essay on the hobbit

A Summary and Analysis of J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

The Hobbit is one of the biggest-selling books of all time. An estimated 100 million people have read Tolkien’s classic children’s novel since it was first published in 1937. The story of its origins, and Tolkien’s supposed invention of the word ‘hobbit’ (of which more below), are well-known. But how should we ‘read’ The Hobbit ? What does the story mean?

Before we offer a textual analysis of Tolkien’s novel, it might be worth briefly summarising the plot.

The Hobbit : plot summary

Bilbo Baggins is a hobbit (a species of small creature which Tolkien invented) who lives in Bag End, in the rural loveliness of The Shire. The wizard Gandalf turns up one day, accompanied by thirteen dwarves, who are on a mission to reclaim their gold, as well as their kingdom, from beneath the Lonely Mountain. This land, which was once theirs, has been taken over by a fearsome dragon named Smaug.

Bilbo has been approached because they need a burglar: someone to break into Smaug’s cave so they can go in and defeat the dragon and recover their gold. Bilbo reluctantly agrees to accompany them. However, the leader of the dwarves, Thorin Oakenshield, is even more reluctantly than Bilbo to have the hobbit come along with them, because Bilbo is not a fighter as the dwarves are. However, the others persuade him, and they all set off together.

They travel to Rivendell, the home of the Elves, where Elrond gives them help with their map. But the gang are then caught by goblins while attempting to cross the Misty Mountains, and Gandalf has to rescue them. Bilbo, however, gets lost deep in the underground tunnels, and encounters Gollum, a mysterious creature whose magic ring Bilbo accidentally acquires.

The ring confers invisibility upon whoever wears it, and – to escape Gollum, having played a game of riddles with him – Bilbo uses the ring and finds his way out of the tunnels. He rejoins the dwarves and they once again have to flee the pursuing goblins. They are assisted by eagles and find their way safely to the house of Beorn, who can transform into a fearsome bear.

In the enchanted forest of Mirkwood, Bilbo uses his sword, Sting, to fight off giant spiders which attack them and ensnare the dwarves in webs. Nearing their destination, the gang are helped by the inhabitants of nearby Laketown, who want Smaug defeated as much as they do. Entering the mountain via a secret door, Bilbo finds Smaug’s lair and identifies a weakness in the dragon’s armour.

When Smaug notices him, he flies into a rage, realising that Laketown has helped Bilbo to find his cave; the dragon flies off to burn Laketown to the ground. Thanks to a thrush overhearing Bilbo’s account of Smaug’s weakness, and then flying to the town to tell them, a man named Bard is able to find Smaug’s weak spot and shoot and kill the dragon with an arrow, halting the destruction.

The dwarves are now able to regain their mountain, and Bilbo finds the Arkenstone, a stone precious to Thorin’s family. But he hides it rather than handing it over to Thorin. When the men of Laketown demand a cut of Smaug’s treasure to help repair their town, Thorin refuses, drawing on the surrounding armies of dwarves to defend his position.

Bilbo attempts to intercede, using the Arkenstone to bribe the Laketowners, but when Thorin finds out he sends Bilbo away, angered at having been betrayed by the hobbit.

With the help of the eagles and Beorn, the dwarves win the Battle of Five Armies. However, in the battle Thorin is mortally wounded. Before he dies, he forgives Bilbo. Bilbo returns home to his hobbit-hole, with a small cut of the treasure.

The Hobbit : analysis

We should, according to Tolkien, resist the urge to analyse The Hobbit as an allegory of any kind. Tolkien disliked allegory, and for this reason he wasn’t keen on his friend C. S. Lewis’s Narnia books (although Lewis denied that these were allegory, too).

In his preface to the second edition of the vast sequel to The Hobbit , The Lord of the Rings , Tolkien wrote that many people confuse ‘applicability’ with ‘allegory’, and this distinction is worth pondering. ‘Applicability’, to use Tolkien’s phrase, gives the reader freedom in how they interpret and analyse the story, whereas ‘allegory’ involves a very top-down ‘you should read X here as representing Y’ instruction from the author.

So if we read one of the most famous allegories in twentieth-century literature, George Orwell’s Animal Farm (which appeared just eight years after The Hobbit : we have analysed Orwell’s book here ), as simply a tale about animals and their relationships with their human masters, we are missing something vital from the story.

With The Hobbit , we may detect possible meanings beneath the leafy Shire, the dragon guarding his gold, the novel’s quest motif, and many other details, but Tolkien refuses to prescribe one meaning that we’re meant to follow.

So it was with the great Anglo-Saxon and Middle-English epics which he admired and wrote about as part of his day job as Professor of Anglo-Saxon at the University of Oxford. Grendel and the dragon in Beowulf may mean any number of things: their meaning is in the eye, and mind’s eye, of the reader or listener.

Of course, it helps with old epic poems like Beowulf and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight that the identity of the author remains unknown to us, so even if they were intended as allegory, we have lost the ‘key’ that supposedly unlocks them.

But even though we know The Hobbit was written by someone who had first-hand experience of war (like many men of his generation, Tolkien had fought in the First World War) as the inevitability of another war was growing even more urgent, we should refuse to draw any clear line between real-world events and the work of imaginative fantasy which Tolkien wrote.

So, if not as allegory, how should we interpret this quest tale for a modern readership, which is clearly indebted to Germanic and Norse myths of the Middle and ‘Dark’ Ages? On a structural level we can be more confident. In his vast and brilliant study of plot structures, The Seven Basic Plots: Why We Tell Stories , Christopher Booker gives us two pointers which we might apply to The Hobbit : Tolkien’s tale is an example of both the ‘quest’ story and the ‘voyage and return’ narrative.

Indeed, Tolkien’s subtitle for The Hobbit , There and Back Again , even spells this out for us. Bilbo is the reluctant hero who must leave home – as in countless fairy tales – and go out on an adventure which will make him a wiser (and certainly richer) person.

In this connection, it’s worth stopping to analyse both the similarities between The Hobbit and many earlier folk tales and myths and the crucial ways in which Tolkien departs from these tropes and conventions. Vladimir Propp, in his influential work on the ‘ morphology of the folk tale ’, identified a number of plot details and character types which we find in various European fairy stories: a hero has to leave home, a hero is challenged to prove his heroic qualities, a hero is tricked by the villain, and so on; ending, of course, with the hero returning home and order being restored to the world.

Identifying many of Propp’s features in Tolkien’s novel helps to explain (or partly explain at least) why The Hobbit has become such a favourite novel among both young and old readers alike. There is something primal and mythic about its plot elements, as well as its local detail (dragons, treasure, giant eight-legged foes, shape-shifting bears, and the rest of it). Tolkien taps into the need for fireside tales told by travelling mythmongers and local bards which seems hard-wired into our brains.

With The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion it’s clear that Tolkien set out to create a full-blown mythology for England, drawing on its Germanic and Norse heritage, complete with fully developed languages like Elvish (Tolkien’s speciality was philology, or the study of languages). But with The Hobbit he was doing something less ambitious but no less mythic: creating a sort of modern-day fairy story.

And it is those elements of The Hobbit which depart from the traditional folk tale that make the novel something recognisably modern. The hero is not some wet-behind-the-ears youngster who needs to go out and find his way in the world: he is a middle-aged and perfectly settled creature of habit who has his life all sorted and only agrees to leave his comfortable hobbit-hole with the greatest reluctance.

He is not tricked by the villain but turns out to be the arch-trickster himself, outwitting Gollum and winning, for his efforts, the fated magic ring (another well-worn idea even when Tolkien used it: see the Ring of Gyges ) that would become the centrepiece of The Lord of the Rings .

And, of course, Bilbo is knocked unconscious soon after the climactic Battle of the Five Armies begins. Here, perhaps, we might be permitted a smidgen of biographical analysis: Tolkien, having fought in and survived a mass industrial war which afforded little opportunity for old-fashioned heroism, seems to be commenting on the unheroic nature of war and adventure. You’re more likely to be the fellow zonked out on the ground during the battle than you are the warrior wielding the sword and winning the day.

Indeed, even the story’s other main hero, Thorin, doesn’t survive the battle. The Hobbit offers a very cautious and critical account of war, with the costs often outweighing any perceived benefits.

However, this is not to say that Bilbo fails as a ‘hero’: merely that Tolkien is at pains to highlight a quieter, more diplomatic kind of hero whose work goes on behind the scenes (Bilbo’s role as burglar scouting out Smaug’s lair). He tries to prevent the final battle by bargaining with the Laketown residents and Wood-Elves. Thorin is enraged by this, but he ends up paying an even higher price than his family’s precious Arkenstone, giving his own life in the course of the battle.

Contrary to popular belief, the word ‘hobbit’ did exist before The Hobbit . The famous story is that Tolkien, while marking some of his students’ exam papers in Oxford one day, came to a blank sheet which had not a single word written on it. Out of nowhere – or so it seemed – he had a flash of inspiration, and hastily scribbled down the sentence, ‘In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.’

For all that Tolkien’s origin-story offers a delightful ‘Eureka’ moment for the novel’s (and word’s) conception, it should be taken with a pinch of salt. And ultimately, the strength of Tolkien’s novel lies not in its originality but in its superlative assembling of existing tropes and ideas into a story that offers a quiet commentary on the meaning of ‘heroism’ in the modern age.

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Home › Fantasy Novels › Analysis of Tolkien’s The Hobbit

Analysis of Tolkien’s The Hobbit

By NASRULLAH MAMBROL on February 18, 2021 • ( 0 )

The origin of The Hobbit (1937) is well known. One day in the late 1920s, Tolkien was grading essays when he came across a blank page and absently wrote the sentence “In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.” In a letter to W. H. Auden more than 25 years later, he wrote, “I did nothing about it, for a long time, and for some years I got no further than the production of Thror’s Map” ( Letters 215). In the early 1930s, the story of the hobbit became one that he shared with his three sons during what he called their “winter reads.” By 1932, Tolkien had completed a manuscript that he shared with his Oxford friends, but most of those scholars saw the book as merely a children’s story. In 1936, Tolkien’s student Elaine Griffiths showed the manuscript to Susan Dagnall of George Allen & Unwin, who brought it to the attention of Stanley Unwin. Unwin asked his 10-year-old son, Rayner Unwin, to read it, and after Rayner gave it a positive review, Stanley published the book in 1937, with a cover designed by Tolkien himself and decorated with Old English runes. A first edition of 1,500 sold out quickly, and the book was published in the United States by Houghton Mifflin early in 1938. When

Unwin asked for a sequel to The Hobbit but showed no interest in The Silmarillion , Tolkien began work on The Lord of the Rings . In order to make The Hobbit fit more coherently as a “prequel” to the trilogy, Tolkien revised the chapter on Gollum (“Riddles in the Dark”), changing the part played by the ring, so that in the revised version, Gollum blames Bilbo for what he sees as the theft of his ring and curses Bilbo forever. It was this revised chapter that was published in the second edition of The Hobbit in 1951.

Tolkien later worked on another revision of The Hobbit, in which he tried to alter the narrative voice, the avuncular tone of which he, and a number of readers, had come to see as occasionally condescending and intrusive. Certain passages are clearly imagined as narrated by an older figure addressing children; for example, in the chapter “Barrels Out of Bond,” in which Bilbo comes up with the plan of how to save the dwarves, the narrator makes these comments:

It was just at this moment that Bilbo suddenly discovered the weak point in his plan. Most likely you saw it some time ago and have been laughing at him; but I don’t suppose you would have done half so well yourselves in his place. ( Hobbit 177)

This is undoubtedly the kind of passage Tolkien had in mind when he wrote to Auden that the novel “was unhappily really meant, as far as I was conscious, as a ‘children’s story’, and as I had not learned sense then, and my children were not quite old enough to correct me, it has some of the sillinesses of manner caught unthinkingly from the kind of stuff I had had served to me” ( Letters 215). However, when Tolkien sought to revise the book, he was discouraged from doing so by readers who thought that it would simply not be The Hobbit without that narrator.

The second edition, with the revised Gollum chapter, appeared in 1951, and subsequent editions followed in 1966 (to compete with a pirated edition that had been released in the United States by Ace Books), 1978, and 1995. At this point, The Hobbit has sold more than 100 million copies and has been translated into more than 40 different languages, making it not only one of Tolkien’s most popular works, but one of the most popular children’s books of all time. Citations of the text in the following commentary are to the second edition of the text as revised in 1966. An annotated version of the text edited by Douglas Anderson appeared in 1988 and was revised and reprinted in 2002. A two-part film version of the book produced by Peter Jackson (director of The Lord of the Rings ) is projected to appear by 2012, an event that will probably spark a new edition and renewed interest in the book.

The Hobbit may be considered in a number of different ways. It is, as Tolkien intended, a fairy story for children, and Bilbo, as a small person leaving home for the larger world, is in some ways a typical fairy-tale hero. (Bilbo is, however, 50 years old, which is certainly atypical for such a hero.) His career conforms to the conventional structures of folktales and mythic archetypes of the hero as outlined by scholars such as Vladimir Propp and Joseph Campbell, and particularly to the patterns of narrative romance as outlined by Northrop Frye in his Anatomy of Criticism . The conventional patterns in the novel should not be surprising, since Tolkien was drawing on traditional Old Norse and Old English literature (including, in particular, stories of the dragon slayers Sigurd and Beowulf), as well as medieval chivalric romance as the sources for his narrative. The basic form of the medieval romance involves an initiation (Bilbo’s adventure with the trolls), a quest (Bilbo’s journey to the Lonely Mountain to find the dragon’s treasure), a descent into an underworld (Gollum’s cave, the elven king’s castle, and the dragon’s lair), and a return. More specifically, Bilbo’s adventure recalls romances concerned with the quest for the Grail. Such romances involve a wasteland; the restoration of a king; and a protagonist who, like Bilbo, asks questions.

The novel also can be seen as a bildungsroman, a “novel of education” or “formation novel” that traces the development of a young person from childhood or adolescence into maturity in a kind of quest for identity, in the manner of Dickens’s Great Expectations , Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man , or Goethe’s Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship . Of course, Bilbo is only young in experience, but he, too, must mature; in fact, many medieval romances, including Chrétien de Troyes’s Perceval, the original Grail romance, are stories of a maturing hero on a quest for identity.

Given The Hobbit ’s generic affinity with fairy tales, folktales, myth, romance, and bildungsroman, it seems natural to look at the book in terms of what the psychologist Carl Jung called archetypes; Jung looked particularly at myths, romances, and folktales for examples of archetypes, or universal symbols. The application of Jungian principles of maturation and psychological development to the character of Bilbo began with Dorothy Matthews’s article “The Psychological Journey of Bilbo Baggins” in 1974, and it was developed at greater length in William H. Green’s book-length commentary The Hobbit: A Journey into Maturity in 1995. Both of these studies are referenced in the commentary below.

Chapter 1: “An Unexpected Party”

Bilbo Baggins is a hobbit, living in a quite luxurious hole in the ground under the Hill in the village of Hobbiton in the Shire. hobbits, the narrator tells us, are little people, shorter than dwarves, who love to eat and smoke pipes, and have large, hairy feet on which they wear no shoes. They enjoy the comforts of home and tend to be suspicious of anyone engaging in unusual behavior, such as having adventures. Bilbo’s father was a very respectable and ordinary hobbit, but his mother, Belladonna Took, daughter of the Old Took, came from a family that was more irregular by hobbit standards, since some of its members had occasionally had adventures in times past. One of Bilbo’s more distant ancestors, Bullroarer Took, had won the Battle of the Green Fields by riding a horse and cutting off the head of a goblin. Bilbo, however, has succeeded in suppressing this Took side of his nature for 50 years.

One May morning, while Bilbo is enjoying a pipe outside his front door, he greets a stranger who is passing by and smokes with him for a brief time. The stranger reveals himself to be Gandalf the Grey, a powerful wizard and former friend of Bilbo’s mother and grandfather, the Old Took. Bilbo had known Gandalf as a child, and he remembers the fireworks shows the wizard had put on. Gandalf tells Bilbo he is looking for someone to take part in an adventure, but Bilbo wants nothing to do with it, though he does invite Gandalf to tea the next day. When Bilbo goes into his house, Gandalf makes a mark on the door with his staff.

The next morning, when a knock comes on his door, Bilbo assumes Gandalf has come to tea. But the visitor turns out to be a dwarf named Dwalin, who enters his house and sits down to tea. Soon after, another dwarf, Balin, arrives and joins the first. He is followed soon after by Kili, Fili, Dori, Nori, Ori, Oin, Gloin, Bifur, Bofur, Bombur, and finally the dwarves’ leader, Thorin Oakenshield, accompanied by Gandalf himself. At first, Bilbo is kept quite busy as the host, rushing to find food and drink for all of his unexpected guests. But he is also fascinated by the songs the dwarves sing about hidden gold, guarded by a dragon under a faraway mountain.

Finally, Thorin begins to address the company. He speaks of departing the next morning on a dangerous journey from which some may not return, and he refers to Bilbo as a “fellow conspirator.” This shocks Bilbo so much that he screams and leaves the room. The dwarves complain to Gandalf that Bilbo does not seem to be the right kind of person for their adventure, but Gandalf assures them that he is quite fierce. Bilbo, listening from the other room, yields to the Took side of his nature and reenters the room, insisting that, while he is sure they have all come to the wrong house, he is prepared to do whatever it is they want from him.

Gandalf reveals that it was he who recommended Bilbo as a burglar and explains to the dwarves that Bilbo is his choice, reminding them that if they decide not to bring Bilbo, there will be 13 of them, an unlucky number. He then shows them all an old map, obtained, he says, from Thorin’s father, whom Gandalf had met, he says, in the dungeons of the Necromancer. By then the old dwarf was nearly mad, and it has taken Gandalf some time to track Thorin down. Thorin vows to kill the Necromancer, but Gandalf insists that such a task is beyond the strength of all living dwarves together.

The map reveals the Lonely Mountain, which had been Thorin’s home before the dragon Smaug laid waste to the lands around it, including the town of Dale, where men had lived who were friendly to the dwarves. Smaug occupied the Lonely Mountain and killed all the dwarves within, stealing their vast treasure for himself. Thorin had been away from the mountain at the time, and his grandfather and father had escaped, apparently through a secret door. Gandalf’s map reveals the door’s location, and Bilbo’s job will be to find his way into the dragon’s lair through that door. Gandalf also gives Thorin a key, handed down from Thror, Thorin’s grandfather. The long trek to the mountain, including a journey through the dark and dangerous forest of Mirkwood, will be the group’s business for the next several weeks.

As Bilbo, Gandalf, and all the dwarves retire for the night, Bilbo wonders what he has gotten himself into while he falls asleep listening to Thorin singing in the next room.

Chapters 2–3: Trolls

In chapter 2 (“Roast Mutton”), when Bilbo awakens the next morning, the dwarves have gone, and as he cleans up the mess, he is relieved not to have to go on the adventure, though also somewhat insulted that they have left without him. But Gandalf appears and shows Bilbo the note that Thorin and Company have left on his mantelpiece, agreeing to pay him one-fourteenth share of the treasure and all traveling expenses, and directing him to meet them at the Green Dragon at exactly 11 a.m. Bilbo is forced to rush out the door without his hat or walking stick, and he realizes that he has forgotten his pocket handkerchief but has no time to turn back. He arrives at the Green Dragon just in time, borrows a hood from Dwalin, mounts a pony Thorin has provided for him, and sets off eastward with the dwarves. Soon they are joined by Gandalf, who has brought Bilbo a number of pocket handkerchiefs and his pipe.

At first, the journey is pleasant as the group rides through familiar hobbit lands. But by the time they get into the sparsely populated Lone-lands near the end of May, Bilbo begins to grow tired of the journey and wishes he was back in his warm hobbit hole. One night, after riding through a downpour, the group must camp for the night and have supper; however, they realize that Gandalf has left them, and they are unable to start a fire. One of the ponies bolts and is nearly swept away by a river along with Fili and Kili before the two young dwarves can rescue him. As it is, the food the pony was carrying is carried off by the river, leaving the company cold, hungry, and wet.

