The History of the Hobbit Read online

  —JRRT to Michael Tolkien, 1967–8; Letters pp. 391, 392–3.

  It was this journey that enabled Tolkien to envision the Misty Mountain scenes with such a wealth of realistic detail, from the first approaches to Rivendell (cf. pages 112) through the glissade in Chapter VI (cf. p. 202),19 and he may have drawn on these memories again in some of the Lonely Mountain scenes, such as the ascent of the ‘fly-path’ to the sheltered bay on the west slope (p. 473) or the march to Ravenhill (pp. 583 & 594).

  (iv)

  Bilbo’s Dreams, and Other Matters

  In addition to the main business of this chapter, several recurrent motifs make an appearance that should perhaps be noted before we move on to the next chapter. For the reference to Durin’s Day, see Text Note I above. One motif that shows up here for the first time is Bilbo’s prophetic dream (p. 129), which enables Bladorthin to evade capture and later rescue the others – thus marking the first time that the hobbit is responsible for the party’s escape from peril, albeit indirectly. The first of several dreams in The Hobbit, this is also the most important to the plot (for other examples, see Bilbo’s evocative dream at the end of Chapter VI, Bombur’s dream of the elven feasts in the interpolation into Chapter VIII, and Smaug’s nightmare of ‘a small warrior, altogether insignificant in size, but provided with a bitter sword, and great courage’).20 As a student of medieval literature, Tolkien was of course familiar with the genre of dream-vision, being intimately acquainted with such an outstanding example as The Pearl. He not only translated this moving elegy into modern English but planned to edit the original with E. V. Gordon as a companion volume to their edition of Sir Gawain & the Green Knight (another work written by the same anonymous fourteenth-century author) – a plan forestalled by Gordon’s sudden and untimely death in 1938 and Tolkien’s increased academic responsibilities during the late 1930s and especially World War II.21 Dreams also play important parts in two other works Tolkien was professionally concerned with: Chaucer’s ‘Nun’s Priest’s Tale’ and the anonymous Breton lay Sir Orfeo.22 Other important dream-visions Tolkien would have been familiar with include Cicero’s Somnium Scipionis (The Dream of Scipio) [circa 50 BC];23 Chaucer’s Book of the Duchess [1368], Parliament of Fowls [c. 1370s], and House of Fame [c. 1380s]; Langland’s Vision of Piers Plowman [1360s–80s]; Guillaume de Lorris’s Romance of the Rose [c. 1230]; and the anonymous Welsh tales ‘The Dream of Macsen Wledig’ and ‘The Dream of Rhonabwy’ [early thirteenth century]. Tolkien’s own remarks on the dream-vision genre can be found in the introduction to his translation of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Pearl, and Sir Orfeo (see especially page 20 of the 1978 edition). Nor should we neglect to consider the influence of life as well as literature: Tolkien himself was a lifelong dreamer, and the drowning of Númenor that figures so importantly in works such as ‘The Fall of Númenor’, The Lost Road, ‘The Drowning of Anadûnê’, and The Notion Club Papers is based on an actual recurrent dream (cf. Letters pp. 213 & 347).24

  More important than its source, of course, is the use to which Tolkien put this motif. Some are mere dreams of no particular significance, as when a very hungry hobbit subsisting only on cram dreams of eggs and bacon during the siege of the Lonely Mountain (DAA.332). The dream in which he wanders from room to room of his home, looking for something he’s forgotten (p. 210), is both believable as a dream and suggestive for what it reveals about his state of mind, but it has no direct bearing on the plot. Of the prophetic dreams, it is a curious fact that unlike Frodo’s dreams in The Lord of Rings, which deal with distant events, the dreams in The Hobbit tend to relate to things which are either happening at the same time as they are being dreamed or follow in very short order. On the whole, dreams play a less important part in The Hobbit than in many of Tolkien’s other works, but their very presence marks the recurrence of a favorite Tolkienian motif and thus helps link the story to other works that share this element, from The Book of Lost Tales and its Cottage of Lost Play, a place most men can only reach via ‘the Path of Dreams’ (BLT I.18), through The Lost Road (where the time-travel begins while the main character is dreaming) and The Notion Club Papers (which devotes most of Part I to a discussion of lucid dreaming) to The Lord of the Rings itself. More importantly, it places Bilbo firmly in the tradition of Tolkien’s dreamers, alongside Eriol (whose name means ‘One who dreams alone’ – BLT I.14) and Ælfwine, Alboin and Audoin Errol, Michael Ramer and Arry Lowdham, Faramir, and Frodo Baggins.

