New Chapter I
A Well-Planned Party

In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty wet hole, filled with worms and an oozy smell, nor a dry hole, bare and sandy, with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort.

It had a round door like a porthole, painted green, with a yellow brass knob in the exact middle. The door opened into a long hall, shaped like a tunnel, airy, but dark when the lamps were not lit. Its floor was tiled and carpeted, there were polished chairs against the walls, and rows of pegs for hats and coats – the hobbit was fond of visitors. The tunnel went on a good way into the side of the hill, the Hill of Hobbiton, near the top of which the hobbit lived; and many little round doors opened out of it, first on one side and then on the other. No going upstairs for the hobbit: bedrooms, bathrooms, cellars, pantries, wardrobes (rooms full of clothes), kitchens, breakfast-room, dining-room, drawing room, all were on the same floor. The best rooms were all on the lefthand side as you went in, for only these had windows, deep-set round windows looking over the garden to meadows beyond, sloping down to the river.

The hobbit was very well-to-do, it was said, and his name was Baggins. The Bagginses had lived in the neighbourhood of Hobbiton 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 nor did anything unexpected: you could tell what a Baggins would say on any question without the trouble of asking him. But this story tells how a Baggins had an adventure, and found himself saying and doing things altogether unexpected. He got caught up in great events, which he never understood; and he became enormously important, though he never realized it.

How astonishing this was will be better understood by those who know something about hobbits; and some account of them is really needed nowadays for they are becoming rare, and they avoid the Big People, as they call us. They were a small people, about half our height or less, often smaller than the Dwarves of those days, to whom they were quite unrelated: hobbits never have beards. They loved peace and the quiet of a well-ordered and well-farmed countryside; most of them were in fact farmers in a small way, though many were clever with tools. They had long and skilful fingers and made many useful and well-shaped things, mostly of wood or clay or leather [> glass]. But there were very few shoemakers among them, for they seldom wore either shoes or boots. They did not need them, for their feet had tough leathery soles, and were covered as high as the ankles in thick curling hair, warm and brown like the hair on their heads. They had good-natured faces, broad, bright-eyed and red-cheeked, and mouths shaped for laughter. And laugh they did, and eat, and drink, often and heartily; for they were fond of jests at all times, and liked six meals a day (when they could get them).

They dressed in bright colours, especially yellow and green, for they delighted in fields and trees. Though they were inclined to grow rather fat, and did not hurry unnecessarily,^TN1 they were nimble; and quick of hearing too, and sharp-eyed. They had from the first the art of moving swiftly and silently, disappearing when large folk or beasts that they did not wish to meet came blundering by. To us that might seem magical; but Hobbits have never in fact studied magic of any kind, their skill is a gift improved by long practice and helped by their friendship with the earth and all growing things.

More could be said, but for the present that is a good enough description of Hobbits, or at least of that kind that in those days lived, as they had done for hundreds of years, in the little land that they called the Shire, away in the North-west of the world.

The chief family in the Shire were the Tooks, whose lands lay across The Water, the small river that ran at the foot of the Hill. Now that is important, for^TN2 the mother of the hobbit of this tale, Bilbo Baggins, was Belladonna Took, eldest of the three remarkable daughters of the Old Took, head of all the Tooks, and famous for having lived to the age of one hundred and thirty. It was often said (in other families) that the Tooks must have some elvish blood in them: which was of course absurd, but there was undoubtedly some thing queer about them, something not quite hobbitlike, according to the manners of the Shire: an outlandish strain maybe from long ago.^TN3 Every now and again Tooks would go off on adventures. They disappeared, and the family hushed it up.

Not that Belladonna Took ever had any adventures after she married Bungo Baggins. Bungo, that was Bilbo’s father, built for her the most commodious hobbit-hole that was to be found in that part of the Shire, always excepting the vast and many-tunneled dwelling of the Tooks. It was meant, of course, to house a large family. But Bilbo was their only son, and they both died young – for hobbits – being still in their early eighties. And there now was Bilbo, in the commodious hole, looking and behaving like a second edition of his solid and comfortable father. But maybe there was something a little peculiar in his make-up coming from the Took side, hidden, but waiting for a chance to come out. The chance never arrived, until Bilbo Baggins was grown up, indeed about fifty years old, and had apparently settled down immovably.

One morning long ago in the quiet of the world, when the hobbits were still numerous and prosperous, and their green corner of the great lands was still enjoying its long peace,^TN4 Bilbo Baggins was standing at his door after breakfast, smoking a long wooden pipe.^TN5 At that moment Gandalf appeared. Gandalf!^TN6 Those who go in for Ancient History will prick up their ears, though few know all there is to tell about him. Wherever he went strange things happened, and he left behind him marvellous tales. All the same he seemed fond of hobbits, and at one time he had often visited the Shire. But it was now many years since he had appeared there, except for a brief visit when his friend the Old Took died, and that was now at least twenty years ago. So most even of the older folk in Hobbiton had almost forgotten what he looked like. He had been far away, ‘over the Hill and across the Water’ as they said, on business of his own,^TN7 since they were young. To little hobbits he was just a character in fireside tales.

All that Bilbo saw that morning was an old man with a tall pointed blue hat, a long grey cloak, and a silver scarf, over which his white beard hung down below his waist. He had tall black boots, and leaned on a staff.

‘Good morning!’ said Bilbo cheerily. The sun was shining and the grass was very green. But Gandalf looked at him from under his bushy eyebrows that bristled beneath the brim of his hat.