Just then, they catch sight of a fire in the distance. The dwarves decide that Bilbo, as their designated burglar, should go and investigate. As Bilbo creeps close to the clearing, he finds that there are three trolls—Bert, Tom, and William—sitting around the fire, roasting mutton. Not sure what is expected of him, Bilbo decides to try out his new profession as burglar and pick the pocket of one of the trolls. As it turns out, trolls’ purses have a life of their own, and when Bilbo snatches one from William’s pocket, it cries out, and Bilbo is caught. As they hold him, the trolls begin to argue about whether something as small as Bilbo is worth eating, and they demand to know whether there are any others around. The terrified Bilbo first says, “Yes, lots,” but he then corrects himself, saying, “No, none at all.”

As the trolls begin to fight one another, the battered Bilbo is able to crawl outside the circle of firelight. Just then, however, Balin appears; having heard nothing from Bilbo, the dwarves have decided to investigate. The trolls, realizing that Bilbo had meant there were no more hobbits about, but lots of dwarves, pop Balin into a sack and lie in wait for the other dwarves. One by one, all of the dwarves are captured in this way, until at last Thorin appears. Bilbo, hiding behind a tree, is able to warn Thorin of the trolls, and he puts up a terrific fight, but eventually he, too, is captured and bagged, while Bilbo hides in the top of a bush.

At that point, Gandalf returns, though no one sees him. The trolls begin to argue about how to kill the dwarves and how to prepare them for eating, and Gandalf, disguising his voice to imitate the trolls themselves, keeps the three of them arguing and fighting one another until the dawn breaks. At that point, the trolls turn to stone, for all trolls must be hidden underground before sunrise or they revert to the stone from which they were made.

Gandalf and Bilbo free the dwarves and, with the help of a key Bilbo has found on the ground, they are able to search the trolls’ underground hideout, where they find food as well as some pots of gold coins. Gandalf and Thorin appropriate two well-made swords belonging to some of the trolls’ victims, while Bilbo finds a knife in a leather sheath that he can use as a short sword. After a sound sleep, the company loads their ponies with the new provisions and buries the gold where they hope to find it again on the way back. As they start off, Gandalf explains that he had been scouting out the road ahead, and he had heard from the elves that a trio of trolls was active along the road, which is why he was able to hurry back to save them.

The company continues its trek eastward in chapter 3 (“A Short Rest”), approaching what Gandalf tells them is the edge of the Wild. The weather is better, but the dwarves refrain from the singing they had engaged in earlier in the trip, as danger seems to be all around them. After crossing a river, they come within sight of the distant Misty Mountains. Bilbo mistakes the first mountain for the Lonely Mountain, goal of their quest, but Balin disillusions him, saying they still have a long way to go. Bilbo once again longs for home.

Their goal for the night, however, is Rivendell, home of Elrond and the Last Homely House west of the mountains, where they can rest. Gandalf leads them along a difficult road marked by white stones, until at last they reach the Valley of Rivendell. Here their cares seem lifted from them, and the teasing songs of elves greet them from the woods around them as they descend to the valley. These elves invite them to supper, but the company wants to move on to Elrond’s house. Bilbo has always liked elves and has loved to listen to their songs. The dwarves are traditionally suspicious of elves but suppress their distaste for their company in order to gain much-needed rest.

Elrond, a descendant of elves and heroes of ancient days, proves to be a generous host, and the company stays with him for two weeks. Bilbo eats his fill of cakes and enjoys the elves’ tales and songs so much that he wishes he could stay longer in Rivendell, preferring it even to going back to his own home. But eventually the time comes for the company to resume its journey. Before they leave, Elrond is able to read the inscriptions on the swords that Gandalf and Thorin have brought from the trolls’ hoard. He informs them that both swords were forged by the elves of ancient Gondolin before that city was destroyed in the “goblin wars.” Thorin’s sword is named Orcrist (“Goblin Cleaver”), while Gandalf’s is called Glamdring (“Foehammer”) and was worn by the high king of Gondolin himself.

Elrond also examines their map, and he is surprised to find it inscribed with Moon-letters— runes that may only be seen by the light of the same moon under which they were written. These runes tell how to find the secret door into the Lonely Mountain: “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 key-hole” (62). Thorin explains that Durin’s Day (named for the father of the dwarvish race) is the dwarves’ New Year—the first day of the last moon of autumn. Thorin also reveals that he is himself the heir of Durin.

The next day is Midsummer’s Day, and the company leaves Rivendell refreshed and ready to ride toward the Misty Mountains.

Chapters 4–7: Goblins and Wolves

In chapter 4 (“Over Hill and Under Hill”), the company makes its way up into the mountains, staying on the right path only through Gandalf’s leadership. The dwarves are hopeful that they can reach the Lonely Mountain by Durin’s Day, but Gandalf, who has seen much of these wild regions, is much more cautious and aware of the dangers of their road. The weather is turning colder, and one night, during a terrible thunderstorm, the group is forced to seek shelter. Fili and Kili, the younger dwarves, are sent ahead to find some protected place, and they return with the news that they have found a dry cave large enough to shelter in overnight with the ponies.

Here all the dwarves fall asleep, as does Gandalf. But Bilbo has trouble sleeping and has a nightmare in which a large crack opens in the cave. He awakens to find that the dream is true—all of the company’s ponies have been led through a large crack and from it have issued numerous large goblins. He lets out a cry just in time to warn Gandalf, who disappears in a flash of light and smoke, striking several goblins dead as he does so. But the others grab Bilbo and the dwarves and drive them through the crack into the depths of the mountain, spurring them on with whips and singing that they are to be brought “down to goblin-town.”

They arrive in a great fire-lit cavern, where they are brought before the Great Goblin, who accuses Thorin of spying on them and of being a friend of elves. When the Great Goblin recognizes Thorin’s sword as Orcrist, a legendary goblin-slaying sword that the goblins call “Biter,” he is enraged and rushes at Thorin. Just then the cavern is plunged into darkness, and the shining blade of Glamdring (which the goblins call “Beater”) flashes out, killing the Great Goblin on the spot.

Gandalf’s voice then commands them to “follow me quick,” and Bilbo and the dwarves rush to escape. Gandalf leads them farther and farther into the mountain, and the dwarves take turns carrying Bilbo, who is unable to keep up on his own. With the goblins in hot pursuit, Gandalf and Thorin turn a corner and unsheathe their swords, waiting for the goblins to come. The pursuers are surprised by Beater and Biter, and many are slaughtered before they retreat. Again the dwarves flee, with the goblins now pursuing more stealthily. Finally, they creep up behind Dori while he is carrying Bilbo and seize the dwarf from behind. Bilbo tumbles off into the darkness, where he strikes his head on a rock and passes out.

When Bilbo comes to at the beginning of chapter 5 (“Riddles in the Dark”), he finds himself alone in the darkness and begins groping his way along on all fours. His hand comes across a metal ring, which he absentmindedly puts into his pocket. Again he wishes he were back home, cooking bacon and eggs, and, finding his pipe and tobacco, he thinks about having a smoke but can find no matches. In looking for them, however, he does feel his short sword, which he draws. When it begins to glow, he knows that it, too, is an elvish blade from Gondolin, and with determination he decides to move on, looking for a way out. On he goes through the dark tunnels and deeper into the mountain until he splashes into an underground pool or lake, Not knowing how deep it is or what is in it and being unable to swim, Bilbo hesitates, wondering what to do next.

The water turns out to be the home of a slimy creature called Gollum, who lives on an island and navigates the lake in a small boat. Gollum has large bright eyes that see in the dark, and he has lived alone under the mountain for untold years, surviving on fish and goblin meat. He speaks to himself in a hissing language and calls himself “Precious.” He approaches Bilbo in his boat, wondering what he is and if he will be good to eat. Soon he engages Bilbo in a riddle contest, declaring that if Bilbo wins, he will show the hobbit the way out of the caverns, but if Gollum wins, he will eat Bilbo for dinner.

The riddle contest goes back and forth for some time: In fear for his life, Bilbo is distracted and has difficulty focusing on Gollum’s riddles, while Gollum has a hard time remembering details concerning the outside world, having lived in the gloom of the cave for centuries. Finally, Bilbo, desperately trying to think of a riddle to stump Gollum, puts his hand in his pocket and wonders aloud, “What have I got in my pocket?” Interpreting this as Bilbo’s riddle, Gollum protests that it is unfair and that he must be allowed three guesses. Believing he has the game won, Bilbo asserts that this is indeed his riddle, but he allows Gollum the three guesses. Gollum fails to answer correctly, and Bilbo demands that he keep his word and show him the way out.

Gollum says that before leading Bilbo out of the cave, he must pick up something he needs for the journey, and he goes to his island to look for it. But soon, he begins to panic, crying out that he has lost what he needs, which he calls his “precious” and his “birthday present.” Bilbo asks what he has lost, and Gollum, now suspicious, demands to know what Bilbo does, in fact, have in his pocket. Gollum realizes that Bilbo has his ring, and Bilbo realizes that the ring is what Gollum is seeking. As Gollum rushes to attack him, Bilbo accidentally slips his finger into the ring, and Gollum dashes past him without seeing him. This confuses Bilbo until, following the creature, he learns from Gollum’s incessant whining monologue that the ring makes its wearer invisible.

Now Gollum, believing that Bilbo has lied to him about knowing the way out, makes a dash for the exit in hope of heading off Bilbo and getting his “birthday present” back. The invisible Bilbo follows quietly behind, hoping that Gollum will lead him out. They reach the entry to a passage that Gollum says leads to the exit, but he can smell goblins down the passage and, unprotected by the ring, is afraid to enter. But as he turns, it is clear that he has caught Bilbo’s scent and knows he is near. Now Gollum blocks the passage, poised to attack Bilbo if he can determine just where he is. Bilbo, his sword drawn, is tempted to kill the creature, but a moment of pity stops him. The fight is not fair, he decides, since Gollum is unarmed and Bilbo is invisible, so instead of murder, he opts to leap over Gollum into the passageway. He does this successfully, racing down the passage with Gollum fearing to follow and crying out impotently after him that he “hates Baggins forever.”

Now Bilbo, no longer wearing the ring, emerges into a large, open area, where a great stone door stands ajar. But the area is filled with armed goblins, who start toward him, and he slips on the ring once more. In the confusion, the invisible Bilbo is able to make his way to the door, which is open just enough for him to squeeze through. But the goblins see a shadow in the doorway and come after him, just as he gets stuck in the door, caught by his brass buttons. With one last lurch, he squeezes through, leaving his buttons behind, to the puzzlement of the goblins.

As Bilbo makes his way from the cave at the beginning of chapter 6 (“Out of the Frying-Pan into the Fire”), he finds himself alone again and without any notion of where he is or where his friends are. He realizes, looking back, that he has come out on the other side of the Misty Mountains and is at the edge of the Land Beyond. But he also recognizes that his friends are probably still in the caverns under the mountains, prisoners of the goblins. After some soul-searching, he resolves that he must return to the caves and help his friends if he can. But just as he begins making his way back, he hears voices and discovers it is the dwarves and Gandalf discussing whether to go back to look for him. While some of the dwarves are of the opinion that Bilbo has been more trouble than he has been worth so far, Gandalf insists that Bilbo will be a valuable member of the company, and he will not go on without him. Bilbo, wearing the ring, sneaks past Balin, who is standing guard, and appears in the circle, surprising everyone. When he tells them how he managed to escape (keeping to himself the part about the magic ring), he gains the dwarves’ grudging respect.

Gandalf convinces the group that they must set off quickly, since the goblins will be after them to avenge their lost leader. Having come out of the mountains far to the north of their road, they must travel south, and as they do, Bilbo complains of hunger—none of them has eaten for several days, since their ponies have been lost and eaten by the goblins. Now they move ahead, sliding down a rocky slope, until evening falls, when they hear the howling of a pack of wild wolves, called wargs.

Gandalf instructs the company to climb trees, and he and the dwarves immediately do so, though Bilbo needs the help of Dori to get into one of the trees just in time as hundreds of wargs enter the clearing. Gandalf, who understands the language of the wolves, learns that they have come to this clearing to meet with the goblins of the mountains, with whom they have planned a joint raid on the human settlers who have been coming into the region from the south. The goblins are late, however, and Gandalf realizes it is because of the confusion surrounding the death of the Great Goblin and the company’s own escape from the caverns.

The wargs have Bilbo and his friends trapped in the trees, but Gandalf begins to sow confusion among them by tossing fiery acorns at them, setting many of them afire. At that point, the goblins arrive, and the goblins decide to use the fires Gandalf has started against him. They pile fern and brushwood around the trees in which the dwarves are perched, and set fire to the heaps. As the fire spreads to the trees, the goblins taunt the dwarves, asking why the little birds do not fly away. Gandalf climbs to the top of his tree, ready for one final stand, when suddenly he is snatched up in the talons of a great eagle. This is the lord of the eagles, who has noticed the smoke and fire in the woods and who is a natural enemy of the wargs and goblins. Other great eagles snatch up the dwarves, and Bilbo holds on to Dori’s feet and is flown to safety in the eagles’ eyrie.

Gandalf is known to the lord of the eagles and, in fact, had once helped him when he was wounded. Now Gandalf asks that the eagles fly the company far away, across the plains. The eagles cannot fly too close to the homes of men or they will be suspected of trying to steal sheep and be shot with arrows, but the lord of the eagles promises to take the company as far as they can. In the meantime, they bring rabbits, hares, and small sheep for the company to feast on, and after a good meal, they all rest in the eyrie for the night. Bilbo dreams he is back in his home, but that he has lost something important.

Chapter 7 (“Queer Lodgings”) begins the next morning: Bilbo travels on the back of a great bird as 15 eagles fly the travelers to a large rock, the Carrock, standing upon the plain to the south. Here Gandalf tells the company that it is nearly time for him to leave them, since he had only intended to travel with them until they had crossed the Misty Mountains. But he says that they are near the house of Beorn, a skin-changer who routinely changes himself into a great bear, and if they approach him cautiously and do not anger him, Beorn will be able to help them. Gandalf indicates that he and Bilbo will go first to meet the reclusive Beorn in his large wooden house, and the others should follow two by two at five-minute intervals.

Beorn, a huge man with black hair and beard, is initially not particularly welcoming, but when Gandalf explains that they have been beset by goblins and wargs, he invites them in to tell their story. Gandalf tells the tale in such a way that the constant interruptions as the dwarves keep arriving creates a great deal of suspense, and Beorn is less put out by the arrival of so many guests than he is eager to hear the end of the story. Beorn is sympathetic to the company once he finds that they have killed the Great Goblin, and he is angered by the treacherous alliance of the wargs and goblins. He then invites the travelers to stay for supper, where they are waited on by Beorn’s friendly horses and other animals, and entertained by Beorn’s tales of the forest of Mirkwood, which they must pass through to get to the Lonely Mountain. As Bilbo and the dwarves retire for the evening, Gandalf tells them that, for their own protection, they should not venture out of the house during the night. During the night, Bilbo hears the sound of growling and scratching at the door outside the house.

The next morning, Bilbo awakens to a fine breakfast, but neither Gandalf nor Beorn is in the house. Gandalf returns by evening and tells the company that he had gone out in the morning and seen the tracks of many bears outside the house and had followed the tracks back toward the clearing where the travelers had encountered the wargs and goblins a few nights earlier. When Beorn returns the following morning, he is in high spirits and reveals that he had confirmed Gandalf’s story about the death of the Great Goblin; he has also brought back the head of a goblin and the skin of a warg that he killed on his trek the previous night.

Now convinced that the travelers are friends, Beorn offers them large stores of food and ponies to carry it, as well as bows and arrows to help the company through Mirkwood. He directs them to follow a little-known road through the forest that will take them almost directly to the Lonely Mountain. He also warns them not to drink from or bathe in the dark stream that runs through Mirkwood and never to stray from the path. Finally, he instructs them to send his ponies back when they reach the entrance to the forest.

They journey to the edge of the forest, and as they ride, Bilbo notices a large bear that seems to be tracking them at a distance. When they reach the edge of the forest and are hesitant to send the ponies back to Beorn, Gandalf warns them that the skin-changer is close by. He also bids them farewell, saying he must now be about his own business. As Gandalf rides off, he gives the travelers one more important warning: Do not leave the path.

Chapters 8–10: Mirkwood

Chapter 8 (“Flies and Spiders”) opens with the company walking in single file, beginning their long trek through Mirkwood, the largest forest in all of Middle-earth. The trees are so high that they block all sunlight, and the walk is filled with gloom. They sleep on the path and avoid lighting fires because the light attracts beasts on both sides of the road, and the eyes of many looking back out at them are eerily insect-like.

Their supply of food and water is becoming dangerously low, and when the dwarves come to the black stream that crosses their path, they would have been tempted to drink deeply from it if Beorn had not warned them against it. As it is, they are not able to get across because the bridge has long since rotted away. But Bilbo, whose eyes are sharper than any of the dwarves’, sees a small boat on the other bank of the river, some 12 yards away. Following Bilbo’s directions, Fili is able to snag the boat with an iron hook attached to a rope, and he pulls it to their side of the river. Using the rope, they are nearly able to get the entire company across the stream four at a time. But just as the last pair of dwarves are about to cross, a deer comes galloping down the path and leaps across the stream. Thorin, thinking fast, is able to shoot the deer with an arrow, but it falls on the opposite side of the stream. In the meantime, Bombur has fallen in the water, and as the dwarves fish Bombur out of the river, the boat drifts off. Though saved from drowning, Bombur is asleep and cannot be awakened. More deer come running across the path, and the dwarves waste all their arrows shooting at them before Thorin can stop them. Their bows are now useless.

The company keeps moving on, carrying the unconscious Bombur and becoming more hungry, thirsty, and disheartened as the days drag on. At the dwarves’ urging, Bilbo climbs to the top of one of the tallest trees to check whether he can see the end of the forest, but he can see nothing but the tops of trees. The dwarves are disappointed, and that night they eat the last of their food. The next morning, Bombur awakens, but when he realizes there is no food, he wishes he were back asleep. That night, the dwarves see a fire in the woods and hope that whoever has started it can give them some food. They smell roasting meat and rush forward to see a company of elves, but as soon as the elves see the dwarves, they and the fire disappear. Sometime later in the night, the dwarves see a campfire once again, and this time Bilbo goes first into the circle of firelight, but the elves disappear again. By now, the dwarves are far off the path, but they have decided that keeping to the path will do them no good if they starve to death. When the fire appears a third time, Thorin enters the firelight, but once again the elves disappear, and there is a great ruckus as the dwarves run about wildly. Bilbo, alone and under some enchantment, falls asleep and does not awaken until the next morning.

When he awakes, Bilbo realizes that his feet are bound together by some sticky substance, which he soon realizes is the thick web of a giant spider. The spider is attempting to poison him, but Bilbo fights it off, finally managing to draw his sword and kill the beast. He passes out from the struggle but comes to feeling far more confident in his own abilities, and he names his sword Sting. Slipping on his ring to become invisible, he searches for his friends and finds them all bound up by the webs of giant spiders and hanging upside down from large branches, surrounded by huge spiders intent on eating them. The invisible Bilbo throws stones at the spiders and taunts them with insulting songs in order to lure them away from his friends, then doubles back and begins cutting his friends loose. When the spiders return, they surround the dwarves, and Bilbo is forced to let the dwarves in on the secret of his invisibility. Under the cloak of the ring, Bilbo is able to kill many of the spiders with Sting, and the others finally flee.

