In which we are introduced to a rather alarming character named Beorn.

The name Beorn is actually an Old English word for “man” or “warrior” but it originally meant “bear.” Beorn, the next helper that Bilbo and the dwarves find, is a man/bear. Gandalf calls hims a “skin-changer.”

“At any rate he is under no enchantment but his own. He lives in an oak-wood and has a great wooden house; and as a man he keeps cattle and horses which are nearly as marvellous as himself. They work for him and talk to him. He does not eat them; neither does he hunt or eat wild animals. He keeps hives and hives of great fierce bees, and lives most on cream and honey. As a bear he ranges far and wide. I once saw him sitting all alone on the top of the Carrock at night watching the moon sinking towards the Misty Mountains, and I heard him growl in the tongue of bears: ‘The day will come when they will perish and I shall go back!’ That is why I believe he once came from the mountains himself.”

Shapeshifting, according to Wikipedia, is a common theme in folk tales and mythology. Sometimes voluntary (as with Beorn) and at other times inflicted upon an unwilling subject by a sorcerer or god (Beauty and the Beast), shapeshifting from man, or woman, to animal gives the shifter both new abilities and new limitations. With Beorn, the advantages of being a bear are emphasized: he can travel far and rapidly in his bear-shape and defeat powerful enemies like the Wargs and the goblins. Gandalf seems to think that the visit to Beorn’s house is both perilous and necessary. Z-baby says that Beorn is a “creepy” character. She said, “What if he got mad and decided to turn into a bear and eat them?” I guess that’s the danger you run when you’re dealing with a bear-man.

Beorn can and does help the dwarves and Bilbo, but he can also be a bad enemy if he is annoyed or crossed.

“A goblin’s head was nailed to a tree just outside the ate and a warg-skin was nailed to a tree just beyond. Beorn was a fierce enemy. But now he was their friend, and Gandalf thought it wise to tell him their whole story and the reason of their journey, so that they could get the most help he could offer.”

At the end of this chapter, Gandalf goes off to other business, leaving the dwarves and Bilbo to enter the forest of Mirkwood by themselves. As he is leaving, Gandalf mentions, in an off-hand way, the Necromancer, an early incarnation of Sauron, the powerful satanic villain of The Lord of the Rings. The enemy that Bilbo and his companions have to deal with, eventually, in The Hobbit is the dragon Smaug, but first they must face the perils of Mirkwood.

A biographical sketch of Beorn.

Chapter 1, An Unexpected Party
Chapter 2, Roast Mutton.
Chapter 3, A Short Rest.
Chapter 4, Over Hill and Under Hill.

What’s your favorite riddle? Do you ever tell riddles in your family? Can you answer the riddles in this post?

In chapter five of The Hobbit, we are introduced to the creature Gollum, a sort of ancient and seedy hobbit-like character who has come down in the world, both figuratively and literally speaking. Gollum lives deep under the Misty Mountains, in the dark and the damp, wandering tunnels, talking to himself, and eating raw fish and other unsavory foods.

Bilbo and Gollum play The Riddle Game, a game of who can stump whom with a riddle. The stakes are high: Bilbo’s life and freedom. Unfortunately for Gollum, he, too, is risking something that is more precious to him than life: a very special ring. There’s more about that ring in The Lord of the Rings.

For now, let’s stick with the riddles.

1. What has roots as nobody sees,
Is taller than trees,
Up, up it goes,
Yet never grows?

2. Voiceless it cries,
Wingless flutters,
Toothless bites,
Mouthless mutters.

3. It cannot be seen, cannot be felt,
Cannot be heard, cannot be smelt.
It lies behind stars and under hills,
And empty holes it fills.
It comes first, and follows after,
Ends life, kills laughter.

4. This thing all things devours:
Birds, beasts, trees, flowers;
Gnaws iron, bites steel;
Grinds hard stones to meal;
Slays king, ruins town,
And beats high mountain down.

5. What has every person seen and will never see again?

6. An architect had a brother and the brother died; the man who died had no brother. Who was the architect?

7. What is put on the table and cut, but never eaten?

8. Unable to think, unable to speak, yet it presents a true picture to every person. What is it?

And, finally, what did Bilbo have in his pocketeses, eh, precious?