‘What do you mean?’ he said. ‘That it is a fine morning, and you feel pleased with yourself? Perhaps you wish me to feel pleased too. I may. We’ll see’.

‘Indeed I hope you will’, said Bilbo. ‘Why not? It is a fine morning anyway for a pipe of tobacco out of doors.^TN8 If you have a pipe with you, pray take a seat and try some of my weed: it is “Old Toby”. There is no hurry. All the day’s before us’. Then Bilbo sat down on the bench 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 today. I am looking for someone to share in an adventure that I am arranging, and it is very difficult to find anyone suitable’.

‘I should think so – in these parts. We are plain quiet folk and have no use for adventures. Nasty disturbing things! Make you late for dinner! I can’t think why anybody has them’. With that Mr. Baggins stuck a thumb behind his braces, and blew out another even bigger smoke-ring. Then he took out his morning letters, and began to read, pretending to take no more notice of the old man. He was not the kind of visitor he liked; he made him feel uncomfortable. He wished he would go away. But the old man did not move. He stood leaning on his staff and gazing at the hobbit without saying a word, till Bilbo began to feel annoyed.

‘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. Good morning!’

‘Now I understand what you mean by Good morning’, said Gandalf. ‘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! But I do know your name, Mr. Bilbo Baggins. And you knew my name once, when you were younger and brighter. It is Gandalf, in this part of the world.^TN9 Gandalf! Do you hear? To think that I should live to be good-morninged by Belladonna Took’s son, as if I was selling buttons at the door!’

‘Gandalf, Gandalf! Not the old wizard who used to visit the Tooks? Good gracious me! He used to make marvellous fireworks for the Old Took’s parties on Midsummer’s Eve. I remember them! Splendid! They used to go up like great roses and lilies and snapdragons of fire, and hang in the sky like flowers of golden-rain in the twilight!’ Mr. Baggins was not quite so prosy as he liked to believe, and any way he delighted in flowers. ‘Bless me!’ he went on. ‘Not the Gandalf who used to tell such wonderful tales about dragons, and goblins, and giants, and mountains in far countries – and the Sea. They used to send many quiet lads, and lasses, off on adventures, it is said: any mad thing from climbing tall trees to visiting Elves, and even trying to sail in ships’.^TN10 Bilbo’s voice fell almost to a whisper. ‘To sail, sail away to the Other Shore. Dear me!’ he sighed. ‘Life used to be quite interest– I mean, you used to upset things badly in the Shire, 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. ‘But you have my pardon. Indeed I am pleased, and it is a good morning.^TN11 You do remember something about me; and what you say is very promising. For your old grandfather Took’s sake, and for poor Belladonna’s, I will do something for you’.

‘You are very kind; but I have not asked for anything, thank you all the same!’

‘That doesn’t matter. I have made up my mind. Yes, I think you will do. Yes, I will send you on this adventure. You may be useful; and anyway it will do you good, if you come through’.

‘No, no! I am sorry. I don’t want any adventures. Not today, thank you! Good morning!’ Bilbo backed towards his doorstep. ‘But please come to tea, any time you like’, he stammered.^TN12 ‘Why not tomorrow? Come tomorrow! Good bye!’ With that he scuttled inside his round green door, and shut it as quickly as he dared, not to seem too rude. Wizards are after all wizards.

Bilbo had only just had breakfast, but he felt that a cake or two and a drink would do him good after his fright. ‘What on earth did I ask him to tea for!’ he said to himself in the pantry. ‘But perhaps he won’t come. I am sure wizards don’t like hobbit-tea’.

Gandalf in the meantime was still standing deep in thought outside the door. At last he laughed softly, and stepping up with the spike on his staff he scratched a curious sign on the hobbit’s beautiful green door. Then he strode away, just about the time when Bilbo was finishing his second cake and was beginning to think he had escaped adventures very well.

The next day he had almost forgotten about Gandalf. His letters had brought him much news of his many relations, and some of them were troublesome. And anyway yesterday he had been too upset to mark his invitation on his Engagement Tablet: today, Wednesday, was blank.

Just before his tea-time there came a tremendous ring of 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 as 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 join me’. He was a little stiff, perhaps; but he was not used to having uninvited dwarves come and hang up their things in his hall. Without a word of explanation. That would follow, he hoped.

They had not been long at the table, 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!’ he meant 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. 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 invite 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 beer-mug, and to the small pantry to fetch two beautiful round seed-cakes that he had meant to have last thing, before he went to bed.

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 cakes 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 with a bow, 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. It’s my turn for a drink!’ He had only just had a sip – by the fire, while the dwarves sat round the table, and talked about mines and gold and troubles with the goblins, and the depredations of dragons, and many other things which he did not understand, and did not wish 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. ‘Besides, we saw them in the distance, coming along behind us’.

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, it was FIVE. Another dwarf had come up while he was wondering in the hall. He had hardly turned the knob before 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.

Two called for cider, and two called for beer; and Gloin called for old ale. ‘Bring some honey and spices!’ he said. ‘I like mine mulled by the fire’. And all the nine called for more cakes, and for butter as well;^TN13 so the poor hobbit was kept very busy for a while.

Great jugs of beer and cider had been set on the table, Gloin’s ale was in a pan on the fire, the seed-cakes had gone, and the dwarves were busy toasting buttered cake,^TN14 when there came – a loud knock. Not a ring, but a hard rat-tat on Bilbo’s beautiful green door. Somebody was banging with a stick!