When Bilbo and the dwarves finally have time to take stock, they realize that everyone is accounted for except for Thorin. Thorin, as it happens, had been taken prisoner by the Wood-elves the night before and was thrown into their dungeon when he would not tell their king why his company is crossing Mirkwood.

As chapter 9 (“Barrels out of Bond”) opens, Bilbo and the dwarves are starving, disgruntled because of the loss of Thorin and desperate to try to find a way out of Mirkwood. As they stagger in what they hope is the direction of the road, they are apprehended by troops of armed Wood-elves. Bilbo is able to slip on his ring in time to avoid capture, and he follows the blindfolded dwarves and their captors over the bridge into the cavern fortress of the elven king. The king interviews them but gets no more information from them than he had gotten from Thorin, and he puts all 12 of them into his dungeon, in separate cells. Bilbo wanders about the halls of the castle for two weeks, knowing that the dwarves’ lives are in his hands but unsure what to do. The only way into the castle is a magical door from which it will be impossible to escape, but in exploring the cavern, Bilbo learns a great deal about the workings of the elven king’s fortress.

One day, Bilbo learns that Thorin is a prisoner and is able to find his cell. Thorin is astounded to hear Bilbo through the keyhole of his cell and gives him a message to take to the rest of the dwarves: Tell the elven king nothing about their quest. Thorin has no wish to share any of his treasure with the elves.

In his exploration of the fortress, Bilbo has discovered that a stream runs under the castle, and that the elves put empty wine barrels through a trapdoor into the stream so that they will float downstream all the way down the river to Laketown on Long Lake, outside of Mirkwood. During a festival one evening, Bilbo is able to steal the keys from a drunken jailer and release all of the dwarves from their cells. His plan is to conceal each of the dwarves in a barrel and float them all to freedom in Lake-town, but the dwarves balk at this, fearful that they will drown or be battered by the current. However, having no alternative, they agree to the plan, and Bilbo seals them up in barrels. He then returns the keys to the stillsleeping jailer and hops atop one of the barrels himself as they are tossed into the stream by a group of elves.

After a rough ride in which he has difficulty keeping his head above the water, Bilbo and the barrels containing the dwarves get free of the castle and float to the point where the stream empties into the river flowing toward Lake-town, where a group of elves binds the barrels together into a kind of raft and sends them downstream. Bilbo rides the raft all the way to Lake-town.

In chapter 10 (“A Warm Welcome”), as Bilbo floats down the river on the raft of barrels, he sees the Lonely Mountain in the distance, but he does not like the looks of it. He listens to the talk of the raftsmen and learns that the landscape has changed a great deal in recent years. It has been desolated since the coming of the dragon and the destruction of the dwarves’ kingdom, so that, despite the instructions of Gandalf and of Beorn, Bilbo and the dwarves have by chance entered the lands east of Mirkwood in the only way that was still available to them—the river. Though Bilbo is unaware of it, Gandalf has heard of this difficulty from far away and is now coming to help.

The barrels containing the dwarves finally come to rest on the shore of Lake-town on Long Lake, and a shivering Bilbo is able to free, first, Thorin, and then the rest of the dwarves, from their hiding places. For the most part, they are battered, wet, and unhappy. Some are unable to move at all, and they all have a difficult time feeling grateful to Bilbo for their escape, but Thorin grudgingly admits that they could not have escaped without the hobbit’s help.

Thorin sets off with Bilbo, Fili, and Kili to find the master of the city. They encounter some of the town guard, who are quite taken aback to have visitors in their midst, and Thorin announces that he is Thorin, son of Thrain, son of Thror, King under the Mountain, and insists that they take him to their master. The guards do so. They interrupt the master while he is dining with the elvish raftsmen, and Thorin enters the hall with a loud proclamation that he is the heir of the king and has returned. The elves recognize him as the prisoner of their king, and Thorin agrees that he and his fellows were waylaid unjustly by the elven king but that he could not be held against his will. The master wants to remain on good terms with the elven king, but he is also aware of a prophecy known to all of Lake-town that the dwarf king would return and bring prosperity back to the land.

The Master is spared from a difficult decision when the people, who have heard the news, proclaim Thorin the king who has returned, and they celebrate him and his company as heroes. Meanwhile, the elven king of Mirkwood, having heard that the dwarves are in Lake-town, surmises that they intend to claim the treasure of Thror, but he vows that they will not bring it back through Mirkwood without a price.

After two weeks of adulation among the Lake men, Thorin and his fellows agree that the time has come for them to make their way to the mountain. The master of Lake-town, skeptical about Thorin’s claims and doubtful about the dwarves’ success against the powerful dragon Smaug, is glad to see them go. But he does offer them aid, and when they leave, they leave well-provisioned with horses and supplies. The master also provides them boats to travel the length of the lake, but when they setoff in the cold winds of autumn, Bilbo is deeply unhappy about the coming adventure.

Chapters 11–14: The Dragon in the Mountain

In chapter 11 (“On the Doorstep”), the men of Lake-town spend three days rowing Bilbo and his companions across Long Lake and into the River Running, which flows through the wasteland known as the Desolation of Smaug toward the Lonely Mountain. When they drop the dwarves off near the mountain, the men quickly turn and begin to row back, fearful of being so close to the mountain and the lands ruined by the dragon. The company now makes its way toward the mountain, looking into the Valley of Dale at the remains of the town and the scorched land of the dragon. Thorin and Balin (who was with Thorin on the day the dragon attacked the mountain) remember the beauty and greenness of the valley before the coming of Smaug.

They gaze on the front gate of the mountain, from which the river flows, and it seems clear to Bilbo that the dragon is still alive, since smoke issues from the gate. Balin says that the dragon may have simply filled the mountain with his reek, and may not be there at all, but the travelers trek to the other side of the mountain, to try to find the secret door on Thorin’s map. Although they find the correct place, they cannot make the magical door open with picks, shovels, or any kind of mining tools that they have brought from Lake-town, although they try to do so for some days. Bilbo hears the dwarves grumbling that they should send their burglar, Bilbo, in through the front door, now that he has the ring of invisibility. He wishes for his hobbit hole and hopes that Gandalf will return soon.

Now Thorin comments that autumn is coming to an end and winter will soon be upon them. The following day, Bilbo notices that, as the sun is setting, the sliver of the autumn moon is rising. At that point, his attention is drawn to a thrush knocking a snail against the rock near the magic door. Remembering the runes on Thorin’s map, he realizes it is Durin’s day and calls to the dwarves. As the last ray of the suns hits the door, a crack can be seen in the rock. At Bilbo’s urging, Thorin grabs the key from around his neck and turns it in the door, which the dwarves are now able to shove open. Before them gapes a long, dark tunnel into the heart of the mountain.

When chapter 12 (“Inside Information”) opens, Thorin indicates that the time has now come for the burglar—Bilbo—to perform the function for which he has been employed. Bilbo grumbles that he has already earned the dwarves’ gratitude for saving them twice, but he agrees to enter the tunnel, asking which of the dwarves will come with him. Only Balin volunteers, and he agrees only to go in part of the way, so as to relay any news back to the rest of the company outside the door. The two of them walk down until the door is barely visible, and here Balin stops, letting Bilbo go on alone. As Bilbo draws closer and closer to the center of the mountain, he sees a red glow far in front of him and feels the heat of the dragon. There, alone in the tunnel, Bilbo performs the most courageous act of his life: He decides to go on.

In the great central hall of the mountain, Bilbo finds Smaug asleep on a huge hoard of treasure, his soft underbelly encrusted with precious stones embedded in his flesh through years of lying on them. Quietly and carefully, Bilbo steals a large two-handled cup and quickly makes his way back up the tunnel to report back to the dwarves and show them his find.

Shortly thereafter, however, the dragon awakens and discovers his cup is missing. Enraged, he explodes from the mountain’s front gate and begins to search for the thief. Bilbo convinces the others that they must hide in the tunnel, but Bombur and Bofur, who have been with the ponies in the valley below, must be hauled up on ropes before all the dwarves duck into the tunnel just in time. Smaug sees the horses and begins chasing them, devouring six of them before going back to his cave to rest.

Now the dwarves are at a loss, not knowing what to do next. They turn to Bilbo for leadership, and the hobbit, slipping on his ring, decides to make another venture down the tunnel to see whether he can find the dragon’s weak spot. When he comes near the end of the tunnel, Smaug greets him. The dragon cannot see him but can smell him, and he begins a conversation with Bilbo. When the dragon asks his name, the hobbit answers in riddles, giving himself a number of titles (including “barrelrider” and the one “chosen for the lucky number”). Smaug tries to seduce Bilbo with his hypnotic voice, planting doubts in the hobbit’s mind about the sincerity and loyalty of the dwarves—they are cowards, he says, who want Bilbo to do all the dangerous work and have no intention of giving him his share of the treasure. At the same time, Bilbo tells Smaug that the dwarves intend to regain their treasure and to take revenge, but he also flatters the dragon, admiring his jewel-encrusted belly, at which the arrogant dragon rolls over and unwittingly reveals to Bilbo an unprotected area on his left breast. Foolishly, he taunts the dragon as he leaves, and he must run as fast as he can back along the passageway, though he is still scorched by the dragon’s fiery breath that follows him up the narrow tunnel.

When he has emerged from the tunnel among the dwarves again, Bilbo tells them what he has learned, but he is irritated by a thrush that seems to be listening. Thorin cautions him not to be annoyed, for the thrushes on the mountain are beneficent creatures. Thorin adds that in the old days, the men of Dale had known the secret of deciphering the thrushes’ language. Bilbo tells the dwarves that he made a mistake in calling himself “barrel-rider,” since the dragon would make the connection with the men of Lake-town and may seek to take vengeance on them for helping the dwarves. He also insists that the dwarves all enter the tunnel and close the outside door, since Smaug will certainly be looking for it, knowing that Bilbo had entered his lair through the other end. They come into the tunnel but are hesitant to close the door (having no certain way of opening it again). As they sit in the dark, Bilbo confronts Thorin with the dragon’s accusations, but Thorin assures Bilbo that he can choose his own 14th of the treasure. Carried away by thoughts of the riches, Thorin and Balin speak longingly of some of the treasure’s most storied objects, in particular the great jewel known as the Arkenstone of Thrain, the “Heart of the Mountain.” Bilbo finally persuades them to close the door, which they do just in time, as the frustrated Smaug smashes the entire side of the mountain in which the door stands. Then, his rage boiling, he begins to fly south along the River Running, ready to take revenge on Lake-town.

After what seems days of waiting in the tunnel’s darkness, the companions become anxious in chapter 13 (“Not at Home”). They try to get back out of the tunnel door, but find that the dragon’s violence has caused a cave-in, and there is no way to reach the door. The dwarves are inclined to despair, but Bilbo, quoting maxims of his father, such as “Where there’s life there’s hope,” determines that the only way out is down through the dragon’s lair, and he leads the dwarves in that direction. At the end of the tunnel, Smaug’s hall is so dark that Bilbo tumbles out of the tunnel onto the floor. At first, he looks around and notices a white gleam on top of the shadowy mound of treasure. Once he is certain Smaug is not at home, he calls for light, and Oin and Gloin run back up the tunnel to fetch torches and tinder-boxes. At first, the dwarves hang back in the tunnel, giving Bilbo a torch to search the hall.

Bilbo looks around at the treasure and finds that the white glow at the top is in fact the great Arkenstone, the “Heart of the Mountain.” He needs two hands to lift it but places it in an inner pocket. He has been promised his own choice of the treasure and thinks that this should be his choice. On his way back to the tunnel, a bat startles him and he drops the torch, so that he calls for help. Hesitantly, the dwarves come looking for him. Now that they know the dragon is not here, they begin to look longingly at the great hoard. They wander through it, picking up jewels and arming themselves with the gold-plated armor and weapons in the hoard. Thorin gives Bilbo, as the first installment of his payment, a small elvish coat of mail made of an impenetrable silver material called mithril . Through it all, Thorin keeps searching for something he cannot find—the Arkenstone, as Bilbo realizes.

Bilbo reminds the dwarves that, while they do not know where Smaug has gone, he could well return at any moment. Thorin, remembering the way through his ancestral home, leads the group through the cavern’s chambers, including the great chamber of Thror, and follows the Running River out the front gate of the mountain, where they look out over the ruined town of Dale. Hungry and tired, the company is led by Balin to a rock fortress on the southern spur of the mountain, used as a lookout tower by the dwarves in their days of prosperity. Here the company stops to sleep for the night.

In chapter 14 (“Fire and Water”), the narrator flashes back two days earlier to Smaug after he had vented his rage on the side of the mountain. Having fixed his blame on the people of Lake-town (also called Esgaroth) for their part in aiding the dwarves’ expedition, Smaug begins to travel down the River Running to Long Lake to punish the town. When the men of Esgaroth see the flames of the dragon’s rage from a great distance, many believe that the old tales of the lake running yellow with gold are coming true, but one grim-voiced man, Bard (a descendant of Girion, king of Dale), warns that the dragon is coming, and at his urging the town prepares for the attack, cutting bridges to the mainland to halt Smaug’s advance. Smaug flies over the city breathing fire, setting the town ablaze as the people, including the Master, try to escape in boats. A company of archers remains, led by Bard, and they fire arrows at the swooping dragon, but the arrows only glance off his jewel-encrusted underbelly. Finally, only Bard is left defending the city, and he is down to his last, black arrow—one that he has inherited from his father and his father’s fathers, and one that has never failed him. Suddenly, he feels an old thrush land on his shoulder and is astounded to realize that he can understand the thrush’s language. The thrush—apparently the same one that had listened to Bilbo’s conversation with the dwarves—tells Bard to look for the bare spot in the dragon’s left breast. Bard does, and his arrow flies true, piercing the dragon and killing him. The dragon falls from the sky, crushing the town.

Most of the townspeople have survived the onslaught, and although their town is in ruins, they are grateful to Bard for saving them, and many want to proclaim him king, to the master’s chagrin. But the smooth-tongued master turns the townspeople’s attention to the dwarves, whom he blames for bringing the dragon’s wrath upon them, and reminds the people that there are now mounds of unprotected treasure in the mountain. Bard postpones any notion of becoming king, though he harbors a desire to reestablish the city of Dale near the mountain. Meanwhile, birds bring the news of Smaug’s death to the elven king in Mirkwood, who sends a host of his own people into the east. The elves first help the homeless people of Lake-town build shelters and prepare for the coming winter, but then they turn toward the mountain and its treasure. They begin to make their way to the mountain, along with many of the men of Esgaroth, 11 days after Smaug’s death.

Chapters 15–17: War

As the dwarves are waiting with Bilbo at the mountain in the opening of chapter 15 (“The Gathering of the Clouds”), the thrush returns and tries to communicate with them, but none of the dwarves is able to understand, though Balin comments to Bilbo that in the old days, dwarves were able to communicate with the ravens of the mountain. The thrush flies off and returns with a very old raven, Roäc, the son of Carc, the chief raven from the days of Thror. The raven informs them that Smaug is dead, and the dwarves rejoice, but the bird then warns them that the elven king is coming north with Bard and the men of Esgaroth, believing that they are owed a share of the treasure. Roäc advises them to trust Bard (and not the Master of the city), but Thorin is prepared to trust no one. He asks the raven to get word to his cousin Dain in the Iron Hills to come swiftly with an army of dwarves to defend the treasure. Then Thorin brings all the dwarves back into the mountain to secure it from attack.

The dwarves work quickly, sealing up the main gate into the mountain with a stone wall, and when the elvish army arrives, they find the dwarves holed up in an impenetrable fortress. When Bard comes before the gate with banner bearers from the Forest and Esgaroth, Thorin asks who it is that comes armed for war against Thorin, son of Thrain, son of Thror, King under the Mountain. Bard is surprised to find the dwarves still alive, but he asks to parley, claiming to be owed a part of the treasure as slayer of the dragon. He also reminds Thorin that some of the treasure belonged to the city of Dale, and that Bard is Gilion’s heir. Further, he asks that the dwarves share some of the treasure with the men of Esgaroth because of the hardship they have suffered on account of the dwarves. These strike Bilbo as quite reasonable points, but Thorin dismisses the last argument out of hand and says he will not parley with anyone as long as an armed host is encamped in front of his gates. The heralds return to the elvish host, but when they return, they tell Thorin that Bard is entitled to one-twelfth of the dragon hoard, from which he is willing to contribute to the aid of the people of Esgaroth, but they advise Thorin that, if he desires friendship with his neighbors, he would do well to consider contributing some of his own wealth to the relief of the lake men. Thorin’s only answer is to fire an arrow at the herald that sticks in his shield. At this, the heralds say that Thorin has chosen enmity, and they declare the mountain under siege. The dwarves, they say, can eat their gold.

Bilbo is appalled by this turn of events and has no desire to be besieged in the dwarves’ fortress, particularly when all there is to eat is the tasteless biscuit called cram .

For many days, the siege goes on. As chapter 16 (“A Thief in the Night”) begins, the dwarves have been spending much of this time cataloguing and arranging the huge hoard, but Thorin looks constantly for the Arkenstone, the great jewel of his fathers and the single item worth more to him than all the rest of the treasure. He vows vengeance on anyone who finds the stone and keeps it from him, but Bilbo, with the Arkenstone wrapped in the bundle he uses as a pillow, says nothing.

The old raven brings Thorin news that his kinsman Dain is now within two days’ march of the mountain, with a host of 500 dwarves ready for combat. Roäc advises Thorin that this path is unwise, for even if the dwarves fight off the elven king’s army, he will incur the ill will of all his neighbors, with winter coming on fast and no food. But the stubborn Thorin insists that winter will wear on the besieging army as well, and he refuses to back down.

Now Bilbo hatches a plan by which he hopes to avert bloodshed. In the evening, while Bombur is on watch, Bilbo conceals the Arkenstone in a rag and tells Bombur that he cannot sleep. He offers to take Bombur’s watch, promising to wake him at midnight, when Bombur’s watch is scheduled to end. Now unseen, Bilbo slips on his ring and makes his way to the elven army. He reveals himself to the first elves he meets, insisting that they take him to Bard.

Brought before Bard and the elven king in their tent, Bilbo takes out the Arkenstone, offering it to Bard (in token of his own share of the treasure) as a bargaining tool to make peace with Thorin in exchange for a fair portion of the treasure that Bard has deserved. Astounded, the elven king offers Bilbo sanctuary in his camp, anticipating Thorin’s rage at what he will no doubt consider Bilbo’s betrayal. But Bilbo insists that he must return to his friends, for he feels he cannot desert them after they had been through so much together. Besides, he says, he promised to wake Bombur up before midnight. As Bilbo begins to leave, an old man in a dark cloak who had been sitting at the tent door rises and proclaims, “Well done!” It is Gandalf, who adds that there is always more to Bilbo than anybody expects. There is no time for long discussions, but Gandalf tells Bilbo that things are drawing to a close now, and that there are other surprises in store. Bilbo hurries back to the mountain, awakens Bombur, and falls asleep himself, dreaming of bacon and eggs.

Chapter 17 (“The Clouds Burst”) opens as trumpets blare the next morning, and heralds from the besieging army ask to parley with Thorin because “matters had changed.” Thorin believes that the elven king and Bard have learned of Dain’s approach and so realize that they no longer have the advantage. Bard, the elven king, and an old man wearing a cloak and hood and carrying a wooden casket approach, but instead of backing down, they ask whether Thorin has changed his mind, and whether anything can convince him to part with a portion of his treasure. Thorin scoffs that nothing they can offer will change his mind, at which they open the casket and reveal the Arkenstone of Thrain, which Bard offers in exchange for his fair share of the treasure. Thorin demands to know where they obtained the Heart of the Moun-tain, and Bilbo admits that he gave it to them, adding that, since Thorin had promised him that he might choose his own fourteenth share of the treasure, he had chosen the Arkenstone and had chosen to give it away. Furious, Thorin threatens to throw Bilbo from the mountain, wishing Gandalf were there and cursing the wizard for choosing Bilbo. The old man reveals himself to be Gandalf, telling Thorin that his wish is granted, and he talks Thorin out of this rash threat. Thorin agrees to yield one-fourteenth of the treasure, the portion belonging to Bilbo, in exchange for the Arkenstone, but demands that Bilbo leave his company immediately, promising to send the gold and silver after him. Privately, Thorin still hopes that, with Dain’s arrival, he will be able to regain the Arkenstone and keep the entire treasure as well, so much has the craving for treasure taken hold of his heart.