  Finally, we might note that admirable indirectness with which Gandalf responds to the Great Goblin’s questions, ‘not quite knowing what to say . . . when obviously the exact truth wouldn’t do at all’. Lines such as these, even more than the moral ambiguity of the closing chapters, place Tolkien firmly in the modern tradition, beginning with Kenneth Grahame’s The Golden Age [1895], that aligns itself with its audience and its foibles rather than preaches pieties in the Victorian manner. Tolkien is not directly parodying the older tradition, as Twain did in his lecture ‘Advice to Youth’ [1882] (‘Always obey your parents, when they are present . . . Be respectful to your superiors, if you have any . . . You want to be very careful about lying; otherwise you are nearly sure to get caught . . .’), but his lack of condemnation of this white lie represents a stark contrast to, say, a MacDonald or Alcott or Knatchbull-Huggesson.

  Chapter V

  Gollum

  The text continues as before, near the bottom of manuscript page 49 (Marq. 1/1/4:9) with no more than a paragraph break to separate it from the preceding ‘chapter’.

  When he opened his eyes he wondered if he had, for it was just as dark as with them shut. No one was anywhere near him. Just imagine his fright. He could hear nothing, see nothing, nor could he feel anything except the stone of the wall and the floor. Very slowly he got up and groped about on all fours. And however far he went in either direction he couldn’t find anything:TN1 nothing at all, no sign of goblins, and no sign of dwarves. Certainly he did find what felt like a ring of metal lying on the floor in the tunnel. He put it in his pocket; but that didn’t help much. So he sat down and gave himself up to complete miserableness for a long while. Of course he thought of himself frying bacon and eggs in his own kitchen at home (for his tummy told him it was very near to some meal-time), but that only made him miserabler. He couldn’t think what to do, nor could he think what had happened, and if he had been left behind, and why if he had been left behind the goblins hadn’t caught him.TN2 The truth was he had been lying quiet in a very dark corner out of sight and mind for a good while.

  After a while [> some time] he felt for his pipe. It wasn’t broken and that was something. Then he felt for his baccaTN3 pouch, and there was some bacca in it, and that was something more. Then he felt for matches, and he couldn’t find any at all, and that [was a >] shattered his hopes completely. But in slapping all his pockets and feeling all round himself for matches his hand came on the hilt of [added: his] sword (a tiny dagger for the Trolls), and that he had forgotten, nor did the goblins seem to have noticed it. He drew it out and it shone pale and dim. ‘So it is an elvish sword [> blade], too’ he thought ‘and goblins are not very near, nor yet far enough.’ But somehow he was comforted. It was rather splendid to be wearing a blade made in Gondolin of which so many songs used to sing;TN4 and also Bilbo had noticed that such weapons made a great impression upon Goblins.

  ‘Go back?’ he thought – ‘no good at all! Go sideways – impossible! can’t be done. Go forward – only thing to do’.

  So up he got, and trotted along with his little sword in front of him, and one hand feeling the wall, and his heart all of a patter and a pitter.TN5

  Now certainly Bilbo was in what is called a tight place. But you must remember it was not quite so tight for him as for you or me. Hobbits are not quite like ordinary people; and after all if their holes are nice cheery places quite different to the tunnels of goblins, still they are more used to tunnelling than we are, and they don’t easily lose their sense of direction under groun
d. Also they can move very quietly, and hide easily, and recover wonderfully from bumps and bruises, and they have a fund of wisdom and wise sayings that men have mostly never heard of, or have forgotten long ago.