Bilbo rushed along the passage, very angry, and altogether bothered and bewildered – 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, but 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 trap! Let me introduce Bifur, Bofur, and Bombur, and especially Thorin!’

‘At your service!’ said Bifur, Bofur, and Bombur, a little coolly, standing in a row. [added: They brought in a large bag, and what looked like sticks wrapped in cloths, which they put in the hall-stand.]^TN15 Then they hung up two yellow hoods and a pale green one; and also a sky-blue hood with a long liripipe^TN16 ending in a silver tassel. This belonged to Thorin, a dwarf of immense dignity, in fact no other than the great Thorin Oakenshield himself, renowned in history. He was not at all pleased at falling flat on Bilbo’s mat with his attendants, Bifur, Bofur, and Bombur, on top of him. For one thing Bombur was enormously fat and heavy. Thorin indeed was very haughty, and he said nothing about service; but poor Mr. Baggins bowed so low and said he was sorry so many times that at last he grunted ‘pray do not mention it’, and stopped frowning.

‘Now we are all here!’ said Gandalf, looking at the row of thirteen hoods, and his own hat and cloak, 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 pastry’, said Bifur.

‘And mince-pie and cheese’, said Bofur.

‘And pork-pie and onions’, said Bombur.

‘And more cakes, and ale, and cider, if you don’t mind’, called the other dwarves from the parlour.^TN17

‘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!’^TN18

‘He seems to know as much about the inside of my larders^TN19 as I do myself!’ thought Mr. Baggins, who was altogether flummoxed, and was beginning to feel alarmed: he wondered 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, not to mention the food, piled up on big trays, he was getting very hot, and red in the face, and annoyed.

‘Confound and bother 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 Thorin at his right, and the other twelve dwarves round the joined tables; but Bilbo sat on a stool at the fireside, nibbling at a biscuit (his appetite was quite taken away), and trying to look unconcerned, as if this was all just an everyday affair and not in the least like 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 shall not get through our business till late, and we must have some music first. Now to clear up!’

. . . . . .

p. 22/bottom line to 23/top.^TN20 safe and quick, while the hobbit was turning round like a top in the middle of the kitchen, shouting out directions and trying to see that things were put in the right places.

p. 23/4 He was blowing enormous smoke-rings

p. 23/ 22 from inside their jackets; Bombur produced a drum from his bag in the hall; Bifur and Bofur^TN21 went out too, and came back with the clarinets that they had left . . .

p. 26/ –2 [2 up] he was so overwhelmed

p. 27/3 us (even our friend...

/10–13. important dwarf, and he thought it an important occasion.^TN22

/16 it burst out like the whee of a rocket going up in the sky

/19 delete magic

/–7 ‘Excitable little fellow^TN23

/–5 one of the best – as brave as Bandobras at a pinch’. No doubt an exaggeration; but Gandalf was doing his best in a difficult situation. For Bandobras had been the Old Took’s great-granduncle, and usually called Bullroarer. He was so huge (for a hobbit) that he rode a small horse. At the Battle of the Green Fields, when the hobbits were driven back, he charged the ranks of the Goblins of Mount Gram, and smote their king Golfimbul [> Gulfimbul]^TN24 to the earth with his great wooden club. So the battle was won, and there had been none since in the Shire. Even the dwarves had heard of Bullroarer Took.

In the meantime, however, Bullroarer’s gentler relative

p. 28/13 being brave

/14 a stone dragon out of an enchanted sleep.^TN25

/20 He looks more of a fool than a burglar

/23 to be thought brave. As for little fellow puffing on the mat it made his blood hot

/26 you were a fool

p. 29/1 strange faces.^TN26

/9 And I assure you there is a mark on this door – the sign we were told to look for: Tracker and Treasure-hunter it means to those who know the Dwarf-runes. Burglar we say in these days; it is shorter. The fees are the same. Gandalf said there was a hobbit of the sort, living quietly in these parts, waiting for a job – needing one soon. Only yesterday he told us he had arranged a meeting here for today. ‘Four o’clock’ he said, ‘but don’t all arrive at once!’

‘Of course there was a mark’, said Gandalf. ‘I put it there myself. You asked me to find a treasure-hunter for your expedition, and I chose Mr. Baggins

/–7 I have chosen Mr. Baggins, and that must be enough for all of you. If I say he is a Burglar, a Burglar he is, or will be when the time comes. If I say he needs a job soon, I know what I am talking about. There is a lot more in him than you see, and a deal more than he guesses himself.

p. 30/3 This was made by Thror, your grandfather, he said to Thorin. Bilbo and the other dwarves gathered round. ‘It is a plan of the Mountain’.

‘I don’t see that this will help me much’ said Thorin, after a glance.

/18 Delete (Look...red). Substitute* and a footnote *See the copy of the plan at the beginning of this book.^TN27

/–6 devouring so many dwarves and most of the Men of Dale’

p. 30/–4 to 31/ top. ‘It seems a great big hole to me’ said Bilbo, deeply interested. He loved maps, and in his hall there hung a large one of The Hobbiton Country which he had drawn himself, marking all his favourite walks in red. ‘How could such a large door be kept secret from everybody outside, apart from the dragon?’ he asked. He had of course no experience of dragons, and very little of dwarves.

‘In many ways’, said Gandalf.........method, I believe’.^TN28

‘It is’, said Thorin.

/–14 ...what to do. We must go east, of course, by as straight roads as we can find, quietly, attracting as little notice as possible – until we come to the Long Lake. After that the trouble will begin’.

