The History of the Hobbit Read online

  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 down nearly to his woolly toes (neatly brushed), Bladorthin came by. Bladorthin! If you had heard only a quarter of what I have (and I have heard only a little tiny bit of what there is to hear) about him you would be prepared for any sort of remarkable tale. Tales and adventures sprouted up all over the place wherever he went in the most extraordinary fashion. He hadn’t been down this way under the Hill for ages and ages, and the hobbits had almost forgotten what he looked like; he had been away over the Hill and across the Water since their grandfather’s time at least. All the unsuspecting Bilbo saw was a little old man with a tall pointed blue hat, a long grey cloak, a silver scarf over which his long 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 Bladorthin looked at him from under very long bushy eyebrows that stuck out farther than the brim of his shady hat.

  ‘What do you mean’ he said. ‘Do you wish me a good morning, or mean that it is a good morning, or that you feel good this morning, or that it is a morning to be good on?’

  ‘All of them at once’ said Bilbo. ‘And a very fine morning for a pipe of baccy 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, you have got all the day in front of you!’ And Bilbo sat down on a seat by his door, crossed his legs and blew out a beautiful grey ring of smoke that sailed up in the air without breaking and floated away over the Hill.

  ‘Very pretty; but I have no time to blow smoke-rings, I am on the way to an adventure, and I am looking for some one to share it – very difficult to find’.

  ‘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; can’t think what anybody sees in them’, said our Mr Baggins and stuck his thumbs in his waistcoat pockets and blew out another and even bigger smoke-ring. Then he took out his letters and began to read, pretending to take no more notice of the little old man; he had decided that he was not quite his sort, and wanted him to go away. But the old man didn’t move. He stood leaning on his stick and gazing at the hobbit without saying anything, until he got quite uncomfortable and even a little cross.

  ‘Good morning’ the hobbit said at last. ‘We don’t want any adventures here, thank you. You might try over the Hill or across the Water’. By which he meant that the conversation was at an end.

  ‘What a lot of things you do use “good morning” for’ said Bladorthin. ‘Now you mean you want to get rid of me, and that it won’t be good until I move off!’

  ‘Not at all, not at all! my dear sir (I don’t think I know your name)’.

  ‘Yes, yes! my dear sir – and I do know your name, Mr Bilbo Baggins, and you know mine though you don’t know that I belong to it. I am Bladorthin and Bladorthin means me! And to think that I should have lived to be good-morninged by Belladonna Took’s son, as if I were selling buttons at the door!’

  ‘Bladorthin? Bladorthin? Let me see – not the wandering wizard who gave Old Took a pair of magic diamond studs that fastened themselves and never came undone – not the fellow who turned the dragon of the Far Mountains inside out, and rescued so many princesses, earls, dukes, widow’s sons and fair maidens from unlamented giants – not the man who made such particularrly excellent fireworks (I remember them! Old Took used to let us 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) dear me! – not the Bladorthin who was responsible for so many quiet lads and lasses going off into the blue for mad adventures, everything from climbing trees to stowing away aboard the ships that sail to the Other Side. Dear me, life used to be quite inter – I mean you used to upset things badly in these parts a while ago. I beg your pardon – but I had no idea you were still in business.’

  ‘Where else should I be? I am pleased to see that you remember something about me. You seem to remember the fireworks kindly at any rate, and that is not without hope. Indeed for your Old grandfather Took’s sake, and for the sake of poor Belladonna, I will give you what you have asked for’.

  ‘I beg your pardon, I haven’t asked for anything!’

  ‘Yes you have. Twice. My pardon! I give it you. In fact I will go so far as to take you on my present adventure with me. Very amusing for me, very good for you.’

  ‘Sorry. I don’t want any adventures, thank you. Good morning. But please come to tea or dinner (beautiful dinner!) any time you like. Why not tomorrow? Come tomorrow! Good bye!’ And the hobbit turned and scuttled inside his round green door, and shut it as quickly as he dared not to seem rude. ‘What on earth did I ask him to tea for?’ he thought to himself as he went to the pantry. He had only just had breakfast, but he thought a cake or two and something to drink would do him good after his fright. Bladorthin in the meanwhile was still standing outside the door and laughing long but quietly. After a while he stepped up and made a little magic sign on the hobbit’s beautiful green front door and then he strode away, just about the time that the hobbit was finishing his second cake and beginning to think that he had escaped adventures very well.