When Dain and his army arrive, Bard goes to meet him, not wishing to allow the dwarves into the mountain until Thorin has made good on his promise to send out Bilbo’s share of the treasure. Bard wishes to strike at the dwarves to prevent them from going farther, but the elven king wants to delay, hoping still for reconciliation. But seeing this hesitancy, the dwarves strike first, and as the battle threatens to erupt, there is a sudden shift in the weather. The skies grow dark, thunder erupts, and a swarm of what seem to be black birds bears down upon them from above. Gandalf steps forth and warns that an army of goblins and wargs, accompanied by a cloud of bats, is approaching swiftly from the north.

In the face of this threat from a common enemy, the dwarves, men, and elves put aside their differences and strike a hasty alliance. Now begins what will become known as the Battle of Five Armies. The elves assemble on one spur of the mountain, and the men and dwarves on the other. As the host of goblins approaches, the elven king attacks, beating back the first assault. The dwarves and men join the battle, and initially they seem on the edge of victory, until another onslaught of goblins and wolves comes sweeping over the mountain. But now Thorin, King under the Mountain, leads his armed band out from the mountain and rallies the scattered allies to him. Still, this seems not enough to turn the tide of the battle. Bilbo, invisible with his ring, has taken a stand near the elven king, and with his keen vision he is the first to see, approaching from the west against the sunset, an army of great eagles. He cries out that the eagles are coming, but is struck by a stone from above and is knocked unconscious.

Chapters 18–19: The Road Home

In chapter 18 (“The Return Journey”), Bilbo comes to on the battlefield and looks about him, seeing only dead goblins. He understands that the battle has ended in victory, but does not know how. When he sees a man climbing toward him, he calls out, but when the man asks where the voice has come from, Bilbo realizes that he is still wearing his ring. He quickly removes it and greets the man, who had been sent to find him on the battlefield and had nearly given up hope. He tells Bilbo that he must be brought to Thorin Oakenshield at once. When Bilbo enters Thorin’s tent, he finds the dwarf king dying of wounds suffered in battle. Thorin reconciles with Bilbo, taking back the words he spoke at the gate. Bilbo bids Thorin farewell and weeps for him outside his tent.

As Bilbo recovers with Gandalf, he learns how the battle was won. The eagles had been monitoring the mustering of the goblins for some time and had gathered forces to follow them to the mountain. During the battle, they had driven the goblins from their positions on the mountain and into the valley, where they were engaged by the elves and dwarves. Still, the wargs and goblins outnumbered the allies, and the outcome was in doubt until Beorn himself had appeared, in the form of a bear, and swept all before him. Most of the enemy ultimately fled the battle, and the elves, dwarves, and men pursued them, slaughtering the great majority. In the end, three-quarters of the goblins of the North were slain in that battle, and peace returned to the North for many years.

Finally, Thorin is buried in the mountain, with the Arkenstone on his breast and the sword Orcrist restored to him by the elven king. Kili and Fili, who were killed in the battle while defending Thorin, are buried there as well. The other dwarves stay with Dain, who is now King under the Mountain. One-fourteenth of the treasure is given to Bard, as Thorin had agreed. Dain wishes to give Bilbo a great reward as well, but in the end Bilbo will accept only a small chest of gold and one of silver, just as much as a small pony might carry on his way back to his home in the West. Bilbo bids farewell to his companions, and with Gandalf and Beorn, he sets off for home in the company of the elven king and his host.

Bilbo and his two companions part with the elves at the entrance to Mirkwood, preferring to take the long way around the forest to the north rather than the gloomy path through Mirkwood. But before they bid the elven king farewell, Bilbo gives him the gift of a silver and pearl necklace he had received from Dain. It is, he says, in exchange for the meals and lodging the king had unknowingly given the invisible Bilbo when the dwarves were in his dungeons. The elven king accepts the gift and names Bilbo “elf-friend.” Gandalf and Bilbo stay in Beorn’s house through the yuletide and into the spring, when they leave to continue their journey home. Bilbo, weary of his adventures, can only think of his comfortable armchair.

As chapter 19 (“The Last Stage”) opens, Gandalf and Bilbo leave Beorn’s house and move on until, at the beginning of May, they reach Rivendell, where the elves welcome them again with songs from the trees. They stay in Rivendell for a week, telling the stories of their adventures. Here Bilbo learns that after Gandalf left the dwarves, he joined with his fellow wizards, who were able to drive the Necromancer from his stronghold in the south of Mirkwood. Finally, they leave Elrond, and as they make their way home, they take the time to recover the trolls’ gold that the dwarves had buried. Bilbo says he has plenty of wealth and offers this gold to Gandalf, but Gandalf insists that Bilbo should take some of it for himself, saying that he may have more need of it than he knows.

When Bilbo returns to his house on June 22, he is shocked to arrive in the middle of an auction where all of his possessions are being sold. Having been away for more than a year, Bilbo has been presumed dead, and his cousins, the SackvilleBagginses, are measuring his house to see whether their own furniture will fit. They are not particularly happy to see him turn up alive. It takes years for Bilbo to get all of his possessions back, and he is forced to buy back some of his furniture himself just to speed the process along.

The Sackville-Bagginses never believe it is truly Bilbo who has returned, and while Bilbo lives a long life in his old home and remains an elf friend and a companion of dwarves and wizards, he is never able to shake his reputation among his neighbors for being a bit odd. He is a favorite among his nieces and nephews, however, although even they do not completely believe all of the stories he tells of his adventures. But several years after his return, one autumn evening while he is writing his memoirs (“There and Back Again: A Hobbit’s Holiday”), he has a visit from Gandalf and Balin. They chat about old times, and Balin tells him of how Dain’s kingdom is thriving, how Bard has rebuilt Dale, and how the valley is now fertile and there is a great traffic of goods among men, elves, and dwarves. Bilbo marvels that the old legends have indeed come true, and Gandalf asserts that this is not to be wondered at: Ancient prophecies are no less true just because one has had a hand in bringing them about himself.

Tolkien establishes the novel’s tone from the very first sentence. One recognizes that a hobbit is not a creature of the “real” world, and that with these words the reader is entering an imaginary universe, the parameters of which the narrator is about to establish. First, the nature of hobbits themselves must be clarified. While initially the idea of human-like creatures living in well-decorated holes in the ground seems a bit outlandish, it is clear that the other traits of hobbits—their rather smug provincialism, their lack of curiosity, and their fundamental desire for good food and drink and the comforts of home—are those of a large portion of the human population, probably (as Tolkien most likely deemed) of the majority of the citizens of provincial England. Bilbo Baggins, who remains chiefly concerned with his food, his comfort, and the neatness of his house, is in many ways typical of hobbits in general. The name hobbit is relatively close to rabbit, and this may be why Tolkien chose to have hobbits live in holes and give them furry feet. But Tolkien himself vehemently denied the suggestion of any connection between hobbits and rabbits (Shippey, Road 67). In any case, the consciousness of hobbits is essentially that of humans, though their diminutive size may suggest the limitations of their imaginations and aspirations. Tolkien did suggest that the name hobbit might have been partially influenced by Sinclair Lewis’s 1922 novel Babbit, whose characters, like most hobbits, are complacent, self-satisfied, and lack imagination.

Tolkien makes a point of examining Bilbo’s individual character in this chapter, based chiefly on his heredity. On his father’s side, Bilbo is a Baggins, and therefore a very conventional hobbit. On his mother’s side, however, Bilbo is a Took, and the Tooks are less “respectable” from the conventional point of view, but in fact are more adventurous, more inclined to be unconventional and curious about the outside world, as was Bilbo’s glorious ancestor, Bullroarer Took. This inner conflict will play in Bilbo’s psyche throughout the novel.

Although Bilbo is some 50 years old when the story begins, The Hobbit is essentially a bildungsroman—a novel about a young person’s initiation into maturity. The comforts that Bilbo enjoys—his focus on eating and drinking and staying warm and cozy in his protected environment—are the comforts of an infant. The bachelor Bilbo has never experienced anything that has challenged him or made him grow as an individual, and the comfortable home and income he inherited from his father and his Took forebears have made it unnecessary for Bilbo to have to work to provide himself with anything necessary to his life. In some ways he is, essentially, a middle-class Edwardian English gentleman pulled, quite by surprise, into a medieval Norse adventure (Shippey, J. R. R. Tolkien 11)— all of which explains why contemporary readers identify much more readily with Bilbo than with Gandalf, the dwarves, or the elves in the story. But perhaps more important, in symbolic terms, the hole in which Bilbo lives is a yonic symbol, an image of the womb protecting Bilbo but keeping him an infant (Matthews 30). Like many fairy tales, which involve children whose basic virtues enable them to overcome threatening aspects of the larger world (like Jack’s giant or Hansel and Gretel’s witch), Bilbo’s story will be the symbolic representation of what the psychologist Carl Jung called the process of individuation, or maturing, as Bilbo will pass through a number of incidents that will aid in his psychological development into an adult. On another level, one of the story’s major themes is the capability of a relatively unimportant, ordinary person to exhibit great courage and resourcefulness when put into extreme or dangerous circumstances. Bilbo’s maturing process will put him in these kinds of situations, and he will reach within himself for resources that he may not have known he had.

Many of these resources undoubtedly spring from Bilbo’s unconventional Tookish side, and that aspect of his nature is what makes Gandalf choose him for this adventure. Matthews equates Bilbo’s Tookish side with his masculinity, which she notes is being repressed in his womblike hobbit hole (31). Gandalf recognizes that, while Bilbo may appear to be a typical hobbit, no more daring than any other, there is actually “more to him than meets the eye,” as the narrator will remind us repeatedly. As for Gandalf himself, the wizard will, of course, become a major character in The Lord of the Rings , but his importance in this novel is chiefly as a guide and adviser to the hobbit and his companions. In his biography of Tolkien, Humphrey Carpenter traces the conception of Gandalf to a German postcard that Tolkien bought on a trip to Switzerland in 1911. The card was a reproduction of a painting called Der Berggeist (“The Spirit of the Mountain”) by the artist J. Madelener. It depicted a whitebearded man in a dark cloak and a wide-brimmed hat. Years later, Tolkien wrote on the paper cover where he kept the postcard “Origin of Gandalf” (Carpenter 51).

In The Hobbit, Gandalf is the archetypal “wise old man” figure common to romance narratives (as defined by Northrop Frye and others)—“romance” in the sense of a heroic tale in a remote setting dealing with mysterious, adventurous, or supernatural events (rather than in the sense of “a love story”). Typically, such figures are guides and protectors of the protagonist, and they embody wisdom and often benevolent power as well. The fact that Bilbo fondly remembers Gandalf’s fireworks is an indication that his Tookish side is attracted to the kind of supernatural power and wisdom that Gandalf embodies.

With the introduction of the dwarves, Tolkien’s world becomes much more recognizable as having roots in a variety of earlier narratives. In the Old Norse and Germanic folklore with which Tolkien was quite familiar, dwarves were often associated with the accumulation of treasure, and dragons with the hoarding of such treasure. From their actions and their plans, we learn a number of things about these particular dwarves in this chapter: They enjoy feasting and songs, but they are also a clannish and proud folk, whose traditions and heritage mean a great deal to them. They are also motivated by what may be an inordinate lust for riches, and by revenge, for the dragon has killed Thorin’s father and grandfather, the King under the Mountain, and those deaths cry out for vengeance. In this way, the dwarves’ mores are quite similar to those of Old English or Old Norse warriors, for whom the king’s first responsibility was the sharing of treasure with his retainers, and the warrior’s first responsibility was to protect or to avenge his lord in battle. In Germanic legends, though, the greatest heroes—Sigurd or Beowulf— are slayers of dragons, and the irony in this situation is that the dwarves have come seeking Bilbo, the most unlikely such hero imaginable. As it happens, however, the dwarves are not looking for that kind of hero, but rather for a burglar who might be able to steal some of the treasure. This is a role that Bilbo may actually be able to fill.

Other than Balin, all of the names of the dwarves (as well as the name Gandalf ) appear in an Old Norse poem Völuspá, part of the Icelandic collection called the Elder Edda , or Poetic Edda (Shippey, Road 70). As for the plot of The Hobbit , it follows the traditional romance form of the quest, a journey to accomplish a significant task, in this case the recovery of the dwarves’ lost treasure from the dragon who guards it.

It should be noted that one of the things that inspires Bilbo, awakening his “Took side,” and stirring him to accept the dwarves’ proposal, is the song that they sing about the journey and the gold at the end of it. Tolkien is always concerned with the power of language to move and to inspire, and he puts lines like “We must away ere break of day / To seek the pale enchanted gold” (27) into the dwarves’ mouths to motivate Bilbo to agree to the adventure. Admittedly, the other thing that motivates Bilbo is his wounded vanity when he overhears Gloin remark that he “looks more like a grocer than a burglar” (30). If this seems to be a somewhat childish reason to make such an important decision, remember that at this point Bilbo really is not much more than a child, and his maturing process is just starting.

One other element of the opening chapter is worth commenting on, and that is the voice of the narrator. Whereas in Tolkien’s other major works ( The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion ), he uses an omniscient narrator who presents the material objectively and without comment, the narrator of The Hobbit is an intrusive voice that consistently comments on the actions of the story and engages in a kind of conversation with the reader. The narrator’s tone, however, is avuncular, and his relationship to the reader almost condescending, very much like an older adult telling a story to small children. While this, in fact, was certainly Tolkien’s intent as he told the story in its first form to his own children, passages like “And what would you do, if an uninvited dwarf came and hung his things up in your hall without a word of explanation?” (20) or “He may have lost the neighbours’ respect, but he gained—well, you will see whether he gained anything in the end” (16) begin to sound a little patronizing as the novel goes on, and it is no coincidence that Tolkien abandoned this kind of narrative voice in his later works. In a 1967 interview, Tolkien admitted his mistake in this regard, saying “ The Hobbit was written in what I should now regard as a bad style, as if one were talking to children. There’s nothing my children loathed more” (qtd. in Tolkien , Annotated Hobbit 76).

The scene that initiates Bilbo into the world of adventure is a semicomic one involving conventional monsters of Old Norse mythology, a trio of trolls. William Green notes that on two occasions in Snorri Sturluson’s Prose Edda, Thor has traveled to the East to fight trolls (51). Furthermore, Gandalf’s trick of keeping the trolls arguing until dawn, when they must turn to stone at the first light of day, is also a motif seen in Old Norse poetry—although in at least one poem the trick is actually applied to a dwarf named Alvis, who comes to ask for the hand of Thor’s daughter in marriage, and whom Thor keeps talking until sunrise (Green 55). It has also been suggested that this scene owes something to the story of the Cyclops in The Odyssey . As Odysseus used trickery to prevent the Cyclops from eating all of his companions, Gandalf tricks the trolls into arguing until sunlight and so prevents them from eating the dwarves.

The depiction of the trolls in this scene equates them essentially with rather coarse, vulgar humans. They have the curiously common English names of William, Bert, and Tom, and they speak with cockney accents and phrasing, as in “And time’s been up our way, when yer’d have said ‘thank yer, Bill,’ for a nice bit o’ fat valley mutton like what this is” (46). Deborah and Ivor Rogers suggest that the trolls’ speech is modeled on the language of enlisted men or “Tommies” from his regiment whose speech patterns Lieutenant Tolkien may have witnessed during World War I (66).

Essentially, then, the trolls act like low-class oafs. The dwarves act in a manner that readers will come to expect as the story progresses: They hold back and send Bilbo in to test the waters in any dangerous situation. The dwarves need food, and the firelight and smell of mutton are enticing, but they send Bilbo ahead to scout things out. Bilbo, however, proves himself to be quite nearly useless in the ensuing crisis. He does have one special talent: the ability to move very quietly and stealthily. This, of course, will serve him well later on in dealing with the dragon, but at this point it enables him to sneak up on the trolls without detection. However, Bilbo’s first decision is a foolish one. Seeing himself as the hero of a fairy tale, a kind of “Jack and the Beanstalk” character, Bilbo decides to try to pick the pocket of one of the trolls, unaware of the remarkable vocal talents of trolls’ purses. His bad decision nearly gets him killed, and his inability to warn the dwarves nearly does the same for them.

To a large extent, it is Bilbo’s own insignificance that saves him at this point, since he is able to crawl away while the trolls are bickering, and their capture of the 13 dwarves causes them to forget all about Bilbo. It is pure luck that ultimately saves him and the dwarves, since Gandalf happens to show up at precisely the right time. Bilbo has not acquitted himself well in this first adventure. He does discover the trolls’ key while crawling away and so is able to contribute something useful to the company’s progress after all. But the best that can be said about Bilbo at this point is that he is lucky. If the story of The Hobbit is the story of Bilbo’s maturation and the development of his heroic status, it would seem that little progress has been made at this point. But a close examination suggests otherwise: Bilbo has exited his womblike hobbit hole and begun the journey. He has faced a dangerous enemy and survived. He has shown some courage in approaching the trolls alone, and he has demonstrated that he has more than his share of luck. Accordingly, Bilbo receives the elvish blade that he will use as a sword throughout the novel. As Matthews reminds us, the sword is a phallic symbol, and even in its simplest terms, it suggests maturing manhood (29). The episode also recalls scenes from medieval romances (Green compares it to the story of Perceval) in which the young knight takes the arms or armor from the first knight he defeats in his adventures (Green 56). Although here the “defeat” has been a matter of trickery, Bilbo, Gandalf, and the dwarves are following tradition when they arm themselves from the trolls’ cave.

The initial danger overcome, the company is able to rest after the first leg of their journey in Rivendell, where the reader is introduced to elves. One’s first impression of the elves of Rivendell is probably that they are a good-natured but rather flippant people, since they seem to spend a good deal of time laughing and singing in the trees and making fun of their visitors. Tolkien makes the elves’ songs bright and lively, with anapestic rhythms (“O! What are you doing, / And where are you going?” [57]) as opposed to the dwarves’ heavier, longer iambic lines (“Far over the misty mountains cold / To dungeons deep and caverns old” [27]), making the elves seem quite lighthearted, perhaps even frivolous. But one soon comes to realize that this is probably the dwarves’ view of them, and that because of ancient rivalries between the two races, the dwarves’ opinion of elves is not necessarily to be trusted. Bilbo, we are told, loves the elves, and their lord, Elrond, brings a gravity and high seriousness to the society of Rivendell.

It seems apparent that when The Hobbit was first conceived, Tolkien intended it to be an independent children’s story, unconnected to his huge mythological project that was becoming the Quenta Silmarillion . Including Elrond, however, squarely placed the hobbit’s adventures among the greater tales of Middle-earth, for Elrond had been a part of those tales among Tolkien’s unpublished manuscripts since at least 1926. Elrond’s ability to interpret the “moon letters” on Thorin’s treasure map and his knowledge of ancient runes are to be expected of one who is himself so ancient: When he speaks of the swords Orcrist and Glamdring being forged by his elvish kinsmen for the elf and goblin wars, he is speaking of the years before the fall of Gondolin—an epic story of the First Age of Middle-earth that Tolkien had begun crafting as early as 1917. Elrond’s father, Eärendil, had escaped from Gondolin when it fell to the forces of Morgoth, the evil one, near the end of the First Age, and thus Elrond feels a kinship with those who forged these ancient swords.