‘A long while before that’, interrupted Gandalf. ‘Things have not changed for the better since you came to the West. Few roads are straight, and none are safe, and the East is full of danger.’

‘From the Long Lake we might go up the Running River’, Thorin went on, taking no notice, ‘and so to the ruins of Dale...

p. 31/–2 to 32/ top ‘That would be no good’, said the wizard, ‘not even for warriors of the Elder Days, who cannot now be matched.^TN29 But we have discussed all that; and anyway we are not looking for a warrior in the Shire: their little swords are blunt; their axes are used for trees, and their bows for small deer.^TN30 We decided that you must use stealth; and I chose your helper. Here he is, Bilbo Baggins: the “burglar”, specially selected. So now let us get on’.

‘Very well then’, said Thorin, turning to Bilbo with mock-politeness. ‘Let the selected expert give us some ideas and suggestions!’......

p. 32/18. ‘Bless me!’ said Thorin. ‘Haven’t you looked at the 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 plain and clear’, said Bilbo obstinately, trying to appear prudent and professional. ‘Also I should like to know about...’ By which he meant: ‘What chance is there of my coming back alive? and what am I going to get out of it, if I do?’

‘O very well’, said Thorin. ‘Many years ago, in my great-grandfather’s days, our family was driven out of the far North.^TN31 Some went east to the Iron Hills. But Thror my grandfather returned with most of our kin to this Mountain on the map, where Thrain the Old^TN32 his ancestor had lived for a while, once upon a time. There they mined and they tunnelled, and they made deeper halls and greater workshops;^TN33 and they found a wealth of gold and many gems. They grew rich and famous, and Thror became King under the Mountain, and was treated with great reverence by the Men who lived further south, and were spreading up the Running River. In those days they built the merry town of Dale in the valley over-shadowed by the Mountain. Their lords 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 paid us handsomely. It was always for food and wine that we asked, so that we had no need to grow it or get it for ourselves. The land was fat and fruitful in those days [> then]. Those were good years for us, and the least of us had gold to spend and to lend, and leisure to make beautiful things for our delight. The young dwarves made marvellous and cunning toys, the like of which are not to be found in the world today. So the halls of Thror were filled with armour and harps and drinking-horns and cups and things carven and hammered and inlaid, and with jewels like stars; and the toy-market of Dale was one of the wonders of the North.

Alas! that brought the dragon upon us! Greed has long ears.^TN34 Dragons, as no doubt a treasure-hunter will know, steal gold and jewels from elves and dwarves and men, wherever they can find them; and they guard their plunder as long as they live, a thousand years^TN35 maybe, unless they are killed, though they never enjoy one small ring of it. They cannot use it, and they do not know good work from bad; but they remember the least thing that they have ever possessed, and woe to anyone who tries to set a finger on it! Curse them!

There were still many dragons in the North in those days,^TN36 and treasure was becoming so scarce that they fell to fighting among themselves, and the waste and destruction that dragons make was going from bad to worse. There was beyond the Grey Mountains a most greedy, strong, and wicked worm called Smaug. One day he flew up in the air and came south

p. 34/ bottom. After that, when we had set our curse on the dragon, we went away; and we

p. 35/2 as low as coalmining, or even road-mending...^TN37

/6. ‘I still mean to get it back, and to bring my curse home to Smaug – if I can’.

/9, 10. had a secret Side-door

/14 ‘I did not get hold of it, it was given to me’, said the wizard with a flash of his eyes. ‘Thror, your grandfather was murdered in the mines of Moria by Azog the Goblin – ’^TN38

‘Yes, curse Azog!’ 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 –’

‘Too true, alas!’ said Thorin.

‘Well your father gave me this map,^TN39 ninety one years ago, and I have guarded it ever since’.

‘Ninety one years!’ cried Thorin. ‘For ninety one years you have kept my property?’

‘Thorin’, said Gandalf quietly, ‘though your fame had reached me, I first met you only a few weeks ago.^TN40 Until then the use and meaning of this map was quite unknown to me; and I did not know who it belonged to. [added in margin: Your father could not remember his own name, nor yours, when he gave me the parchment.] If I have chosen my own time for restoring it, you have no right to be angry: I came by it only at the peril of my life, for which I think you owe me some thanks. I give it to you now’, he said, handing the map to Thorin with a bow.

‘I thank you’ said Thorin. ‘I would thank you more, maybe, if your words were not dark. I do not understand them at all!’ Bilbo felt that he would like to say the same; but he wisely said nothing.

‘You are slow’, said Gandalf tartly [> sharply]. ‘Until I heard your tale, I did not know how Thror and Thrain escaped from the Mountain. Thrain was dying when I found him. I guess that your grandfather gave this map to him for safety before he himself went to the mines of Moria. Then later Thrain, your father, went away, as you have told, though you did not know why. I think he took the map and went to [spy on >] try his luck in the Mountain. But he had no luck; he was caught in dark perils, and never came in sight of his home. How he came there, I cannot tell; but I found him a prisoner in the dungeons of the Necromancer’.^TN41

‘Whatever were you doing there!’ said Thorin with a shudder, going pale, and the dwarves hid their faces.

‘Do not ask! Not at night.’ said Gandalf. ‘I will not speak of it.^TN42 But it was my task to search in the shadows, and a dark and dangerous quest it was. Even I, Gandalf, hardly escaped. I tried to save your father, though he was a nameless dwarf to me, alone, in misery. It was too late. He was witless and wandering, and had forgotten almost all that he had known, except a map, and a key’.

