lightning in the cave, when we invited them to come below, and are dead as stones. Also he has not explained this’. He held out the sword which Gandalf had worn, the sword which came from the Trolls’ lair.

  The great Goblin g
ave a truly awful howl of rage when he looked at it, and all the soldiers gnashed their teeth, clashed their swords, and stamped. They knew this sword at once. It had killed hundreds of goblins in its time, when the fair elves of Gondolin hunted them in the hills, or did battle before their walls. They had called it Orcrist, the goblin-slasher, as its runes said;TN13 but the goblins called it simply Biter. They hated it, and hated worse anyone that carried it.