The naming of the swords places these weapons, and Bilbo’s quest, among the great heroic legends of the past: They recall Arthur’s Excalibur, Roland’s Durendal, or Hrunting, the sword of Unferth that ultimately fails Beowulf—swords through which great deeds were done, and which therefore earned their names. Such names anticipate great deeds to be done in the present story as well. The runes on the swords that must be read by Elrond, ancient in wisdom, also recall the scene in Beowulf when Beowulf brings to the wise king Hrothgar the hilt of the ancient sword that he has found in the den of Grendel’s mother, and the old man examines the ancient runes on the sword hilt.

Rivendell is a paradisal garden of a sanctuary in which Bilbo would love to stay, but from which he must be expelled if he is to continue his development. At the end of the chapter, therefore, he and the dwarves continue their journey toward their first great natural barrier, the Misty Mountains, which they must cross to continue their quest for the Lonely Mountain and the dragon’s treasure.

As scholars have noted (William H. Green especially), this third part of the story repeats many of the same motifs as the previous section, but at greater length. Bilbo and his companions are put in great danger by monstrous foes, but they are saved in the end from an unexpected source. At the same time, Bilbo matures through the experience and comes out of it with a symbolic talisman—this time the magic ring—that symbolizes his growth.

As the section begins, Bilbo and his companions seek shelter in a cave in the Misty Mountains, and Bilbo awakens just in time to see the wall open and a horde of goblins rush in. Bilbo’s cry of alarm warns Gandalf, who is able to save the dwarves from capture temporarily. It is another instance of Bilbo’s luck—a feature that Tolkien emphasizes a number of times in this text. Bilbo’s luck is not simply blind chance happening to work in his favor, but rather luck in the sense one sees it in Old Norse sagas, where luck, as Shippey says, is a kind of possession ( J. R. R. Tolkien 27). In the Vinland sagas (the Greenlanders’ Saga and the Saga of Erik the Red ), Leif Ericksson, known as “Leif the Lucky,” is not simply the recipient of occasional good fortune but, rather, has a kind of supernatural knack for finding wealth or new lands. Bilbo seems to have that same kind of supernatural gift, which protects him in times of danger and enables him to discover important things that others may have missed—the trolls’ key in the previous section, the magic ring in this one.

The scene in chapter 5 in which Bilbo finds the ring and overcomes Gollum is the best known in the novel, since so many subsequent events— chiefly in The Lord of the Rings —depend upon it. It begins simply enough: Bilbo, once again like a child, must be carried on Dori’s shoulders as the dwarves flee from pursuing goblins. Bilbo falls, loses consciousness, and wakes later, alone in the dark. He finds the ring while crawling on his hands and knees in the dark and pockets it absentmindedly. It seems an unremarkable event, but as the narrator says, “it was a turning point in his career, but he did not know it” (76).

Scholars and readers have had a great deal to say about this chapter, in particular with regard to its symbolism. It is fairly easy to recognize that Bilbo’s descent into and reemergence from the underworld follows a pattern familiar in a great many myths and heroic narratives common to a number of cultures: Odysseus’s descent to Hades to confer with the shade of Tiresias, Aeneas’s descent to see the soul of his father in book 6 of the Aeneid, and Dante’s journey through the Inferno come immediately to mind. Such universal patterns or symbols are called archetypes. On one level, this particular archetype suggests death and rebirth—the death of Bilbo’s old, childish self and his rebirth as hero. It is certainly the case that once Bilbo has passed this point (and has obtained the ring), he is no longer a burden to the company and begins to prove himself a valuable companion. And as Matthews points out, the description of Bilbo as he squeezes through the narrow crack that the goblins have left in the open cave door reads like nothing if not a birth narrative (33):

He squeezed and squeezed, and he stuck! It was awful. His buttons had got wedged on the edge of the door and the door-post. . . . He gave a terrific squirm. Buttons burst off in all directions. He was through . . . (95)

But there is more to this symbolic pattern than this. The psychologist Carl Jung called this archetype of darkness the shadow. The Jungian shadow is often personified in myth or legend as a dark being—Darth Vader, for instance, or Satan himself perhaps—that represents the dark part of ourselves that we do not recognize or acknowledge. It may show itself, as Green notes, in traits we dislike in other people but fail to recognize in ourselves. For Jung, coming to terms with the shadow is essential for individuation, or becoming a whole and mature human being. That Gollum represents Bilbo’s shadow is apparent first in the symbolic sense, as Bilbo confronts Gollum here in the dark cave, reminiscent of the darkness of the subconscious mind. But as Green asserts, Gollum is also Bilbo’s double, living as he does, alone in a cave underground, and he tends to be somewhat sneaky, achieving his ends by deception rather than direct confrontation (Green 75). Bilbo does ultimately come to terms with Gollum, pitying the creature and sparing his life rather than killing him when he has the chance. When Bilbo recognizes Gollum as a fellow creature deserving of his pity, he has come to terms with his shadow. As Green concludes, the ring, the perfect circle, becomes a symbol of the wholeness and unity of self that Bilbo achieves (Green 81; Matthews 32). The leap that Bilbo makes over the crouching Gollum at the entrance to the tunnel leading out of the cave is also a symbolic leap forward—an act of courage and daring that mark his maturing personality.

Gollum’s name has no known source and presumably imitates the gulping sound he makes in his throat. But it is possible that Tolkien may have had in mind the creature of Jewish folklore called the golem, a being made of clay but animated, often, in medieval legend, by a rabbi. It was an incomplete and uncultivated being, and in the classic version of the story, the golem becomes violent and uncontrollable. Tolkien’s Gollum displays a number of these characteristics.

The riddle contest is quite appropriate for Bilbo. Even though he holds his elf-blade in readiness, Bilbo’s real talent is in his wits, and the riddle contest with Gollum is a battle of wits. In part, as Christopher L. Couch notes, it prepares Bilbo for a later, more dangerous battle of wits with the dragon (12). Couch points out that Tolkien was familiar with Old English riddles, in particular the nearly 100 riddles at the end of the 10th-century Exeter Book manuscript. Certainly Gollum’s riddles are similar to these Old English ones, although his subjects (all-concealing darkness, all-devouring time) are particularly appropriate for him.

The riddle contest has other sources as well. Since Bilbo’s life depends on his answers, the contest immediately recalls the riddle of the Sphinx in the Oedipus story. But there are closer analogues in Old Norse literature. In the poem Vafthruthnismol from the Poetic Edda, or Elder Edda, Ódin, in a quest for knowledge, visits the home of the giant Vafthruthnil disguised as a traveler named Gagnrath. The giant insists that they have a contest to determine which of the two is more intelligent, and he asks Ódin five questions, all of which Ódin answers. Ódin follows with 12 questions of his own, which the giant answers. Ódin then asks questions he really wants to learn the answers to, concerning the doom of the gods and, specifically, the identity of his own destroyer. In the end, Ódin (rather unfairly) asks Vafthruthnil what Ódin whispered into his son’s ear before his death. Recognizing Ódin at last, the giant admits that the god is wiser and lets him leave. The later Saga of King Heidrek, surely based largely on Vafthruthnismol, involves a question-game with the lives of the participants on the line, and it ends with Ódin asking the same question of Heidrek that ended the earlier text. In both these Norse texts, Ódin, like Bilbo, wins by asking a personal question, the answer to which his adversary has no way of knowing. In Bilbo’s case, once again, it is purely a matter of luck that he asks, “What have I got in my pocket?” His supernatural luck this time saves his life.

It is important to note that the “Riddles in the Dark” chapter that most readers know and that is summarized here is the revised chapter that appears in the second edition of The Hobbit, published in 1951. In the original 1937 version, Gollum promises Bilbo a present (i.e., the ring) if Bilbo wins the contest, and when he cannot find the ring, he shows Bilbo the way out of the cave instead. In the revised version, Gollum is presented more negatively, since he searches for the ring, intending to use it to disappear so that he can secretly kill Bilbo. But the invisible Bilbo follows Gollum to the exit while Gollum actually converses with himself (the text of the first version is available in The Annotated Hobbit 128–135). Tolkien explained the discrepancy by saying that the original version had been taken from Bilbo’s own story as presented in his manuscript (“There and Back Again”), and that Bilbo had at first tried to whitewash his actions in obtaining the ring (Rogers 70). Because of the way Tolkien’s conception of the ring had developed, he was able to use his revision of this chapter to better prepare readers for Gollum’s dual personality in The Lord of the Rings, and the negative effects that the ring has on its owners—both Gollum and, in the deceptive nature of Bilbo’s “first version” of the story, the hobbit himself.

Bilbo’s first decision once he has escaped from the cave is a clear indication of his maturing ethical judgment: Believing that Gandalf and the dwarves are still trapped under the mountain, he is convinced that he must return to the goblins’ caverns to help them. This is a far cry from the Bilbo of the first chapter, who had been relieved to think that the dwarves had gone off on their adventure without him.

Bilbo, of course, does not have to go back to rescue the dwarves, but the important thing here is that he was willing to do so. Instead, the travelers are soon pursued and surrounded by the combined forces of wargs and the goblins of the mountains. The wargs are essentially werewolves—an Old English term meaning “man wolves.” Werewolves appear in one of Tolkien’s favorite sources, the Völsunga Saga. These wargs look like wolves but are able to speak and have the organization and cunning of men. The goblins are also speaking and thinking creatures, but they are motivated solely by hunger, greed, and hatred. Essentially, as Tolkien readily acknowledges in a 1954 letter to Naomi Mitchison ( Letters 178), his goblins are based on the creations of George McDonald in his classic children’s book The Princess and the Goblin, although, as Green asserts, Tolkien’s goblins are far more seriously evil than McDonald’s (69).

As this third section of the novel draws to a close, the company is saved once again in a somewhat unexpected way—this time by the eagles, who serve the function of the helpful animals that often appear in romance narratives, in opposition to the hostile animals so clearly represented by the wargs. Further, just as the second section ends with a respite for the company in the Last Homely House of Elrond Halfelven, so this third section ends with a restful interlude in the home of Beorn.

Beorn is a shape-changer of the sort that appears in some Norse sagas. In Egil’s Saga, for example, Egil’s grandfather, Kvedulf, is introduced as one who can change into a wolf, while Queen Gunnhilda in the form of a swallow is nearly the cause of Egil’s death. Shippey also notes that the protagonist of the Saga of Hrolf Kraki is known as Böthvarr Bjarki (“Little Bear”) and is apparently a were-bear ( J. R. R. Tolkien 31). Beorn’s ability to change into a bear, then, is not unique in the kind of world Tolkien was recreating from his sources. The name itself is a pun, as Green points out, playing on the similarity between the Old Norse words bjorn (or bear) and beorn (or warrior) (114). Tolkien suggests that Beorn had formerly lived in the Misty Mountains and was forced to leave once the goblins moved in, and he looks forward to the time when the goblins will be destroyed and he can go back. In his enmity with the goblins, Beorn is clearly to be seen as a good and admirable character. Paul W. Lewis suggests that Beorn is, in fact, a kind of early precursor of Tom Bombadil in The Fellowship of the Ring , noting in particular their closeness to nature, which in Tolkien always seems to be an indication of virtue (Lewis 154). Beorn farms, lives in harmony with his animals (demanding that his ponies be brought back from the edge of Mirkwood when he loans them to the dwarves), and is a vegetarian. His help sends the troop on its way well provisioned to begin their trek through the great forest, but Gandalf’s warning that he must leave them on their own for that journey causes the company a good deal of anxiety.

Just as Bilbo’s adventure with Gollum repeated several of the motifs of his encounter with the trolls, so do many details of this fourth section of the novel parallel events in the previous sections. William Green lists the companions’ hunger, the gloomy setting (the dark forest this time rather than a cavern), the crossing of water that leads the travelers into danger, the dwarves’ capture and imprisonment in bags by enemies who mean to devour them, Bilbo’s awakening alone after losing consciousness, the interrogation of the dwarves by a king in an underground hall, the escape via an unusual means of transport (the barrels rather than the eagles this time), and the attainment of a final safe refuge (Green 83). More important, this section presents another stage of Bilbo’s maturation, containing a descent into the darkness, confrontation of an archetypal shadow, and a rebirth.

The scene of action this time is Mirkwood, a frightening and dangerous forest over which a darkness has fallen in recent years because of the presence of “the Necromancer,” who has risen to power and established himself in the southern part of the forest. This, of course, is Sauron, as will become clear later in The Lord of the Rings, though Tolkien seems not to have finalized that aspect of his mythography at the time he was writing The Hobbit. The name and idea of Mirkwood were adopted, as Shippey points out, from the Old Norse Poetic ( Elder ) Edda, where Myrcvið inn ókunna (“Mirkwood the Unknown”) is mentioned several times as an eastern boundary through which the Burgundians must travel to the stronghold of Attila the Hun ( J. R. R. Tolkien 33–34). It also functions here as the dark wood common to fairy tales such as “Hansel and Gretel” or “Little Red Riding Hood.” In this fantasy world, the companions are subject to the conditions of the fairy tale, one of which is the ancient motif of the “fairy tale prohibition” that Tolkien himself discusses in his essay “On FairyStories” (67). Briar Rose must not touch a spindle, Cinderella must leave the ball by midnight, Bluebeard’s wife must not look in one of the rooms of the castle. In this case, the dwarves must not leave the path or there will be dire consequences, as Beorn and Gandalf warn them three times. As in the traditional fairy story, the reader knows that the prohibition will be violated and the protagonists will suffer the consequences.

In the case of the starving dwarves, it is only as a last resort that they leave the paths when they see the elves’ fires. Tolkien has peopled Mirkwood with elves, in this case what he would call in The Silmarillion Avari—Grey-elves—rather than the High-elves from whom Elrond is descended. The picture of elves presented here seems inspired by the kinds of elves or fairies that appear in medieval Breton lays and other romances inspired by them. The disappearing circles of singing elves in the wood, for instance, occurs most famously in Chaucer’s “Wife of Bath’s Tale.” Most specifically, as Shippey has pointed out, the first evidence of the elves in Mirkwood is inspired by the Middle English romance of Sir Orfeo (a text Tolkien taught often, and that he translated into modern English) ( J. R. R. Tolkien 35). In Sir Orfeo, while wandering in the wood, Orfeo comes upon the King of Faërie hunting. Tolkien translates the passage thus:

There often by him would he see when noon was hot on leaf and tree, the king of Faërie with his rout come hunting in the woods about with blowing far and crying dim, and barking hounds that were with him; (ll. 281–286)

In chapter 8 of The Hobbit, the travelers first become aware of the forest’s inhabitants when they are trying to cross the black stream, they hear the sound of a horn and of hunting dogs, and a deer leaps across the stream among them. The elves, however, are not kindly disposed toward the dwarves—this is clear later on when Thorin is brought before the elves’ king and prefers to be thrown into a dungeon rather than reveal his quest. Their failure to welcome the famished dwarves within the circle of their fires stems from this animosity and is nearly the dwarves’ undoing.

The danger this time is more horrifying than either Gollum or the three trolls of the previous sections. If Mirkwood is an archetypal symbol of the unconscious self, the spiders represent the nightmare terrors lurking in the depths of the psyche. Indeed, Bilbo has been sleeping when he awakens to find himself in the nightmare of the giant spider’s web. As Rogers points out, the horror of the situation may have come from Tolkien’s own deepest subconscious fears: As a very young child in South Africa, he had been bitten by a tarantula (72), and the image of that may have haunted him still in his adult years (Ungoliant in The Silmarillion and Shelob in The Lord of the Rings repeat this same motif). Bilbo’s ability to slay the spider without the aid of anything but his own sword gives him a new confidence and is clearly a step in his maturing process. The fact that he names his sword “Sting” at this point marks a rite of passage for him: Like the sword, he has a new identity, one that is bold and dangerous to his enemies.

J. R. Wytenbroek calls this adventure the second stage of Bilbo’s maturation process. Rather than fleeing from evil, Bilbo has confronted and overcome it, and Wytenbroek attributes this new strength to Bilbo’s earlier confrontation of his shadow in the form of Gollum (7). Unlike Gollum, however, whom Bilbo ultimately accepts and for whom he has compassion, the spiders represent what Wytenbroek calls the embodiment of primordial darkness, an inhuman evil that is “the incarnation of nightmare. . . . [The spiders] are the demons of the soul, and they must be routed and conquered” (8). Bilbo’s conquest of the spiders, alone and unaided, is his symbolic conquest of his most deeply rooted fears and thus a stage of maturation beyond his earlier confrontation of his own shadow.

His manner of defeating the giant spiders— through his invisibility, his craftiness, his verbal insults that madden the creatures and his stonethrowing that hobbles them—is not the approach of the typical hero. Bilbo is more what Green calls a trickster figure in this episode (87). There are no direct confrontations or acts of physical strength, no clashes of warriors in single combat. This is not who Bilbo is; it is not who most people are. Bilbo the hobbit, a small person in the wide world, is an ordinary person who is capable of heroic actions that involve personal courage, a sense of responsibility toward his friends, and willingness to sacrifice himself for the good of the whole group. These are qualities that any person may display, and they form one of Tolkien’s major themes that also runs through The Lord the Rings : the ability of ordinary people to perform extraordinary acts of courage in difficult circumstances.

The growth in Bilbo’s character is acknowledged after he saves the dwarves from the spiders when it is discovered that Thorin has disappeared. At this point, all of the dwarves look instinctively to Bilbo for leadership:

Where were they, and where was their path, and where was there any food, and what were they going to do next? These questions they asked over and over again, and it was from little Bilbo that they seemed to expect to get the answers. (163)

Of course, Bilbo cannot answer any of these questions, and the next day, as the companions are desperately trying to find their way back to the path to get out of the forest, they are captured by the same elves that have already imprisoned Thorin. Bilbo’s invisibility allows him to escape capture and to sneak into the elves’ fortress undetected, but it is clear that the dwarves will need rescuing once again. This time, however, the problem is a more difficult one. The trolls, Gollum, and the spiders all offered real and imminent threats to the lives of Bilbo and his companions, and their defeat—and, in the case of the spiders, wholesale slaughter—was unquestionably the triumph of good over evil.

Moral ambiguity enters Bilbo’s world in the castle of the elves. The elves are not evil and are holding the dwarves because they have passed into the elves’ land and refuse to give an accounting of themselves. Bilbo realizes that the dwarves’ stubbornness and greed is in part responsible for their predicament, along with the mysterious enmity between elves and dwarves that he does not understand. As Green points out, rescuing the dwarves this time is less a matter of courage and more one of “discretion, tact, and cleverness,” as Bilbo recognizes it would be wrong to harm the elves and is even uncomfortable taking their food during the time he must remain invisible within their walls (Green 83). His respect for the elves is clear when, having put his escape plan into motion, he returns the keys to the sleeping jailer, so as not to get the hapless elf into trouble.

As with most of Tolkien’s legendarium, the dwarves’ escape from the elves’ prison has roots in mythic literature. One story that scholars have compared to this one is the tale of Odysseus’s escape from the Cyclops in The Odyssey. Green lists the following parallels in the stories: Both begin with the protagonists trapped underground; both involve getting the watchman falling asleep, and his inability to see the protagonist; both involve the group escaping while hiding in things that the watchman must open the door to let out; and in both cases, the hero’s own escape is the most difficult, as Odysseus must hold onto the lead ram while Bilbo has to grab onto the last barrel that is flung into the river (Green 91). Again, as with all of Tolkien’s “borrowings,” the source has been completely absorbed into the overall logic of the entire fantasy world. It is worth noting that here, once again, Tolkien uses birth imagery as Bilbo escapes from the elves’ cave, shooting forth in a gush of water from his womblike prison (Matthews 36). Bilbo has been reborn again, having gone through a further maturation process in his adventures with the spiders and the elves.