Chapter 1, An Unexpected Party
Chapter 2, Roast Mutton.
Chapter 3, A Short Rest.

We were surprised to start out chapter four with a “thunder-battle” and “stone-giants”, both of which are entities not encountered in LOTR. Z-baby asked what stone giants were, to which I replied that my annotations indicate that “it seems probable that they can be interpreted as a type of troll.” Tolkien himself said that the thunder-battle and the stone-giants throwing their boulders about carelessly were “based on a bad night during his 1911 walking tour in the mountains of Switzerland.”

“There is nothing like looking, if you want to find something (or so Thorin said to the young dwarves). You certainly find something, if you look, but it is not always quite the something you were after. So it proved on this occasion.”

What the dwarves are looking for is safety from the storm and the stones, but what they find, of course, are goblins. They are all captured by goblins, their poor ponies most likely eaten by goblins, and then Gandalf comes to the rescue again with a bit of fireworks and blue smoke and then later, the sword Orcrist, Goblin-cleaver, or simply, Biter.

In the course of the action, the company more or less escape from the goblins, and Gandalf kills the Great Goblin king. However, the chapter ends with Bilbo being knocked off of Dori’s shoulders by a sneaky goblin into the darkness with a head bump that renders him unconscious.

Z-baby begged me to continue reading, but my voice was tired, and Bilbo “remembered nothing more” for the moment. So it was a place to leave him, if not exactly safe, at least not knowing his predicament. Resolution and rescue would have to wait for another day and chapter five.

I’m so excited: we’re about to meet Gollum.

Chapter 1, An Unexpected Party
Chapter 2, Roast Mutton.

In chapter three, Bilbo and the dwarves and Gandalf have a brief respite in Elrond’s country, the Last Homely House west of the Mountains, or Rivendell.

“Now it is a strange thing, but things that are good to have and days that are good to spend are soon told about and not much to listen to; while things that are uncomfortable, palpitating, and even gruesome, may make a good tale, and take a deal of telling anyway. They stayed long in that good house, fourteen days at least, and they found it hard to leave. Bilbo would gladly have stopped there for ever and ever—even supposing a wish would have taken him right back to his hobbit-hole without trouble. Yet there is little to tell about their stay.”

So this chapter really is a rest and a sort of a bridge to the next adventure (goblins). And yet, a few things happen that will be important later on in the story. Gandalf and Thorin learn that the swords that they took from the trolls’ treasure trove are “very old swords of the High Elves of the West,” made to cleave goblins. And the entire company learns that Thror’s map has runes that can only be seen on a midsummer’s eve in a crescent moon:“Stand by the grey stone when the thrush knocks, and the setting sun with the last light of Durin’s Day will shine upon the keyhole.”

Z-baby keeps trying to connect the places and people we read about in The Hobbit to the places and people and events in the LOTR movies. She asked if Elrond was the same Elrond who presided over the Council in LOTR. She connected Gloin, one of the dwarves who is in Bilbo’s company, with Gimli, son of Gloin, one of the Nine in LOTR. We looked at a map to try to distinguish Bilbo’s journey to the Lonely Mountain from Frodo’s journey to Mordor. They both started out from Hobbiton and went across the Wilderlands to Rivendell. After that, I believe they parted ways, with Bilbo headed more directly east or a bit northeast across (under) the Misty Mountains and through Mirkwood toward the Lonely Mountain and Frodo going more south and then southeast to the mines of Moria and then to Rohan and eventually to Mordor.

We are very much enjoying our Hobbit-time each day, or at least each day that we can manage to work it into the schedule. And I would very much like to spend a fortnight in Rivendell, if anyone knows how that could be arranged.

“All of them, the ponies as well, grew refreshed and strong in a few days there. Their clothes were mended as well as their bruises, their tempers and their hopes. Their bags were filled with food and provisions light to carry but strong to bring them over the mountain passes. Their plans were improved with the best advice. So the time came to midsummer eve, and they were to go on again with the early sun on midsummer morning.”