  The next day he had almost forgotten about Bladorthin. He didn’t remember things very well unless he put them down on his engagement tablet (thus ‘Bladorthin, tea Wednesday’), and yesterday he had been too flustered to do anything of the sort. Just before tea-time there came a tremendous ring at 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 went to the door.

  ‘I am so sorry to keep you waiting’ he was going to say, when he saw that it wasn’t Bladorthin at all. It was a dwarf with a blue beard tucked into a golden belt, and very bright eyes under his dark green hood, and as soon as the door was open he pushed inside just as if he had been expected. He hung his hood on the nearest peg, and ‘Dwalin at your service’ he said with a bow.

  ‘Bilbo Baggins at yours’ said the hobbit, too surprised to say anything else. When the silence had become uncomfortable he added: ‘I am just going to have tea; pray come and have some with me’ – a little stiff perhaps but he meant it kindly; and what would you do if a dwarf came and hung his hat up in your hall without a word of explanation! They had not been at the 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’ve got here at last’ was what he was going to say to Bladorthin this time. But it wasn’t Bladorthin. There was a very old-looking dwarf there with a yellow beard and a scarlet hood, and he too hopped inside as soon as the door was half open, just as if he had been invited.

  ‘I see some of the others have come’TN1 he said when he saw Dwalin’s hood on the peg. He hung his yellowTN2 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 the wrong thing to say, but ‘some of the others’ had put him in a fright. 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 as the host and stuck to it however painful) would have to go without.

  ‘Come along in to 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 Yellow Beard, ‘but I don’t mind some cake – seed-cake if you have any’.

  ‘Lots’ Bilbo found himself answering to his own surprise, and scuttling off to the cellar to fill a pint beer-mug, and to the pantry to fetch two beautiful seed-cakes w
hich he had baked that afternoon for his after-supper morsel.

  Balin and Dwalin were talking like old friends at the table (as a matter of fact they were brothers, but he didn’t know though he ought to have done) when he got back. He plumped down the beer and the cake, when loudly there came a ring at the bell [,] and then another. ‘Bladorthin this time, for sure’ he thought as he puffed along the passage. But it wasn’t. It was two more dwarves, both with blue hoods, silver belts, and white beards; and both carried a bag of tools and a spade.

  In they hopped as soon as the door began to open – Bilbo was quite expecting it. ‘What can I do for you, my dwarves’ he said.

  ‘Fili at you service’ said the one; ‘and Kili’ added the other, and they both swept off their blue hoods.TN3

  ‘At yours and your family’s’ said Bilbo, remembering his manners this time.

  ‘Dwalin and Balin here already I see’ said Kili. ‘Let us join the throng!’

  ‘Throng!’ thought the hobbit, ‘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 dwarves sat round the table, and talked all about mines and gold and jewels and troubles with the goblins and the depredations of dragons, and lots of other things that he didn’t understand, and didn’t want to – they sounded highly adventurous) when, ding-dong-a-ling-lang, his bell rang again as if some naughty little hobbit-boy was trying to pull the handle off.

  ‘Someone at the door’ he said.

  ‘Some four, I should say by the sound’ said Fili, ‘besides we saw them coming along in the distance behind us’.

  And the poor little hobbit sat down in the hall and put his head in his hands, and [added: wondered] what had happened and what was going to happen and whether they would stay to supper.

  Then the bell rang again louder than ever, and he had to run to the door. It wasn’t four it was five; another one had come up while he was wondering. He had hardly turned the knob before they were all inside bowing and saying ‘at your service’ one after the other. Dor[i], 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. Some called for ale and some for stout, and one for coffee, and all of them for cake; and so the hobbit was kept very busy for a while. A big jug of coffee was just set in the hearth and the seed-cakes were almost gone, 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), and he pull[ed] open the door with a jerk. They all fell in one on top of the other. More dwarves; four more. And there was Bladorthin standing behind with his stick. He had made quite a dent in the beautiful door and, by the way, had knocked out the magic mark that he put there on the yesterday morning.