Thorin ground his teeth. ‘Thror was avenged: we paid the goblins in Moria long ago. We must give a thought to this Necromancer!’

‘Hush!’ said Gandalf. ‘Grief has robbed you of your wits. He^TN43 is an enemy far beyond the powers of all the dwarves in the world, if they could all be gathered again from the four corners of Earth, even from their tombs. The one thing that your father wished was that you should read the map and use the key. Give them to my son^TN44 were his last words, though he did not speak your name. They are burden enough. The Dragon of the Mountain is as big a task as you can manage; too big, maybe’.

‘Hear, hear!’ said Bilbo to himself, but he 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 must go east, which will take several days,^TN45 no doubt – ’. Gandalf smiled, and Thorin snorted. ‘Well, then you must have a quiet look round. After all, there is the Side-door, and dragons must sleep sometimes, I suppose. If you sit on the door-step long enough, I daresay you will think of some plan, or something will turn up. 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? You can have a good breakfast before you go.’

‘Before we go, I suppose you mean’, said Thorin. ‘Aren’t you the burglar? And what about stealth? Isn’t sitting on the door-step your job, not to speak of getting inside? But I agree about bed and breakfast. I like six eggs with my ham, when starting on a journey: fried not poached, and mind you don’t break ’em’.

p. 37/14 ..., and he was not at all sure now

As will readily be seen, much of the wording of the original book remains, yet the tone is greatly altered. In particular, the voice of the narrator is muted and editorial asides omitted. Word-play is greatly reduced – for example, ‘confusticate and bebother’ becomes simply ‘confound and bother’, and ‘bewildered and bewuthered’ becomes instead ‘bothered and bewildered’ – and in general the playfulness of the original gives way to a more stately style. Perhaps more significantly, characterization is also changed: Gandalf, for example, now speaks with more authority. He could no longer be mistaken for ‘a little old man’ in a pointed hat, but this enhanced dignity does come with a price: he is also more remote, less a figure the reader is likely to sympathize with.

The change in Thorin is greater. In keeping with his portrayal in ‘The Quest of Erebor’, the dwarven leader has become much more abrupt and brusque, and he shows an unhealthy concern over property that anticipates his later fall in the Lonely Mountain chapters. In the original book his succumbing to the dragon-sickness had been a sudden and surprising departure from his usual self, a distortion of his fundamentally admirable personality and a frightening lesson in the corrupting power of dragon-haunted gold; here an obsession with his property and grievance over his rights has simply become part of his character, an innate flaw. Like the anticipations of Saruman’s fall Tolkien inserted into some of his later writings, these have the effect of hinting that the character was corrupt from the beginning, which was very much not the case in the original book.

Finally, Bilbo is made more foolish – someone who ‘loved maps’ and had his favorite walks all marked out on the neighborhood map (made by himself) would know that the dragon-haunted mountain they speak of is more than a day or two, or even a few days’ walk away; maps made in the Shire might tend to end at its borders (LotR.56), but he would certainly know that Thror’s kingdom and Smaug’s lair must lie outside those borders. And this naivety is extended beyond the end of the book. We are told that ‘He got caught up in great events, which he never understood; and he became enormously important, though he never realized it’, but this contradicts The Lord of the Rings, where Bilbo took part in the Council of Elrond and learned (if he did not know already from Gandalf) that his ring was the One Ring, who its maker and master was, and what would happen if He regained it. He even volunteered to undertake the Quest of Mount Doom himself, which is not so quixotic as it sounds, given that the quest was to rely on luck and stealth, not martial prowess. More importantly, it contradicts the closing lines of The Hobbit itself, where Gandalf, who serves as Tolkien’s spokesman more than any other character, assures Bilbo that he played only a small role in all these events. This diminishment of Bilbo, a central feature of ‘The Quest of Erebor’, becomes even more pronounced in the next chapter.

TEXT NOTES

1 originally: ‘Though inclined to grow rather fat, they did not hurry unnecessarily’.

Several small variants from the published text in the section describing hobbits are interesting to note: most significantly, the shift from present tense (all published editions) to past tense (1960 Hobbit); e.g., ‘hobbits are (or were) a small people’ becomes simply ‘hobbits were a small people’. The sentence about how hobbits are half our height, introduced into print in the third edition (cf. DAA.30 & 31), makes its first appearance here, but the 1960 text has ‘half our height or less’; this is a direct link to halflings, the generic name for hobbits among other peoples in The Lord of the Rings. Finally, the allusion to their ‘seldom’ wearing shoes or boots seems to refer back to an idea Tolkien had mentioned in a 1938 letter to Houghton Mifflin but never managed to incorporate into any text:

This comment seems to have arisen from comparison between the various pictures and drawings of Bilbo in the book: he is clearly barefoot in ‘The Hall at Bag-End’ (DAA.363; H-S#139) but just as clearly booted in the eagle picture (DAA plate two [top]; H-S#113). He seems barefooted in the Barrel-Rider sketch (plate VIII [top]) but clearly has some sort of footwear in both of the finished versions of that scene (DAA.238–9 & plate two [bottom]; H-S#122 & 124) and in ‘Conversation with Smaug’ (plate XI [top]).

Tolkien is in error in saying that text mentioning Bilbo’s boots ‘dropped out’; in fact, what seems to have occurred is that he must have thought of adding such text at some point but failed to write it down (at least in any form that survives) and so forgot to implement the change.