  I shouldn’t have liked to have been in Mr Baggins’ place, all the same. The tunnel seemed to have no end. He knew it was going on down pretty steadily and keeping on in the same direction in spite of a twist [or a >] and a turn or two. There [seemed >] were passages leading off to the side every now and then, as he could see by the pale glimmer of his sword, and feel with his hand on the side-wall. Of these he took no notice, except to hurry past for fear of goblins or other things coming out of them. On and on he went down and down; and still he heard no sound of any one except the swish [> whirr] of bat near his ears occasionally (which startled him).TN6

  Suddenly he trotted splash into water! Ugh! it was icy cold. That pulled him up sharp and short. He didn’t know whether it was just a pool in the path, or the edge of an underground stream across [> that crossed] the passage, or the brink of a deep dark subterranean lake. He could hear water drip-drip-dripping from an unseen roof into the water below, but there seemed no other sort of sound; so he came to the conclusion that it was a pool or lake not a running river.TN7 Still he did not dare to wade out into the darkness – he couldn’t swim, and he thought of ghastly slimy things with big bulging eyes [like to >]TN8 wriggling in the water.

  There are strange things living in the pools and lakes in the hearts of mountains: fish that swam in [> whose fathers swam in], goodness only knows how many years ago, and who never swam out again, while their eyes grew bigger and bigger and bigger from trying to see in the blackness; also other things more slimy than fish. And even in the tunnels and caves the goblins have made for themselves, there are other things living unbeknown, that have sneaked in from outside, and lie up in the dark. Also some of these caves go back ages before the coming of the goblins (who only widened them, and joined them up with passages), and the original owners were [> are] still there in odd corners.

  Deep down here by the dark water lived old Gollum. I don’t know where he came from or who or what he was. He was Gollum, as dark as darkness except for two big round pale eyes. He had a boat, and he rowed about quiet quietly on the lake – for lake it was, wide and deep and deadly cold. He paddled it with large feet dangling over the side, but never a ripple did he make. Not he: he was looking out of his pale lamp-like eyes for blind fish, which he grabbed with his long fingers, as quick as thinking.

  He liked meat too – goblins he thought good when he could get them; but He took care they never found [added: him] out: he just throttled them from behind if they came down alone anywhere near the edge of the water, while he was prowling about. They jolly seldom did, for they felt something not quite nice lived down there, down at the very roots of the mountain.TN9

  As a matter of fact Gollum lived on a slimy island in the middle of the lake. He was watching Bilbo now with his pale eyes like telescopes from the distance. Bilbo couldn’t see him, but he was wondering a lot about Bilbo, for he could see he was no goblin at all.

  Gollum got onto his boat and shot off from the bank. There Bilbo was sitting altogether flummuxedTN10 and at the end of his way and his wits. Suddenly up came Gollum and whispered and hissed:

  ‘Bless us and blister us [> splash us], my precious! I guess ’tis a choice feast, a tasty morsel at least you’d be for Gollum [> it’d make us, Gollum]’, and when he said ‘Gollum’ he swallowed unpleasantly in his throat – that’s how he got his name. The hobbit jumped nearly out of his skin when the hiss came in his ears and he saw the pale eyes sticking out at him.

  ‘Who are you?’ he said, holding his sword in front of him.

  ‘What is he?’ said [> whispered] Gollum (who always spoke to himself not to you).

  That is what he had come to find out, for he was not really hungry at the moment, or he would have grabbed first and whispered afterwards.

  ‘I am Mr Bilbo Baggins. I have lost the dwarves and the wizard and I don’t know where I am, and don’t want to know, if I can only get away.’

  ‘What’s he got in his handses?’ said Gollum looking at the sword, which he didn’t quite like.

  ‘A sword, a blade that came out of Gondolin’ said Bilbo.