  ‘Carefully, carefully’ he said. ‘This is not like you, Bilbo, to keep friends waiting and then open the door like a pop-gun. Let me introduce Bifur, Bofur, Bombur, and Gandalf’.

  ‘At your service’ they said, all standing in a row. Then they hung up two yellow hoods, a pale green one, and a sky-blue one with a silver tassel. This belonged to Gandalf, a very important dwarf,TN4 and he wasn’t very pleased at falling flat on Bilbo’s mat with Bifur, Bofur and Bombur on top of him; but the hobbit said he was sorry so many times, that he forgave him.

  ‘We are all here now’ said Bladorthin, looking at the row of twelveTN5 hoods on the pegs. ‘Quite a merry party. I hope you have left something for us to eat and drink. What’s that? Tea? No thank you. A little red wine, I think, if you don’t mind, for me’.

  ‘And for me’ said Gandalf.

  ‘And raspberry jam and apple-tart’ said Bifur.

  ‘And mince pies and cheese’ said Bofur.

  ‘And pork-pie and salad’ said Bombur.

  ‘And more beer – and tea – and coffee – if you don’t mind’ called the other dwarves [through]TN6 the door.

  ‘Put on a few eggs, there’s a good fellow’ Bladorthin called after him, as the hobbit stumped off to the pantries; ‘and just bring out the cold chicken and tomatoes’.

  ‘Seems to know as much about the inside of my larder as I do myself’ thought Mr Bilbo Baggins, who was now feeling positively flummuxed, and beginning to wonder whether a wretched adventure hadn’t come right to his house. By the time he had all the bottles and dishes and knives and forks and plates and spoons and things piled up on big trays, he was beginning to feel very hot and red in the face and annoyed.

  ‘Confusticate’ (he was annoyed, I told you) ‘and bebother those dwarves’ he said aloud, ‘why don’t they come and lend a hand’.

  Lo! and behold there stood Dwalin and Fili at the door of the kitchen, and Kili behind them; and before he could say ‘knife’ they had whisked the trays into the parlour, and set out the table all afresh.

  Bladorthin sat at the head of the table and the twelve dwarves all round, and Bilbo sat on a stool at the fireside, nibbling a biscuit,TN7 and trying to look as if this was all quite ordinary and not at all 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 crocks.

  ‘I suppose you will all stay to supper’ he said in his politest unpressing tones.

  ‘Of course’ said Gandalf, ‘and afterwards. We shan’t get through the business till late, and we must have some music first. Now to clear up!’

  Thereupon all the twelve dwarves (Gandalf was too important; he stayed talking to Bladorthin) got up and piled the things in tall piles. Off they went not waiting for trays, balancing columns of plates with bottles on the top on one hand, while the hobbit ran after them saying ‘please be careful’ and ‘please don’t trouble, I can manage’ one after another. 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 bowl;

  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!TN8

  And of course they did none of these dreadful things, and everything was put away quite safe 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 DwalinTN9 with his feet on the fender with 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 mantelpiece or under the table or round and round the ceiling; but wherev[e]r it went it was not quick enough to escape Bladorthin. Pop! he sent a smaller one straight through it from his short clay pipe. Then Bladorthin’s smoke-ring would go green with the joke and come back to hover over the wizard’s head. He had quite a cloud of them about him already, and it made him look positively sorcerous.

  Bilbo stood still and watched – he loved smoke-rings – and then he blushed to think how proud he had been yesterday morning of the smoke-ring he had sent up the wind over the Hill.

  ‘Now for some music’ said Gandalf. ‘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 nowhere; Bifur and Bofur went into the hall and came back with [their] walking-st
icks and turned them into clarinets; Dwalin and Balin said ‘excuse us we left ours in the porch’. ‘Just bring mine in with you’ said Gandalf. They came back with viols nearly as big as themselves, and with Gandalf’s harp in a green cloth. It was a beautiful golden harp, and when Gandalf 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 away from his hobbit-hole under the Hill.