2 The words ‘that is important, for’ were bracketed but not cancelled.

3 Immediately after the sentence about the Old Took originally came the sentence ‘There was something queer about the Tooks, something not quite hobbitlike. It was whispered that they had some fairy blood from long ago’; the replacement sentence that followed originally ran ‘It was often said (in other families) that the Tooks must have some elvish blood in them: or some outlandish strain, which was of course absurd; but there was undoubtedly some thing queer about them, something not quite hobbitlike . . .’

4 The phrase ‘its long peace’ was changed to ‘its peace’, possibly to avoid what had presumably been the deliberate reiteration in ‘long ago’ ‘long peace’ ‘long wooden pipe’ all in the same sentence.

5 This was originally followed by ‘a long wooden pipe that reached nearly down to his well-brushed toes’; the latter phrase was bracketed, apparently for omission as a too-whimsical touch.

6 An entire sentence was cancelled here: ‘Gandalf! If you had heard a quarter of what even the hobbits had heard about him, and that was not a hundredth part of all that there was to hear, you would be prepared for any sort of remarkable tale’. The sentence that followed originally read ‘will prick up their ears expecting remarkable things to happen . . .’

7 The phrase ‘on business of his own’ is bracketed as if for removal, but then the brackets were scratched out and the words retained.

8 ‘a pipe of tobacco’: it is mildly surprising that Tolkien has retained the apparent anachronism of ‘tobacco’ here, given the circumlocution of the more ambiguous ‘pipe-weed’^† used in The Lord of the Rings. But even there he had specified that this was ‘a variety . . . of Nicotiana . . . not native to our part of the world, but . . . brought over Sea by the Men of [Númenor]’ (‘Concerning Pipe-weed’, LotR.20–21). Since Nicotiana is a class of New World plants, including tobacco, its presence in Middle-earth is presented not as an anachronism but a piece of lost history.

^† The original Carib word (rendered by Spanish explorers as tabaca) is generally thought to have meant the pipe, not the plant smoked in it, but the OED notes that the point is disputed: Tolkien’s ‘pipe-weed’ nicely bridges the ambiguity by embracing both.

9 This is an oblique reference to a passage from The Two Towers, where Faramir reports Gandalf as once saying ‘Many are my names in many countries . . . Mithrandir among the Elves, Tharkûn to the Dwarves; Olórin I was in my youth in the West that is forgotten, in the South Incánus, in the North Gandalf; to the East I go not’ (LotR.697).

10 Added, but then omitted: ‘to sail in their ships’. The passage in the next sentence about Bilbo’s wistfully thinking of sailing ‘away to the Other Shore’ (here significantly capitalized to make it clear that Elvenhome is meant) is of course a foreshadowing, in this first encounter, of his eventual fate in the final chapter of The Lord of the Rings.

11 Originally this sentence read ‘Indeed I am pleased, as you wished . . .’

12 The words ‘he stammered’ were bracketed, then removed.

13 Originally they called ‘for bread and butter’; this cancellation probably was made at the same time as the toast was removed from the following paragraph (see Text Note 14).

14 Originally ‘busy making rounds of buttered toast’; this pencilled change would have been made at the same time as that noted in Text Note 13.

15 This sentence is typed in the left margin and marked for insertion at this point; the bag contains their musical instruments. See the Draftings section at the end of this chapter.

16 A liripipe is a long narrow extension at the point of a hood; the word is of unknown (fourteenth-century) origin but seems to have originally been applied to academic costume (a graduate’s hood). In Pauline Baynes’ illustrations to Tolkien’s Smith of Wootton Major [1967], Alf the Master Cook wears a liripipe (SWM, expanded edition, page [42]).

17 Originally the other dwarves are in the sitting room rather than the parlour; this change seems to have been made right away in the course of typing, before Tolkien moved on to the next line (Ad.Ms.H.71).

18 In the first and second editions, Bifur asked for ‘raspberry jam and apple-tart’, Bofur for ‘mince-pies [plural] and cheese’, Bombur for ‘pork-pie and salad’, the other dwarves for ‘more cakes, and ale, and coffee’, and Gandalf reminded Bilbo to ‘bring out the cold chicken and tomatoes’.

Tolkien incorporated one of the changes that first appeared here into the third edition of 1966 (DAA.41), where tomatoes did indeed become pickles. This change has been the subject of much debate; see, for example, Shippey’s The Road to Middle-earth (expanded edition, page 69), Anderson’s Annotated Hobbit (DAA.41), et al. The general consensus has been that ‘tomato’ was removed as foreign to the time and place, though this did not prevent Tolkien’s including tobacco earlier in this same chapter, or potatoes in Bilbo’s garden in The Lord of the Rings (LotR.34), or, for that matter, coffee in the same sentence.^† More likely, Tolkien (a keen gardener) thought it too early in the year for tomatoes and simply decided that preserved goods like pickles were more likely to be found in Bilbo’s larder that early in the year.

^† Although an Old World plant (being native to Africa), coffee as a drink dates from early modern times and was unknown in Europe before the sixteenth century, first appearing in England in 1652, about the same time (circa 1650) that tea arrived in England, having made its way westward from Asia.

19 The replacement of the first and second editions’ larder by larders (plural) is another 1960 Hobbit revision taken up into the third edition of 1966; cf. DAA.41, annotation #27. This change was probably made to match the pantries (plural) of the book’s second paragraph.