As Bilbo floats down the river, he is struck by the barrenness of the landscape throughout the area surrounding the distant Lonely Mountain, and he learns from the talk of the raftsmen that the land has become desolated since the coming of the dragon. Clearly the medievalist in Tolkien has constructed a wasteland here that recalls the motifs of the Grail legend. In its earliest Celtic form, the wasteland is associated with the infertility and impotence of its ruler, originally the maimed “Fisher King.” The fertility of the land and the healing of the king can be accomplished by the Grail Knight. In the Perceval legend, Perceval must ask the appropriate question (“Who is served by the grail?”) in order to bring about this restoration. In other manifestations, the Grail itself may be the vessel that heals the king, and so the knight’s quest is to find it.

Here, restoration of the land’s fertility must come with the slaying of the dragon. Since the object of Bilbo’s quest is the dragon hoard, perhaps the symbolic Grail is part of that treasure. The inhabitants of Lake-town—living, as they do, on the lake itself—may well be a remnant of the former Fisher King’s people, but they seem themselves to have degenerated. As Green asserts, they are chiefly interested in business and trade, and their leader is “a selfish and cowardly pragmatist” (85). They have neither courage nor virtue, and they are mainly concerned with their own self-interest when they welcome Thorin as the returned King under the Mountain, since they believe he will bring them a new golden era.

The novel’s fourth section ends, like the previous sections, with the company safe in a new refuge after passing through great danger. But the moral ambiguity introduced into the story with the elves’ castle continues here, for Lake-town is not the paradisal refuge of Rivendell, nor even the house of the isolated but clearly righteous Beorn. It is a town of folk who are, like the land they inhabit, decayed and in need of restoration. No wonder Bilbo ends this section worried about the pending adventure on the mountain.

Part 5 of the novel contains, once again, some of the motifs of earlier sections, most notably Bilbo’s descent into the cave, his confrontation of a great danger there, the spectacular deliverance of the companions and their emergence from the cave, and Bilbo’s obtaining a valuable talisman—this time the Arkenstone of Thrain to go along with his sword and ring. Notably missing from the end of this section is the respite received at Rivendell, Beorn’s House, and the lake town of Esgaroth. In fact, the dwarves’ exploration of Smaug’s abandoned cave could have been such a respite, but like the reader, the dwarves are at this point unaware of the deliverance that has occurred with the death of the dragon. As Green points out, that news is conveyed only through the highly uncharacteristic flashback that begins chapter 14. The effect of this is heightened suspense as the book draws to its climax (Green 96).

The fifth section begins, as Deborah and Ivor Rogers point out, with events reminiscent of the scene in The Fellowship of the Ring in which the entire fellowship waits outside the gate to Moria and cannot get in until Gandalf stumbles upon the secret password that opens the gate (73). Here Bilbo finds the way in partly by luck (as he did in discovering the key to the trolls’ cave) but also partly by his noticing what is going on around him—the thrush, the setting sun, the sliver of moon. This is Durin’s Day as he has heard it described from the runes on Thorin’s map.

Once the way in is discovered, it is, of course, up to Bilbo to descend into the passageway down to the dragon’s den. This, after all, was the reason he was brought along on the adventure: He is a burglar, and now he must steal some part of the treasure. He sees the glow of the dragon at the end of the tunnel and knows that he is heading directly into the dragon’s lair, and he is completely alone. He has symbolically faced his inner fears and demons in the previous two episodes, wherein the archetypal darkness of his unconscious and of his shadow were overcome. He has performed acts worthy of a mythic hero and been admired by the dwarves for his courage and resourcefulness. Now, alone in the dark tunnel, Bilbo engages in an internal struggle that no one else witnesses. From the traditional heroic point of view, he has done nothing. But Tolkien’s narrator makes it clear:

Going on from there was the bravest thing he ever did. The tremendous things that happened afterward were as nothing compared to it. He fought the real battle in the tunnel alone, before he ever saw the vast danger that lay in wait. (205)

Tolkien, though a medievalist, is still a modern writer, and his view of heroism is a modern one: True courage is internal. Brave acts are the outward manifestation of an internal state of mind, and so it is with Bilbo.

Ultimately what Bilbo finally snatches from the hoard of the sleeping dragon is a great two-handled cup. In this, Tolkien was clearly borrowing from the last part of Beowulf, in which a thief rouses the wrath of a dragon by stealing a cup from its hoard, and the dragon lays waste to Beowulf’s land after the thief brings Beowulf the cup that was stolen. In the same way, Smaug, enraged when he realizes that something is missing from his treasure, rushes out to burn the mountainside, including the door that he realizes must have been the burglar’s way into his den. Once more, it is Bilbo, through a kind of intuition that seems part of his luck, who warns the dwarves that they must come inside the tunnel to escape the dragon’s fire. Although they lose their horses, it is only Bilbo’s foresight and quick response that save the dwarves from certain death.

Bilbo again must take the lead as he and the dwarves are trapped within the tunnel into the mountain. Invisible, he makes his way back to the dragon’s lair and this time actually engages Smaug in conversation. Tolkien’s model for dialogue with dragons was in fact Sigurd’s conversation with the wounded dragon Fafnir in “The Lay of Fafnir,” a poem from the Poetic Edda . In that poem, Sigurd conceals his name from Fafnir, while Fafnir sows distrust in Sigurd’s mind toward his mentor, the dwarf Regin. Here, Bilbo also conceals his identity, instead giving Smaug riddling descriptions of himself as “clue-finder,” “the guest of Eagles,” and “Barrel-rider.” The exchange recalls the earlier riddle contest with Gollum, and Bilbo seems to have learned something from that contest that helps him with his quick thinking here, for the narrator says he is “pleased with his riddling” (213), although he does give the dragon reason to suspect the men of Lake-town of aiding the dwarves. Smaug, at the same time (like Fafnir with Sigurd), succeeds in undercutting Bilbo’s trust of the dwarves, pointing out how they are waiting outside and sending Bilbo in to do the dangerous work. Readers familiar with The Silmarillion or The Children of Húrin (2007) will recognize the parallel to Glaurung’s confrontation with Túrin. As Rogers and Rogers point out, Bilbo the burglar is more successful in resisting the dragon’s wiles than the traditional hero, Túrin, who succumbs easily, and with disastrous effects (74).

The traditional hero in The Hobbit is the man Bard. At first, he is simply a “grim-voiced man” who warns the men of Esgaroth that they must prepare for the coming of the dragon. Bard is a descendant of Girion, lord of Dale, before that city’s destruction. This, along with his residence in the Lake-town, associates him with the archetypal figure of the Fisher King in the Grail myth, whose restoration will reinvigorate the Waste Land. In fact, he is able to begin the process of healing by slaying the dragon that has laid waste the land. But he is only able to do this because, first, he has inherited his ancestors’ ability to understand the language of the thrushes; and, second, because Bilbo, in the unlikely role of Grail Knight, has been able to discover the necessary information (as the Grail Knight was required to ask the right question)—in this case regarding the weak spot in the soft underbelly of the dragon. That is the spot to which Bard directs his final arrow, the symbol of his heritage handed down from his fathers.

Even Bard, however, is not a completely traditional hero. Shippey points out that, in fact, it is not the battle rage of the berserker nor the one-onone heroism of Beowulf’s episodes of single combat that wins the day against Smaug. Rather, it is the modern and very British concept of discipline— the coolness of the well-trained soldier who does his duty under fire and is ready and prepared to carry out orders under any circumstances ( Road to Middle-earth 81–82). In the midst of the panic and of all others fleeing the city under Smaug’s attack, Bard keeps his own troops together and under control, steady in their defense of the city, and it is this discipline that enables him to fight to his last arrow. This is the sort of military discipline that had secured the British Empire through the 19th century, and it was the sort of training Lieutenant Tolkien would have had, and instilled in his own troops, at the Battle of the Somme. “It is discipline that does for Smaug,” Shippey says, so that “The death of Smaug, like Bilbo in the dark, lets us see courage in a modern way” ( Road 83).

In the meantime, of course, Bilbo and the dwarves have been exploring the halls of Thorin’s forefathers, filled with the dragon’s hoard. While Bilbo receives the wondrous gift of the elven mithril coat, and there is a good deal of joy in the treasure, this joy is purely a joy in earthly treasures, and Bilbo comes to see his companions’ limitations, perhaps in particular since he has been prepared to see them in this light by the dragon’s persuasive speech. Much of their motivation has been simply greed, and now Thorin is nearly mad with desire for the Arkenstone. That great jewel, the Heart of the Mountain, is for the dwarves a treasure of special, even mythic, proportions—it is essentially their Holy Grail. As Douglas Anderson points out, the word comes from the Old English word eorclansta¯n , meaning “precious stone”—a word appearing in line 1208 of Beowulf (in Tolkien, Annotated Hobbit 293).

By this time, Bilbo himself has matured to the extent that he has outgrown the dwarves, whose desire for the treasure seems excessive to him. As the narrator says, “Mr. Baggins kept his head more clear of the bewitchment of the hoard than the dwarves did” (228). As for the Arkenstone, Bilbo has already taken it and hidden it in his cloak. One might look at this as an act of greed on his part, and it is clear that he is momentarily overcome by the beauty of the great jewel. This may seem like the kind of “bewitchment” the narrator had denied in Bilbo. Nor is it clear why he does not yield the stone to Thorin when he knows that the dwarf lusts after it. It appears that Bilbo is not sure himself why he has kept the Arkenstone, which suggests that the act is another instance of Bilbo’s intuition, a part of his “luck.” He suspects that the stone will be important in the future and wants to be able to control what happens to it.

It is worth noting that in these chapters, specifically in chapters 12 and 13, Bilbo begins to quote his father as he thinks over how to respond to the challenges of the dragon. “‘[T]hird time pays for all’ as my father used to say,” he says when he understands that Thorin expects him to visit the dragon’s lair and thereby earn his reward, though he has already saved the dwarves twice (203). “‘Every worm has his weak spot,’ as my father used to say,” he says when he is about to go down into the dragon’s lair for the second time (using worm in the sense of the Old English wyrm, meaning “serpent” or “dragon”) (211). Finally, when he and the dwarves are trapped in the tunnel without food and their only way out is through the dragon’s lair, Bilbo quotes his father for the third time: “‘While there’s life there’s hope!’ as my father used to say” (223). It is surprising to see Bilbo quoting his father, the Baggins side of his personality, at the moments when he is about to confront the dragon, the most dangerous aspect of the adventure that he has come on at the urging of his Tookish side. But in fact, Bilbo’s adventures with trolls, goblins, wargs, and spiders, not to mention his dangerous meeting with Gollum, have clearly satisfied his Tookish side, and the maturation symbolized by the rebirths he has experienced in the past several chapters has meant, as well, the integration of all parts of his personality into a unified self. While the Bagginses may have been unexciting and incurious people, “solid and comfortable” as the narrator says early on (17), there is also something very practical and reliable about such people. And while they might not be anxious or do anything “queer” like travel on adventures, they could be counted on to do what was expected of them. In this sense, Bilbo’s Baggins side makes him solid and dependable, makes him willing to do the job he was hired to do, even though it means meeting a live dragon. It is this Baggins side that will not let Bilbo neglect his duty, and in this sense it might be remarked that Bilbo’s kind of courage is not much different from Bard’s—both rely on the more modern sense of duty and discipline to get their jobs done.

Without a doubt, the most remarkable aspect of these chapters is Bilbo’s selfless “betrayal” of the dwarves. In an action that completely redefines the concept of heroism that has been one of the novel’s major themes, Bilbo chooses to turn over the Arkenstone, for Thorin the embodiment of treasure and the power of his kingship, to the dwarves’ enemies. Green has defined Bilbo’s behavior in these chapters by reference to Carl Jung’s notion of mystical participation (Green 88). This is what Jung called the behavior associated with group identity, the unconscious identification of the individual will with the collective will, the extreme manifestation of which is mob behavior. Such identification causes individuals to accept or even participate in behavior that they would never agree to on their own, so that morality becomes a matter of popular opinion. As Green says, “the trouble with mystical participation is that the morality and taste of a single person is often superior to that of any group” (88). Through their various adventures to this point, Bilbo has grown to identify himself with the dwarves and their goals, but in order to become a completely individuated character (to use Jung’s terminology), Bilbo must separate himself from the group, particularly when the group is making unethical decisions.

This is indeed Bilbo’s finest hour, all the more remarkable for his ability to distance himself from his companions when he recognizes the error of their ways. At this point, Bilbo has reached his highest level of maturity and individuation. But these events mark Thorin’s lowest point. He has proclaimed himself King under the Mountain and assumed his hereditary role, including possession of the treasure. In this role, he is essentially acknowledged by the ravens that served his grandfather, but when the ravens advise him against his rash preparations for war, he ignores them. Bilbo recog-nizes that Thorin will not hear dissenting opinions, and his plan is the only thing that will prevent a disastrous battle. For Thorin is beyond reason: As Rogers and Rogers point out, he has taken what in traditional literature might be seen as a heroic stand, adamantly guarding his home and treasure against impossible odds (75). But, in fact, Thorin is denying the rights of all other claimants to the treasure despite the legitimate demands of Bard, whose slaying of the dragon made Thorin’s position possible. Green suggests that the dragon has simply been replaced by Thorin, whose madness he calls “dragon sickness,” a condition that involves both his mad determination to defend the mountain against impossible odds and his unquenchable lust for the Arkenstone, the symbol of his own power and ego. According to Green, Thorin is “Inflamed to suicidal stubbornness by belief that the Arkenstone is near,” and “would only become worse if he possessed it” (100). His confrontation with Bard’s herald, when he fires an arrow that strikes the herald’s shield, underscores his contrast with the true hero. Bard’s arrow had struck true, penetrating the dragon’s breast. Thorin’s has stuck quivering in the shield of his enemy. In Freudian terms, Thorin’s arrow, a phallic symbol, has shown itself impotent, and the kingdom he seeks to establish can only be sterile and infertile.

If Bilbo is the Grail Knight, he has here found a way to restore fertility to the wasteland created by the dragon—and perpetuated by the dragonlike greed in the heart of Thorin. In the original Grail legend, as related in Chrétien de Troyes’ Conte le Graal , Perceval fails to ask the right question (“Who is served by the Grail?”) and so fails in the quest. Bilbo, who has shown himself a champion questioner and solver of riddles in the Gollum episode as well as with the dragon, seems here not only to have asked the right question about the Arkenstone, but worked out the answer as well. No one will truly be served by returning the stone to Thorin. But the Arkenstone can serve all parties with an interest in the treasure by serving as a means by which war between dwarves, elves, and men can be avoided.

What may be even more surprising at the end of this episode is Bilbo’s declining the elf king’s offer of sanctuary. His sympathy toward Bombur, whom he fears will be blamed if he fails to return, and his overall loyalty to his friends, even though their cause is wrong, are admirable qualities, but more impressive than these is his forthright admission to Thorin that he has given the Arkenstone to the dwarves’ enemies. This full acceptance of the responsibility and willingness to take the full consequences of his decision mark the apex of Bilbo’s development. If heroism is a main theme of the novel, as Rogers and Rogers say, “the question of what a hero does is answered, no matter how unheroic the manner of his actions” (76).

Not surprisingly, Gandalf reappears at precisely the moment of Bilbo’s decision to return to the dwarves. Up until the moment when he left the company upon their entrance into Mirkwood, Gandalf had been the group’s leader and protector. But in Mirkwood and the elven king’s castle through their adventures with Smaug on the mountain, Bilbo has been serving in that capacity, tentatively at first but with more and more conviction until this moment, when the matured Bilbo has been forced to act the role of the adult in the face of Thorin’s petulant obsessions. As Green remarks, “Gandalf returns precisely when Bilbo has successfully enacted the Gandalf-role in his absence, when the hobbit no longer needs him” (101).

Chapter 16 contains two important biblical allusions. The title of the chapter, “A Thief in the Night,” alludes to the passage in 1 Thessalonians 5:2, where Paul tells the church that the day of the lord—i.e., judgment day—will come “like a thief in the night”—that is, unexpectedly. I would suggest that Tolkien was echoing, as well, Christ’s sermon near the end of the Gospel according to Matthew, wherein he advises his listeners to be watchful, for no one will know when the kingdom of heaven will come. In Matthew 24:23, he declares that if a householder had known when the thief would come, he would not have allowed the thief to break in. Bilbo is, of course, literally a thief in the night, but the allusion suggests something about his task: perhaps that it is a judgment on Thorin, for one thing; and perhaps that Bilbo, who brings peace by his sacrifice, is in this context a Christ figure—the one who will come, according to Paul, like a thief in the night. But the second allusion also recalls that same sermon in Matthew: In the parable of the talents, the Master says to his faithful servant, “Well done, good and faithful servant” (Matthew 25:21, JB), as Gandalf says to Bilbo at the end of this chapter. Thus, Bilbo is pronounced a faithful servant to the master (who represents the Lord in the parable). If Tolkien was indeed suggesting parallels between Bilbo’s actions and Christ’s sermon on the coming of the kingdom and the Day of Judgment, he was also alluding to a swift and unanticipated judgment. In the context of The Hobbit, that may in fact suggest the surprising attack by the goblins and wargs—in some ways a judgment on the others, who are so caught up in their quarrel among themselves that they have had no inkling of the coming danger.

While Bilbo’s heroics have prevented war, they have earned him Thorin’s sworn enmity. But, of course, there can be no lasting peace, as the armies of goblins and wargs descend upon the assembled armies unlooked for. What this says about peacemakers is uncertain. They may be blessed as the children of God according to the beatitude from the Sermon on the Mount, but it seems that as long as there is pure irrational evil in the world—of the sort represented by the goblins and wolves—then their efforts may be doomed to failure. There are times, it seems, when one must fight to defend life and freedom. And in those cases, one must choose the right side. In this way, Thorin redeems himself. It is clear to him that he must stand with elves and men in this battle, and his unexpected last charge from the mountain turns the tide of battle, at least momentarily. Although his attack will mean his death, it is also his salvation.

This sixth section ends like the previous sections: with a divine deliverance that comes without warning. This time, it is once again the eagles who come to the rescue and reinforce the armies of Bilbo’s side. Bilbo himself, invisible through the power of his ring, is knocked unconscious just as he proclaims the coming of the heavenly birds, and so he does not see Beorn himself arrive to sweep all before him. For the third time, Bilbo passes out, to awaken (as he did in Gollum’s cave and in Mirkwood) to a new stage of his maturity. But this third time (the critical number in all folk traditions) will usher Bilbo into a new world.

This final section of the novel brings a sense of closure to Bilbo’s adventures by, first, restoring relationships among the different races of people (men, elves, and dwarves) and between individuals among them (Bard, Thorin, and Bilbo); second, by taking us through Bilbo’s return journey, thereby closing the circle of his going forth and his coming back to the place he had left; and third, by demonstrating that Bilbo has come back a changed hobbit, a more mature and complete individual.

The conclusion begins with Thorin’s restoration to sanity and his reconciliation with Bilbo. Thorin’s realization during the battle of who his true allies were sparked him to heroic action, and although it cost him his own life and those of his close kinsmen Fili and Kili (who, in the fashion of medieval Germanic warriors, had lost their lives on the battlefield protecting their liege lord), he has been restored to sanity and healed of the dragonmadness that had obsessed him. For his part, Bilbo kneels before Thorin as King under the Mountain and receives his blessing—a mixture, as Shippey points out, of “ancient epic dignity and a modern wider awareness: on the one hand, ‘I go now to the halls of waiting, to sit beside my fathers,’ on the other, recognition of ‘the kindly West’ and ‘a merrier world’” ( J. R. R. Tolkien 44). It is a mixture that Bilbo himself now encompasses in his own now balanced personality. For his part, he leaves the tent and weeps, his tender, “kindly” side manifesting itself at this point. There is a kind of irony in the fact that Thorin is buried with the Arkenstone on his breast. It is not unlike the funeral pyre of Beowulf, which contains all the treasure of the dragon that he died to achieve. The treasure, the Arkenstone, was never anything more than a symbol, and its power as a symbol was generated largely by Thorin himself. Now that he is dead, the symbol will be buried with him, and he himself will become the Heart of the Mountain.