  ‘Praps ye sits hereTN11 and chats with it a bitsy’ said Gollum, ‘Does he like riddles, does he praps?’TN12 He was anxious to appear friendly, at any rate for the moment, and until he found out more about the hobbit, whether he was quite alone, whether he was good to eat, & whether Gollum was really hungry or not. Asking (and sometimes answering [> guessing]) riddles had been a game he played with other funny creatures sitting in their holes in the long long ago before the goblins came, and he was cut off from his friends far under the mountains.TN13

  ‘Very well’ said Bilbo, who thought it best to agree until he found out more about the fellow, and whether he was quite alone, whether he was fierce or hungry, and whether he was a friend of the goblins. ‘You ask first’ he said, because he hadn’t had time to think of a riddle.

  ‘What has roots [no >] as nobody sees, is taller than trees, and [do >]TN14 yet never grows?’

  ‘Easy’ said Bilbo – ‘mountains, I suppose’.

  ‘Does it guess easy? – it must have a competition with us, my precious. If precious asks, and it doesn’t answer, we eats it my precious. If it ask us and we doesn’t answer, we gives it a present: Gollum.’

  ‘Alright’ said Bilbo, not daring to disagree, and nearly bursting his brain to think of riddles that could save him from being eaten.TN15

  ‘Thirty white horses on a red hill first they stamp, then they champ, then they stand still’ he said [> asked] (the idea of eating was rather in his mind you see). This was rather a chestnut [> an old one], and Gollum knew the answer as well as you do.

  ‘Chestnuts, chestnuts’ he hissed: ‘toosies, tooiesTN16 my precious but we has only six.TN17

  Voiceless it cries,

  Wingless flutters,

  Toothless bites,

  Mouthless mutters.

  ‘Half a moment’ said Bilbo who was still thinking uncomfortably about eating. Fortunately he had heard this kind of thing before, and so soon got it [> his wits back]. ‘Wind, wind’ he said.

  An eye in a blue face

  Saw an eye in a green face.

  “That eye is like to this eye”

  Said the first eye,

  “But in low place

  Not in high place.”

  ‘Ss, ss, ss’ said the GollumTN18 who had been underground a long long while and was forgetting that sort of thing. But just as Bilbo was [thinking >] wondering what Gollum’s present would be like [‘ss ss ss’ he said >] Gollum [remembered >] brought up memories of long before when he lived with his grandmother in a hole in a bank by a river. ‘Ss ss ss, my precious’ he said: ‘sun on the daisies it means, it does’.

  But these ordinary above ground every day homely sort of riddles were tiring for him, and what is more reminded him of days when he was not so lonely and sneaky and nasty. Still he made another effortTN19

  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,TN20

  Ends life, kills laughter.

  You notice he was hissing less as he got excited – also this was an easy one.TN21

  ‘Dark’ said Bilbo without scratching his head.

  A box without hinges, key, or lid,

  Yet golden treasure inside is hid,

  he asked to gain time till he could think of a really hard one. All the same this proved a nasty poser for Gollum.TN22 He sat and twiddled his fingers and toes [in the >] he hissed to himself and still he didn’t answer. After some while Bilbo said ‘Well, what is it?’

  ‘Give us a chance; let it give us a chance, my precious’.

  ‘Well’ s
aid Bilbo after giving him a good chance. ‘What is your present?’

  But suddenly the Gollum remembered sitting under the river bank long long ago teaching his grandmother, teaching his grandmother to suck —— ‘Eggs’ he [said >cried > ] croaked ‘eggs it is’.

  Then he asked:

  Alive without breath,

  As cold as death;

  Never thirsty, ever drinking,

  All in mail never clinking.

  He [added: also] felt this was a dreadfully easy one, because he was always thinking of the answer; but he couldn’t think of anything better at the moment [added: he was so flustered by the egg-question]. All the same it was a bit of a poser to [> for] Bilbo, who never had anything to do with water (I imagine of course you know the answer since you are sitting comfortably at home, and haven’t the danger of being eaten to disturb your thinking).