20 That is, from the bottom line on (second edition) page 22 through the top line on page 23.

21 Tolkien actually wrote ‘Bombur produced a drum from the [> his] bag in the hall; Bifur and Bombur went out too’, but it is clear that Bofur, the reading in all published editions, is meant for the second occurrence (for one thing, ‘bombur’ means drum in Old Norse).

22 This entry is added to the typescript, having been preceded by rough drafting on a separate sheet of paper; see the Draftings section at the end of this chapter.

23 This change, from the first edition’s ‘Excitable little man’, had already been made in the fifth printing of 1951; see page 749. For the changes in the preceding lines, compare the suggested replacement or correction with the published text (e.g., DAA.47). For example, ‘/19 delete magic’ (which is added at the same time as the entries discussed in Text Notes 22 & 25) means that the line ‘Gandalf struck a blue light on the end of his magic staff’ should now read ‘. . . the end of his staff’. The replacement of ‘the whistle of an engine coming out of a tunnel’ (page 27, line 16) by ‘the whee of a rocket going up in the sky’ was no doubt to remove a perceived anachronism, fireworks being firmly established as part of Middle-earth in a way mechanisms like steam engines were not.

24 Golfimbul is changed to ‘Gulfimbul’, either because of the further evolution of Tolkien’s languages (cf. Mt. Gondobad > Gundabad, page 675) or because Tolkien had now dropped the ‘golf’ joke and so no longer needed (or wanted) the -golf- element to appear in the goblin-king’s name.

25 This phrase, added to the typescript at the same time as the entry noted in Text Note 22, is one of the few for which drafting exists; see the Draftings section at the end of this chapter.

26 Written in pencil beside this, apparently as a possible replacement: ‘funny beards?’

27 That is, for the reading in the second edition ‘(Look at the map at the beginning of this book, and you will see there the runes in red.)’, Tolkien now proposed that an asterisk be inserted in the text and a footnote added to the bottom of the page which would read ‘^*See the copy of the plan at the beginning of this book.’

28 The extended row of ellipses, here and throughout this chapter, is in Tolkien’s original.

29 This was originally followed with ‘And anyway there are no more battle’, then this unfinished sentence was cancelled.

30 By small deer, Tolkien does not mean hobbit-sized deer, appealing though the image is, but ‘small game’ – that is, creatures such as rabbits, squirrels, and the like. Cf. Shakespeare’s King Lear: ‘Mice, and Rats, and such small Deare, Haue been Tom’s food for seuen long yeare’ (Act III, scene iv, lines 144–145).

The conversation to which Gandalf refers (‘we have discussed all that . . . we decided . . .’) is described in more detail in ‘The Quest of Erebor’.

31 Several lines of typed drafting, which gave more information about the dwarven exodus from the Grey Mountains, were deleted following this sentence:

This seems to have been replaced with

This Dain is of course Dáin I, the figure who replaced Thrym Thistlebeard as Thrór’s father in the published dwarven genealogy, said in ‘Durin’s Folk’ to have been killed by ‘a great cold-drake’ (LotR.1109) and in the family tree by ‘a dragon’ (ibid.1117). His youngest son, Grór, founded the dwarven colony in the Iron Hills at the same time his heir, Thrór, re-established the Kingdom under the Mountain at Erebor.

See also the Draftings section at the end of this chapter for rough drafts on a separate sheet [Ad.Ms.H.18] of this passage relating to Thrain the Old and Thror’s return to the Lonely Mountain.

32 This marks the first appearance in the main text of ‘Thrain the Old’ by that name (an appellation that arose during the drafting given at the end of this chapter); in ‘Durin’s Folk’ (LotR.1109 & 1117) and the 1950 Prefatory Note to the second edition he had been simply ‘Thráin I’. This is yet another of the proposed 1960 Hobbit changes that got carried over into the 1966 third edition; cf. DAA.54.

33 This passage originally read

The changes from ‘wide’ to deeper and ‘great’ to greater emphasize the continuity of the dwarven community building on and expanding what had come before, whereas the original readings convey the impression that the earlier settlement was completely dwarfed (so to speak) by the magnificence of the new establishment.

34 Originally these sentences read ‘Alas! Undoubtedly that was what brought the dragon upon us! Their greed has long ears.’

35 Originally this read ‘as long as they live, five thousand years maybe’.

36 The addition of still, typed in the margin and marked for insertion here, suggests that the battles between dragons mentioned in the next clause seriously reduced their numbers. Compare Farmer Giles of Ham, which suggests a number of dragons dwelling close together in the mountains, at least one of whom is killed and eaten (by the returning C. Dives) by the end of the story.

The specific detail a few lines later that Smaug came from beyond the Grey Mountains appears here for the first time, but this is merely a confirmation of the legend on Thror’s Map: ‘Far to the North are the Grey Mountains & the Withered Heath whence came the Great Worms.’

37 ‘as low as coalmining, or even road-mending’ replaces ‘as low as black-smith-work or even coalmining’, either because Tolkien wished not to disparage blacksmithing (which he celebrates in passing in Smith of Wootton Major only a few years later [circa 1964] as a useful craft that is also an appealing art), or because he wished to allude to the association between dwarves and stone roads that appears elsewhere in the legendarium.

38 Azog’s name enters The Hobbit at this point, this being one of the 1960 changes that carried over into the published third edition of six years later; cf. DAA.56–7 and 339. The name first appeared in ‘Durin’s Folk’ (LotR.1110–12) and was now imported back into The Hobbit retroactively, replacing the anonymous goblin of the first and second editions.