When the treasure is finally divided, Bilbo very sensibly realizes that he could never carry his fourteenth share back home with him, and he takes only two small chests. The journey home with Gandalf allows Bilbo, and the reader, to spend a little more time with Beorn (with whom they spend the winter months) and Elrond (whom they visit again in the spring), and it also allows Gandalf and Bilbo to recover the trolls’ treasure that they had buried on the first stage of their journey. Each of these help to bring a sense of closure to the narrative, as Bilbo comes full circle in returning home.

When Bilbo does arrive back in the Shire, however, it is clear that he is not simply returning to his old life. Bilbo himself is a different person, so his home is not the same, either. The first hint of this comes when he breaks into spontaneous song (“Roads go ever on and on”) at the sight of his own hill in the distance. Gandalf’s reaction to the song is, simply, “You are not the hobbit that you were” (284). This fact is underscored symbolically as Bilbo arrives at his own house and finds that his neighbors and relatives all believe he is dead and are auctioning off his furniture. His cousins, the SackvilleBagginses (who are in the process of “sacking” his home, or “villa”), refuse to believe that he is the real Bilbo Baggins. It has been suggested that here again, Bilbo’s story parallels that of Odysseus (as it has before, in the “Barrels out of Bond” chapter), as the returning warrior must rid his home of those who are ransacking it in the belief that he has died. In fact, the old Bilbo has died and been given new life as a completely individuated individual, one who is unafraid of his adventurous side but also, as he revealed in the last few chapters, one who sees the virtue of his practical and humble side as well.

But Tolkien does not end the story here. In one final coda, Gandalf and Balin visit Bilbo years later, and he learns how things have turned out under the mountain, where a new master has taken charge of Lake-town and all are living in peace and prosperity. The old songs, Bilbo notes, “have turned out to be true, after a fashion” (286), and Gandalf chides him for his skepticism. Prophecies, the wizard says, are no less true just because one is himself involved with bringing them to pass. The question raised has to do with destiny and free will, and Tolkien hints here at a characteristically medieval view of the matter. God’s foreknowledge, which would be the origin of any true prophecy, does not preclude free will, since God, from his eternal vantage point, sees what humans will do without causing those actions and shapes his providential plan accordingly. It was an argument made famous by Boethius in the sixth century, and it was Boethius’s Consolation of Philosophy that popularized the views throughout medieval Europe. In the end, just as he had throughout the novel, Tolkien bases The Hobbit on a well-mixed variety of medieval sources.

Although he does not appear until very late in the novel, Bard is a character of major significance, as the one who actually slays the dragon Smaug. Bard is first introduced as a “grim-voiced fellow” (235) who warns the people of Esgaroth, the Lake-town, to prepare for the attack of the dragon, and who later commands a troop of bowmen who, displaying a very British kind of discipline, defend the city to the last man as the dragon sweeps over them breathing fire.

Bard is descended from Girion, the last lord of Dale, the city destroyed by the dragon when he also destroyed the dwarves’ kingdom of Erebor and captured the Lonely Mountain and its hidden treasure. As a true descendant of the royal line, he understands the speech of the thrushes, and at the vital moment of the dragon attack, the thrush informs him of the weak spot in the dragon’s belly. Bard sends his last black arrow, one inherited from his princely forebears, straight and true into Smaug’s heart.

Afterward, Bard leads an army of men, allied with the elven king of Mirkwood, to the Lonely Mountain to claim a share of the treasure, and he narrowly avoids a disastrous war with the dwarves when he and they are forced to fight the Battle of the Five Armies against goblins and wargs. Bard ultimately rebuilds Dale and reestablishes his kingship there. In some ways, Bard recalls the Fisher King of the Grail legend, whose restoration to the throne heals the dragon’s wasteland and brings fertility back to the kingdom. As the tale’s traditional hero, Bard also acts as a foil to Bilbo, whose heroism is of a very different variety but is real nonetheless.

Bilbo Baggins

Bilbo is a hobbit—a small person half the height of a human, with large hairy feet— who lives in a well-furnished hole in The Hill. Hobbits are generally a highly provincial group, devoted to the comforts of home (particularly their meals) and to small, everyday occurrences. Bilbo himself is the son of Bungo Baggins, a very respectable hobbit, and Belladonna Took, the beautiful daughter of the Old Took, whose family was reputed to have fairy ancestors. From them Bilbo has inherited the luxurious hobbit hole called Bag End. He has also inherited the two sides of his nature: the stolid, respectable Baggins side and the adventurous Took side. At the beginning of the novel, the middle-aged Bilbo has managed to suppress his adventurous Took side for all his adult life, but it is awakened by the wizard Gandalf, who chooses him to be the 14th member of an expedition for treasure to the Lonely Mountain with Thorin Oakenshield and 12 other dwarves, for whom he is to act as burglar. The journey becomes not only the story of adventure and a quest for treasure, but the story of Bilbo’s development as a character, from the protected infantilism of his womblike hole to the heroism of one who confronts a dragon.

Bilbo makes a rather poor showing early in the quest, though he survives near capture by trolls through his own luck and Gandalf’s protection, and he receives the talisman of the elven blade Sting after this initiation into the heroic role. Later, in the goblins’ cave fortress, Bilbo must be carried by the dwarves as they flee from the goblins, until he is lost and knocked unconscious. After he awakes, he finds a ring (again, through his uncanny luck) and is confronted by the creature Gollum, whom he defeats in a riddle contest by asking what he has in his pocket (it is the ring, which was Gollum’s treasure). He escapes from Gollum and the goblins through the power of the ring, which makes him invisible, and through this adventure, he gains confidence. After Gandalf leaves the company before they plunge into the darkness of Mirkwood, Bilbo rescues the dwarves from giant spiders through his invisibility and his short sword Sting. When Thorin Oakenshield is captured by Wood-elves, the other dwarves begin to look to Bilbo for leadership. After the other dwarves are captured, Bilbo finds a way to rescue them from the elven king’s dungeons, and he sends them down the river packed in empty barrels.

By now Bilbo has become the group’s de facto leader, and it is he who is sent into the lair of the dragon, from whom he steals a cup. The dragon, Smaug, engages Bilbo in a conversation and learns something about the dwarves from this, but Bilbo learns more: He sees a weak spot in the underbelly of the dragon that the birds eventually tell the archer Bard about, and Bard is able to destroy the dragon based on the intelligence Bilbo has found. By this time, Bilbo has embraced his adventurous Took side but has also begun to quote from his father, accepting some of the wisdom of his more staid and provincial Baggins side. He has reached a state of maturity that Carl Jung called individuation. He has also fulfilled most of the expectations of the archetypal hero of myth and legend.

Bilbo’s greatest heroic act, one that demonstrates his ultimate personal development, occurs after the dragon’s death, when he and Thorin’s company are besieged in the mountain by the forces of men and elves who want their just share of the treasure. Bilbo’s gift to the elven king of the Arkenstone of Thrain, the one great jewel of the treasure for which Thorin will do anything, ensures that the standoff will end peacefully—or would if the army of goblins and wargs did not arrive just when peace was about to conclude. In this act, Bilbo finds a higher morality than that of his peers and stands apart from them as a true hero. When he returns to his home at Bag End, he finds that he has been presumed dead and that his cousins are about to take possession of his home. In fact, he has changed and is not the same hobbit he was when he left. Although he is able to get his home back and settle back into his comfortable life again, he never loses the reputation of one who is a friend of elves and wizards.

Gandalf/Pinterest

Gandalf the wizard had his origins in a picture postcard that Tolkien brought back with him from a holiday in Switzerland in 1911. The picture, from a painting by J. Madelener called Der Berggeist (or “spirit of the mountain”), shows an old man with a white beard, wearing a cloak and a wide-brimmed hat (Carpenter, Tolkien 51).

Gandalf has encouraged the expedition of Thorin and Company, and he apparently recognizes something in Bilbo that others cannot see when he recommends the hobbit as the 14th member of the expedition. It is Gandalf who gives Thorin the map of Thror, which holds the key to entering the dragon’s den.

Aside from being the moving force behind events in the book, Gandalf takes the part of the archetypal “Wise Old Man” figure of the story, like Merlin in the Arthurian legend. He is a protective father figure who helps the group out of predicaments with the trolls and the goblins, but he leaves them at a crucial time—their entry into Mirkwood. In terms of Bilbo’s growth as a character, Gandalf must leave the company, since Bilbo can never mature into the hero he becomes unless he leaves the protection of the father figure and is forced to face dangers on his own. It is only when Bilbo has reached the pinnacle of his heroic stature that Gandalf reappears to pronounce the judgment “Well done” upon Bilbo’s actions (258).

Gandalf seems less powerful here than he will be in The Lord of the Rings. Along with Bilbo, he hides from the trolls and bests them only through trickery. He cannot defend the company against the army of goblins and wargs and is caught in the trees with them. He is, however, a respected counselor and adviser to those in power. Still, there is in The Hobbit a small indication of his role in The Lord of the Rings. He speaks with Thorin in the first chapter about finding the dwarf’s father in the dungeons of “the Necromancer” (37), and he later tells the dwarves that he cannot accompany them to Mirkwood because of “some pressing business away south” (137), which turns out to be helping to expel this Necromancer (who is, in fact, Sauron) from his fortress of Dol Guldur in the south of Mirkwood. In these episodes, Gandalf can be seen to presage his broader and more powerful role in the trilogy.

The creature Gollum appears in only one chapter of The Hobbit —“Riddles in the Dark”—but he is one of the most memorable of the novel’s characters and one who becomes vitally important in The Lord of the Rings . Here, Gollum is a creature who lives by stealth in an underground cave, subsisting on the slimy fish he finds in the underground lake or on the flesh of goblins that have become separated from their fellows and whom Gollum kills and eats through the power of invisibility that he has from his ring. The ring, he says, was his birthday present, and he refers to it as his “precious”—a term he also seems to use when talking to himself (a habit he seems to have developed from long years of living alone in the darkness). Thus, he either personifies the ring in his own mind or sees it as an extension of himself. This explains why he is so devastated when he finds he has lost the ring, and why he hates Bilbo so ferociously when he realizes that Bilbo has, in fact, found it and used it to become invisible to escape his vengeance.

In The Hobbit, the origins of the creature Gollum are never explored, nor is the origin of the ring itself. The name Gollum presumably is an imitation of the sound the creature makes in its throat when it swallows, although the name also sounds like the legendary golem of Jewish folklore—a mindless inhuman automaton. But there is some humanity in Gollum, who seems to enjoy the riddle contest with Bilbo (at least as long as he thinks he will be able to eat Bilbo in the end) as an actual social event that allows him to interact with another sentient creature for the first time in untold years. Gollum’s mind is still keen, if twisted, and he is able to solve Bilbo’s riddles and pose difficult ones of his own, although his riddles tend to be about things he knows best: a mountain, fish, and time. In some ways, Gollum is also a foil to Bilbo, reflecting perhaps in an extreme way on what Bilbo would have become if he had never left his own comfortable underground home: completely self-centered and thinking only about his next meal and the personal treasures he has hoarded.

Smaug is the great dragon that, in the days of Thorin’s grandfather, destroyed the dwarves’ kingdom of Erebor as well as the city of Dale at the foot of the Lonely Mountain, drove out the dwarves and men, and claimed the great treasure trove of the dwarves as his own. In The Hobbit, revenge on the dragon and reclaiming the treasure are the ultimate goals of the expedition of Thorin and company, although no one seems to have had any idea what, precisely, to do about the dragon that sits brooding on the treasure hoard. He is depicted as a great serpent with huge wings and fiery breath that he uses to burn and flatten the city of Lake-town in the novel. His hide is thick and resistant to blades or arrows, and although his underbelly is soft, his years of lying upon the treasure have encrusted it with precious stones that serve as an impenetrable armor.

Smaug knows every item in his hoard intimately, and he is infuriated when he finds that Bilbo has snatched a drinking cup from it. His keen sense of smell detects the invisible Bilbo when the hobbit comes down the tunnel to his hoard the second time, and his conversation with Bilbo at that point reveals the dragon to be intelligent and subtle. He sees through Bilbo’s riddles and plants seeds of doubt in Bilbo’s mind concerning the dwarves’ appreciation of his services. Smaug is also vengeful, attempting to destroy the dwarves and all their ponies after the theft of his cup and traveling south to destroy Esgaroth, the Lake-town, for the village’s part in aiding the dwarves and Bilbo on their journey. Of course, this results in his death, for Bilbo has seen the weak spot on his left breast during their conversation, and that information is carried to the archer Bard by an old thrush. Bard’s arrow strikes Smaug’s heart and kills him.

Tolkien based the character of the dragon chiefly on two sources. One was the third section of Beowulf, which depicts a great fire-breathing dragon who sits brooding on a treasure hoard, destroys a kingdom because of the theft of a cup from his hoard, and ultimately is killed by King Beowulf. The other source was the dragon Fafnir in Old Norse literature, particularly his depiction in “The Lay of Fafnir,” from the Elder Edda, where the dragon (wounded in his soft underbelly) is depicted as devious and tries to plant doubts in Sigurd’s mind about his mentor, the dwarf Regin. Tolkien uses the same idea of an insinuating beast whose hypnotic voice attempts to confuse and mislead his victim in his story of Túrin, both in The Silmarillion and in The Children of Húrin.

Oakenshield Thorin is the grandson of Thrain, the last dwarvish King under the Mountain in Erebor and heir to that kingdom. When he was a young man, the dragon Smaug drove him, along with his father and grandfather, from the Lonely Mountain, usurping their fortress and the great treasure they had accumulated there. At the beginning of The Hobbit , Thorin plans to lead 12 of his followers on an expedition to his ancestral home in an attempt to take revenge on the dragon and to recover some portion of his family’s lost treasure. In this he has the help and guidance of the wizard Gandalf the Grey, who recommends the hobbit Bilbo Baggins as a 14th member of the expedition.

Thorin acts as leader of the expedition, although he is not particularly effective. He speaks authoritatively, but in the beginning it is Gandalf who sees the company through its difficulties, and eventually it is Bilbo who rescues the dwarves from their difficulties and who actually confronts the dragon. In large part, Thorin is a foil to Bilbo: Whereas Bilbo is a humbler, self-effacing figure whose growing confidence never manifests itself as bluster or egoism, Thorin is highly conscious of his birth and his position, stubbornly resisting any perceived diminution of his authority. His obstinate silence in the face of the elven king’s questions about his presence in Mirkwood may seem like bold defiance, but it is part of a tendency that ultimately nearly destroys him and his companions.

Like most dwarves, Thorin has a deep fondness for treasure, and when he has gained back the dragon’s hoard and reclaimed his hereditary position as King under the Mountain, that fondness is transformed into pure greed, and his natural haughtiness is twisted into arrogance, ingratitude, and rashness. He refuses to share the treasure with the lake men who helped him on his journey, or with Bard, the dragon slayer, defying their besieging army and provoking them to attack. When he learns that Bilbo has given the besieging army the Arkenstone of Thrain, chief object of Thorin’s desire, he breaks with the hobbit who has saved his life, disavowing him.

Thorin redeems himself in the end, however, and recognizes the madness into which his greed has led him. He becomes a true leader, charging from his mountain fortress with his followers and rallying men, elves, and dwarves to him as he leads a final charge in the Battle of the Five Armies. Dying from his wounds, in his final meeting with Bilbo he renounces his harsh words and recognizes the hobbit’s simple wisdom and courage as preferable to his own behavior. He is buried under the Lonely Mountain, with the Arkenstone on his breast.

Analysis of J. R. R. Tolkien’s Novels

Analysis of The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring

Analysis of The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers

Analysis of The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King

Fantasy Novels and Novelists

Further Reading Campbell, Joseph. The Hero with a Thousand Faces. 3rd ed. Novato, Calif.: New World Library, 2008. Carpenter, Humphrey. Tolkien: A Biography. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1977. Couch, Christopher L. “From Under Mountains to Beyond Stars: The Process of Riddling in Leofric’s The Exeter Book and The Hobbit.” Mythlore 51 (Autumn 1987): 9–13, 55. Frye, Northrop. Anatomy of Criticism. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1957. Green, William H. The Hobbit: A Journey into Maturity. New York: Twayne, 1995. Jung, Carl G. Four Archetypes: Mother, Rebirth, Spirit, Trickster. Translated by R. F. C. Hull. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1969. Lewis, Paul W. “Beorn and Tom Bombadil: A Tale of Two Heroes.” Mythlore 97/98 (Spring/Summer 2007): 145–159. Matthews, Dorothy. “The Psychological Journey of Bilbo Baggins.” In A Tolkien Compass, edited by Jared Lobdell, 27–40. LaSalle, Ill.: Open Court, 1975. Propp, Vladimir. Morphology of the Folktale. 2nd ed. Translated by Laurence Scott. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1968. Rogers, Deborah Webster, and Ivor A. Rogers. J. R. R. Tolkien. Boston: G. K. Hall, 1980. Shippey, Tom. The Road to Middle-Earth: How J. R. R. Tolkien Created a New Mythology. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2003. ———. J. R. R. Tolkien: Author of the Century. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2000. Tolkien, J. R. R. The Annotated Hobbit: Revised and Expanded Edition. Edited by Douglas A. Anderson. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2002. ———. The Hobbit. Rev. ed. New York: Ballantine, 1966. ———. The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien. Edited by Humphrey Carpenter. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1981. Wytenbroek, J. R. “Rites of Passage in The Hobbit.” Mythlore 13, no. 4 (Summer 1987): 5–8, 40.

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Discussion Questions

Does Bilbo’s character develop new principles and virtues over the course of the narrative , or do the events of the journey simply bring out the virtue that was dormant within Bilbo the whole time? Use at least three examples from the text to support your answer.

Is Gandalf a wise and prudent friend, or a manipulative puppet master directing Bilbo and the dwarves however he sees fit? Discuss at least three instances of Gandalf’s stratagems.

Is Thorin a good leader, or is he simply the leader by default based on his ancestry?

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Essay Topics and Study Questions on The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien (08.01.14 by Robert Morris) - var disqus_shortname = 'tolkienlibrary'; (function () { var s = document.createElement('script'); s.async = true; s.type = 'text/javascript'; s.src = 'https://' + disqus_shortname + '.disqus.com/count.js'; var dsq = document.createElement('script'); dsq.type = 'text/javascript'; dsq.async = true; dsq.src = 'https://tolkienlibrary.disqus.com/embed.js'; (document.getElementsByTagName('HEAD')[0] || document.getElementsByTagName('BODY')[0]).appendChild(s); }()); Comments

Suggested topics for essay

1. Describe how Tolkien relies on humor to portray the adventures in The Hobbit . Which authorial techniques does he use to bring a light element to the most serious parts of the plot? Does this style of writing make The Hobbit a comedy? 2. How does Tolkien portray the importance of wealth? What is the attitude towards material goods and property of the characters in The Hobbit ? Whose approach is praised and approved in the book and why? 3. What factors does the author use to define the characters’ identity in The Hobbit ? Are the persons in the plot determined by race, family and other static factors, or they have power over their personal development?

Study questions

1. Does Thorin fall under the definition of a ‘hero’? Is the death of this character expected and justified after his actions throughout the novel?