I have been unable to locate any authoritative gloss for the meaning of Azog’s name; even the language it is in is unknown. It may be Magol, like his son Bolg (see page 710), but given the gap of years between their invention and the linguistic situation as it stood at the time Tolkien was writing the Lord of the Rings Appendices, azog is more probably a word in Black Speech (cf. LotR.1165) – cf. for instance the similarity between azog and nazg, attested from the Ring-inscription (ibid., 271), which share three out of four letters all in the same sequence.

39 To this Tolkien added, then deleted ‘and the key’ (i.e., ‘this map and the key’). For more on his hesitancy over whether the wizard gained one item or two from the dying dwarf, note that when two paragraphs later Gandalf ceremoniously hands Thorin the map there is no mention of the key, although in the paragraphs that follow Gandalf mentions the key twice. See also Text Note 44.

40 ‘a few weeks ago’: their first meeting is described in ‘Durin’s Folk’ (LotR.1115). For a different account of that encounter, see ‘The Quest of Erebor’; cf. Unfinished Tales (UT.322 & 332–5) and The Annotated Hobbit (DAA.368–77).

41 Rather surprisingly, Tolkien did not at this point have several of the dwarves present – e.g., Balin and Dwalin, and possibly others – reveal that they had accompanied Thrain on his unfortunate expedition; cf. LotR.1114. This is all the more unexpected, because while they did not know what ultimately became of Thrain, they certainly could have revealed to his son the purpose of his final mission rather than leave him completely in the dark for a full century about his missing father.

42 In full, including cancellations, Gandalf’s reply reads:

It is interesting that Gandalf refers to this remarkable achievement – in which he joins Beren, Lúthien, and Sméagol as the only characters in the whole legendarium known to have escaped from a Dark Lord’s lair – as a ‘task’; presumably one laid upon him by the White Council.

43 Originally Gandalf’s reply began:

44 Tolkien first wrote ‘Give it to my son’, meaning the map; when Tolkien decided that this should include the key mentioned in the previous sentence as well, he changed the pronoun to match, although no account of the wizard presenting Thorin with the key, as in the published book, was added back to the text above.

Interestingly, the four words ‘even from their tombs’ are typed over pencil drafting, suggesting that the typescript at some point halted in the middle of this page (Ts. page 14; Ad.Ms.H.75) after the words ‘four corners of the Earth’, which was originally followed by a full stop.

45 Bilbo’s remark was originally the even more naive ‘which will take a day or two’.

Draftings

and he thought it an important occasion. If it had been allowed he might have come at last to the explanation. <But> it would not have been brief.

a dragon of nine spells of

a dragon out of [> under] nine spells of sleep

even [the >] a drunken dragon.

would be the end of us: it would wake a stone dragon out of an enchanted sleep

[cancelled: back >] my family was driven out far north . . . came back . . .

. . . Old Thrain my ancestor. Long ago . . . . . .

It was discovered by my far ancestor Thrain the Old [but >] . . . they mined <tunneled> . . . and . . . grandfather Thror

[added in blue ball-point ink: 32, 242]

. . . grandfather Thror’s time my family were driven out of the North [added: back] and.....Map. <It> had been discovered long before by my [> our] far ancestor Thrain the Old, but now they <mined> . . . [cancelled: great] <hall> . . . they mined <them> they tunneled <them>. <He became> King under Mountain

[p. 24 >] 32 and 242²

Long ago in my grandfather Thror’s time my [> his] family were [> was] driven out of the Far North and [they] came back with all their wealth and <their> tools to the Mountain on the Map. It had been discovered by our far ancestor Thrain the Old, but now they <mined> they <tunnelled> and they made deeper halls and greater workshops – and Thror became K u M again and his

This final paragraph of drafting in turn directly underlies those passages given in Text Notes 31, 32, and 33 above. Not only do these draftings, sketchy though they are, mark the emergence of the name ‘Thrain the Old’ (see pp. 780 & 788) but they resolve one lingering question from Tolkien’s earlier confusion of the two competing Thror-Thrain-Thorin/Thrain-Thror-Thorin genealogies: why, if Thror was the last King under the Mountain, did Thorin refer to the Arkenstone as ‘the Arkenstone of Thrain’ (second edition page 242)? The now-familiar answer appears here for the first time in a typically Tolkienian resolution: Thror was indeed Last King, yet the appellation ‘Arkenstone of Thrain’ is also correct because it refers to a different Thrain, just as the Prefatory Note established was the case on Thror’s Map.

Thus Tolkien finally resolved a contradiction accidentally introduced into the text before its first publication; all that would have been required to remove the last traces of the confusion would have been to substitute fathers for father in the second paragraph of Chapter XVI (‘For the Arkenstone of my father . . . I name unto myself’) and fathers’ for father’s in Chapter XVII (‘That stone was my father’s, and is mine . . . how came you by the heirloom of my house . . . ?’). But unfortunately Tolkien either did not realize that these two small changes remained to be made (since the 1960 Hobbit never reached so far) or, as seems more likely, he was well aware of it but made no note to that effect at the time and had forgotten this detail when forced to hastily revisit the book in 1965 for the 1966 third edition.

TEXT NOTES

1 I cannot explain the superscript here, which also occurs again further down the page. It does not refer to the second paragraph on that page, which describes the Arkenstone; it is the first paragraph which alludes to its discovery ‘beneath the roots of the Mountain’.