Thorin is a complex individual that shows both lovable and repulsive characteristics. By the start of the Battle of the Five Armies, Thorin Oakenshield deserves disrespect and antipathy by most readers and many of the characters in the book. However, his personality also has aspects worthy of respect, especially when he shows exceptional bravery and determination while reclaiming the treasure of his ancestors from Smaug. He rises and falls throughout the book, and his failings are mostly associated to the common characteristics of all dwarves – imperious ego and greed for gold. Thorin’s greatest sin is the ingratitude he shows to the characters that support him, such as the lake men who gave their lives for the victory over Smaug. Thorin is so adamant about the legitimate right to that gold, that he is dishonorable to his benefactors. However, to his credit, he does regret his mistakes in the end and admits his wrongs to Bilbo. However, it is nearly impossible to list this character under the ‘heroic’ category. The main thing he lacks is the ability to think of plans and execute them. Bilbo is the one who gets him through the difficulties that come at his way. 

2. Bilbo seems to be completely happy in the hobbit community, but he is not entirely accepted there. At the end of the novel, does he belong in Hobbiton? How can the relation between simple life and heroism be balanced? How does Tolkien approach this issue?

Heroism seems contradictory to the simple life at the beginning of the novel, but these two concepts become complementary at the end of the novel. Bilbo’s resumption of the simple life after proving his courage and wisdom is part of his heroic characteristics. As Thorin says, if all proud warriors learned from the way hobbits live, the world would be a much happier place. When Bilbo returns to Hobbiton and embraces simple life at the end, he proves that evil is obsolete. Even though Bilbo doesn’t belong in the community as far as the hobbits are concerned, there is no other place he belongs to more to than Hobbiton.

3. Are humans portrayed as a good race? Where do they fit in between the races of Middle-Earth?

All races of Middle-Earth possess very distinguishing, constant characteristics. Humans have goodness in them, but this aspect of their personality varies. Tolkien presents humans as creatures capable of determining their own graciousness. Bard, as a great example, is grim, but a kind man that can easily be dubbed as a hero. The old Master of Lake Town, on the other hand, is devious, calculating, and selfish in a way that is almost pitiful when he dies seizing the stolen gold out in the desert. Although the good in humans often prevails, they are somewhere in the middle between the goblins, who are the really evil ones, and elves, who are the true good race.

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• The Hobbit Summary

The Hobbit is the story of Bilbo Baggins , a hobbit who lives in Hobbiton. He enjoys a peaceful and pastoral life but his life is interrupted by a surprise visit by the wizard Gandalf . Before Bilbo is really able to improve upon the situation, Gandalf has invited himself to tea and when he arrives, he comes with a company of dwarves led by Thorin. They are embarking on a journey to recover lost treasure that is guarded by the dragon Smaug , at the Lonely Mountain. Gandalf has decided, much to Bilbo's chagrin, that the hobbit will make an excellent addition to the team and Bilbo is going to play the role of a burglar. As they start on their way, Bilbo has serious misgivings.

On the journey, Bilbo and the dwarves encounter all sorts of villains and obstacles. They have not traveled very far when they stumble upon a group of trolls. A combination of Gandalf's wizardry and Bilbo's burglary land the group out of harm's way. They are able to replenish their supplies with the food that they find in the trolls' lodging place and they soon move on, pensive and fearful.

Gandalf leads the group to a place where they can get a short rest and they pass through the country of the elves. It is June and all of the joys and songs of midsummer are on display. Bilbo and the dwarves stay at the house of Elrond , an old friend of Gandalf. As they continue on their journey, Bilbo is depressed and nostalgic. The group passes through a mountain chain and two of the dwarves, Fili and Kili , locate a cave for the group to sleep for the night‹but the cave turns out to be inhabited by Goblins. Bilbo's startled yell helps to save the group.

And after these difficulties, there is trouble with giant spiders and with elves before the group actually arrives at Smaug's mountain. In these travels though, Bilbo has outwitted a creature called Gollum , and gained a ring that makes him invisible. This is certainly helpful in battling the Giant Spiders and getting the dwarves out of the Elvenking's prison. But the ring is especially needed when the group arrives at Smaug's mountain. Once there, the dwarves argue about who will enter Smaug's cave and since Bilbo is the burglar, Bilbo must go ahead and face the challenge. He follows the treacherous course into the heart of the cave and though he is sure he is in danger, he is attracted by a red glow that compels him to approach. This is the glow of Smaug. Bilbo manages to steal a cup and hurriedly exits but Smaug awakens and begins to rage. The lake-town of Esgaroth is the victim of Smaug's terror, for the information that he learns from Bilbo gives him reason to believe that they are involved in the theft of his cup. Bard , the grim-voiced, grim-faced man, is willing to challenge Snaug and he has help from a messenger bird, called a thrush. The thrush relays information that Bilbo discovered while in Smaug's lair: the hollow of Smaug's left breast is not plated with his red-gold armor. When Bard strikes this spot, Smaug falls dead, his massive body crushing the city of Esgaroth. The survivors seek Bard as their new king but Bard provisionally declines the offer, though he intends to establish his own city. As the news of Smaug's death spreads, various groups advance towards the mountain‹for there is treasure to be had.

Thorin continues to speak of the Arkenstone because it means so much to him, as it is an heirloom and he threatens to take revenge on whoever has prevented him from getting it. In spite of this warning, Bilbo decides that he will leave the mountain and offer the Arkenstone to Bard; then, Bard can offer the Arkenstone to Thorin in exchange for a fair portion of the treasure. Thorin is thinking of ways to avoid a fair bargain and when battle erupts, it includes men, elves and dwarves. They are ready to attack one another until Gandalf announces the approach of the Goblins, bats, wolves and Wargs. The armies re-align themselves and conduct what became known as the "Battle of Five Armies." The Goblins and Wild Wolves battle against the Elves, Men and Dwarves. Gandalf has expected some sort of assault but it did come swifter than he had expected. The Goblins are initially repelled and ambushed by the Elves, but a reinforcement of Goblin troops tilts the balance of the battle. It is only with the final arrival of the Eagles, that the forces of good are sustained. Unfortunately, Bilbo is "smote" with a "stone hurtling from above...and he fell with a crash and knew no more."

When Bilbo regains consciousness, he finds that he is alone and he has to take his ring off so that the individuals who were sent for him can find him. After recovering in the company of Gandalf, Bilbo makes his way back home and their journey‹though covering the same perilous terrain‹is far more pleasant and mild than it was the first time. As Bilbo says, "So comes snow after fire, and even dragons have their ending." Gandalf and Bilbo pass through Rivendell and eventually make their way to Hobbiton. It is summer and Bilbo is disappointed to learn that he is legally dead. Greedy cousins, the Sackville-Bagginses are auctioning his property because he is "Presumed Dead." They are more than a little displeased at his arrival and it takes several years for Bilbo to sort out the legalisms. In fact, Bilbo had to buy back a good deal of his own furniture‹his reputation, for better or worse, was harder to reclaim. But as for Bilbo, son of Belladonna Took , "for ever after he remained an elf-friend, and had the honour of dwarves, wizards, and all such folk as ever passed that way.

The Hobbit Questions and Answers

The Question and Answer section for The Hobbit is a great resource to ask questions, find answers, and discuss the novel.

find one sentence on pages 175, 186, and 187 which demonstrates a narration that speaks directly on the reader.

"Poor Mr. Baggins - it was a weary long time that he lived in that place all alone, and always in hiding, never daring to take off his ring, hardly daring to sleep, even tucked away in the darkest and remotest comers he could find."

Chapter 16 A Thief in the Night

Gandalf is proud of Bilbo's problem solving skills. Bilbo knew his actions would have consequences, and yet, he did what he believed to be right anyway.

Who are Bilbo’s visitors? How does Bilbo react to them?

Thirteen dwarves and one wizard. Bilbo feels irritated and annoyed by them, yet interested in what they have to say.

Study Guide for The Hobbit

The Hobbit study guide contains a biography of J.R.R. Tolkien, literature essays, quiz questions, major themes, characters, and a full summary and analysis.

• About The Hobbit
• Character List
• Chapters 1-4 Summary and Analysis

Essays for The Hobbit

The Hobbit essays are academic essays for citation. These papers were written primarily by students and provide critical analysis of The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien.

• Tolkien's Hobbit: From Children's Story to Mythic Creation
• Heroes and the Hobbit
• Sting and Bilbo: Significance of the Small in The Hobbit
• Archetypes of Englishness in The Hobbit and Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
• The Impact of Setting in The Hobbit

Lesson Plan for The Hobbit

• About the Author
• Study Objectives
• Common Core Standards
• Introduction to The Hobbit
• Relationship to Other Books
• Bringing in Technology
• Notes to the Teacher
• Related Links
• The Hobbit Bibliography

Wikipedia Entries for The Hobbit

• Introduction
• Concept and creation
• Critical analysis

Home — Essay Samples — Literature — Hero's Journey — The Hobbit Heros Journey Analysis

The Hobbit Heros Journey Analysis

• Categories: Hero's Journey The Hobbit

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J.R.R. Tolkien

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Virtually every one of The Hobbit ’s primary characters—including both the heroes and the villains—is at least partially motivated by a desire for unnecessary material things. Smaug , the primary antagonist of the novel, is so greedy that he notices when Bilbo steals a single cup from his vast collection of treasure. (Tolkien notes that his anger is that of a rich man who’s lost something he never uses.) The dwarves are struggling to reclaim what is rightfully theirs from Smaug, but when they succeed in their quest, it becomes clear that their love for treasure is almost as obsessive as Smaug’s—notably, they refuse to use their riches to repair the town Smaug destroys, even though it is during its destruction that Bard kills Smaug, guaranteeing the dwarves their wealth. Similarly, the wood-elves who imprison Thorin and the other dwarves believe that they have a claim to some of the dwarves’ treasure. Tolkien doesn’t bother to clarify whether the dwarves or the elves are correct in this dispute—the point is that both sides are flawed by their greedy, irrational desire for things they don’t need. Even Bilbo, who is largely indifferent to the dwarves’ talk of glory and riches, shows occasional flashes of greed. Under the Misty Mountains, he pockets Gollum ’s ring without thinking twice about it, and later takes the Arkenstone for himself because he’s afraid that the dwarves won’t honor their promise to give him one-fourteen of their treasure. (It’s also worth keeping in mind that Bilbo and dwarves are constantly in want of food, and when they eat, they eat huge feasts—while this isn’t greed per se, it does suggest that it’s natural to want things, and perhaps to want more than one needs.)

If everyone is at least a little greedy, Tolkien seems to say, then the best they can do is try to limit their nature with reason and self-control. Bilbo may be the best example of how to overcome greed—though Thorin offers him one-fourteenth of the dwarves’ treasure in return for his services, he’s satisfied to take back a smaller portion, reasoning that it’s enough to keep him satisfied for the rest of his life. Similarly, the dwarves, elves, and men ultimately overcome their greed by uniting together to defeat the wolves and goblins. On his deathbed, Thorin seems to renounce his former greed, saying that he’s now traveling to a place (presumably, the afterlife) where this is no gold or treasure. Greed, then, is ultimately futile—compromise and personal sacrifice are more important for maintaining peace and building mutual prosperity (as is evident in the fact that back before Smaug the communities of Dale, the Kingdom under the Mountain, and the elves of Mirkwood traded together and developed prosperity and mutual connection by doing so). In fact, the novel seems to place greed in direct contrast to trust and cooperation, and every overwhelmingly greedy character lives in almost complete isolation: Smaug, Gollum, and, for a time near the end of the novel, Thorin. Looked at on a larger scale, the races of dwarves, men, and elves are also separated by greed and the mistrust sown by greed. It is only after the attacking armies of the dwarves force the dwarves, elves, and men to band together in fellowship against this common enemy that they are able to rebuild their communities and attain their former prosperity.

Greed, Trust, Fellowship ThemeTracker

Greed, Trust, Fellowship Quotes in The Hobbit

As they sang the hobbit felt the love of beautiful things made by hands and by cunning and by magic moving through him, a fierce and jealous love, the desire of the hearts of dwarves. Then something Tookish woke up inside him, and he wished to go and see the great mountains, and hear the pine-trees and the waterfalls, and explore the caves, and wear a sword instead of a walkingstick. He looked out of the window. The stars were out in a dark sky above the trees. He thought of the jewels of the dwarves shining in dark caverns. Suddenly in the wood beyond The Water a flame leapt up – probably somebody lighting a wood-fire-and he thought of plundering dragons settling on his quiet Hill and kindling it all to flames. He shuddered; and very quickly he was plain Mr. Baggins of Bag-End, Under-Hill, again.

He had never thought that the dwarves would actually dare to approach Smaug, but believed they were frauds who would sooner or later be discovered and be turned out. He was wrong. Thorin, of course, was really the grandson of the King under the Mountain, and there is no knowing what a dwarf will not dare and do for revenge or the recovery of his own. But the Master was not sorry at all to let them go. They were expensive to keep, and their arrival had turned things into a long holiday in which business was at a standstill. "Let them go and bother Smaug, and see how he welcomes them!" he thought. "Certainly, O Thorin Thrain's son Thror's son!" was what he said. "You must claim your own. The hour is at hand, spoken of old. What help we can offer shall be yours, and we trust to your gratitude when your kingdom is regained."

There it is: dwarves are not heroes, but calculating folk with a great idea of the value of money; some are tricky and treacherous and pretty bad lots; some are not, but are decent enough people like Thorin and Company, if you don't expect too much.

"Now I am a burglar indeed!" thought he. "But I suppose I must tell the dwarves about it sometime. They did say I could pick and choose my own share; and I think I would choose this, if they took all the rest!" All the same he had an uncomfortable feeling that the picking and choosing had not really been meant to include this marvelous gem, and that trouble would yet come of it.

As you see, the Master had not got his position for nothing. The result of his words was that for the moment the people quite forgot their idea of a new king, and turned their angry thoughts towards Thorin and his company. Wild and bitter words were shouted from many sides; and some of those who had before sung the old songs loudest, were now heard as loudly crying that the dwarves had stirred the dragon up against them deliberately!

Bilbo thought that Thorin would at once admit what justice was in them. He did not, of course, expect that any one would remember that it was he who discovered all by himself the dragon's weak spot; and that was just as well, for no one ever did. But also he did not reckon with the power that gold has upon which a dragon has long brooded, nor with dwarvish hearts. Long hours in the past days Thorin had spent in the treasury, and the lust of it was heavy on him. Though he had hunted chiefly for the Arkenstone, yet he had an eye for many another wonderful thing that was lying there, about which were wound old memories of the labors and the sorrows of his race.

From that treasure Bard sent much gold to the Master of Lake-town; and he rewarded his followers and friends freely. To the Elvenking he gave the emeralds of Girion, such jewels as he most loved, which Dain had restored to him. To Bilbo he said: "This treasure is as much yours as it is mine; though old agreements cannot stand, since so many have a claim in its winning and defense. Yet even though you were willing to lay aside all your claim, I should wish that the words of Thorin, of which he repented, should not prove true: that we should give you little. I would reward you most richly of all." "Very kind of you," said Bilbo. "But really it is a relief to me. How on earth should I have got all that treasure home without war and murder all along the way, I don't know. And I don't know what I should have done with it when I got home. I am sure it is better in your hands."

The Hobbit: 20 Differences Between The Book & The Movies

• From Gandalf seeking out Bilbo for the quest to the dwarven contract and Bilbo leaving Bag-End, key changes enhance the cinematic experience.
• Film additions like the White Council and new characters like Tauriel and Azog add depth and dramatic tension, although some changes may divide fans.
• Sting's history, Bilbo's age difference, and Frodo's cameo all depict divergences from the original book, shaping the cinematic adaptation.

When it comes to The Hobbit book vs movie there are many notable differences, and some are quite surprising. When Peter Jackson announced that he’d be directing a trilogy based on J. R. R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings prequel, The Hobbit , the response was one of excitement. However, the trilogy left some fans of the book were confused, given how little the amount of source material was available to flesh out such an ambitious project. In his transformation of the book into a trilogy of big-budget Hollywood action blockbusters, Jackson took many creative liberties.

This inevitably meant that the differences between The Hobbit book and movies were stark. Jackson implemented changes galore, adding in plenty of new content which was loosely adapted from Tolkien's other works. Some of it hit the mark, while the rest felt like superfluous filler. There's no question that in the case of The Hobbit book vs movie, Jackson did his best to please audiences. However, there were a few alterations that many fans didn't feel fit the story at all, making it seem like Jackson was trying to add extraneous connections to LOTR to capitalize on its success.

11 Lord Of The Rings Movie Changes Peter Jackson Was Right To Make

Gandalf's reason for seeking out bilbo, the gandalf of the novel never met child bilbo.

Gandalf's reasons for finding Bilbo are different when looking at The Hobbit book vs movie. In the novelization of The Hobbit , it is established that Gandalf seeks out Bilbo for the quest, particularly because of a memory he had of his mother. According to Gandalf, he was impressed by Belladonna Took, because of her adventurous spirit and personality, and he hoped that side would come out if Bilbo joined them on an adventure.

In the film, Gandalf reminisces about knowing Bilbo as a young boy, who adored the thought of danger, excitement, and adventure. The change isn't a huge one, but it does say a lot about Bilbo's character as he appeared in the book, versus the film adaptation. Either way, it's an opportunity for Gandalf to deliver one of his best lines of the trilogy .

The Dwarven Contract

Peter jackson made the paperwork longer for comic effect.

Another one of the biggest differences between The Hobbit book and movie is the dwarven contract. The dwarves play a central role in both The Hobbit movies and the original book, with the presence of the race as a whole far greater than it was in Lord of the Rings. In fact, it's partially due to a contract with the dwarves that Bilbo leaves the shire in the first place. The details of the dwarven contract with Bilbo Baggins are never explicitly specified, which is why it's so comical to see the film version go on forever when unrolled.

It was Jackson's way of injecting some comedy into the film, especially at such an early start to the story.

It was Jackson's way of injecting some comedy into the film, especially at such an early start to the story. In the book, the contract is a simple note left on his mantle, with two short paragraphs acting as content. That's a stark contrast to the film version, and one of the few changes Jackson made that actually helped make the story better.

Bilbo Leaving Bag-End

In peter jackson's version of the tale hobbits never travel light.

Even the way that Bilbo leaves Bag-End contrasts in the case of The Hobbit book vs movie. This change was small, but noticeable, and it occurs when Bilbo finally decides to make a go of it and join the dwarves on their adventure. In the film, he races after them with a backpack full of stuff and catches up with them before they get too far down the road. In the book, however, it is said that Bilbo left Bag-End without even a handkerchief in his pocket.

In truth, Jackson's change was probably for the best, as any Hobbit would never run off without a few of the comforts of home. It's established in the Lord of the Rings movies that Hobbits enjoy their creature comforts, with the likes of Samwise Gamgee bemoaning his of any food other than Lambas bread even while in grave danger, and Pippin insisting on second breakfast. With this context in the cinematic franchise, it makes much more sense that Bilbo left The Shire well-prepared.

Knowledge Of The Necromancer

Gandalf already knew about the antagonist in the book.

Sauron is a mystery to those who only watched the movies , but changing Gandalf's knowledge of the Necromancer arguably broke canon when it comes to The Hobbit book vs movie. In The Hobbit films, Gandalf learns of the Necromancer when he speaks to Radagast, which is what Peter Jackson used as the reason for Gandalf leaving Thorin and company.

This change was likely made to ensure audiences weren't lost along the way as the story unfolded

However, in the book, Gandalf is already well aware of the Necromancer. In J.R.R Tolkien's version of The Hobbit , Gandalf has already visited Dol Guldur, and heard of the Necromancer, as it was there that he encountered Thráin, the father of Thorin Oakenshield, and received the map and key that he later gives to Thorin . This change was likely made to ensure audiences weren't lost along the way as the story unfolded, as having to flashback to Gandalf's goings-on prior to the events of The Hobbit would have required even more screentime in an already lengthy trilogy.

Dwalin's Beard

A subtle yet noticable aesthetic difference.

Though it was not a massive change that impacted the plot, there was one element of Dwalin's appearance that classifies as one of the differences between The Hobbit book and movie. Interestingly enough, the book says, " It was a dwarf with a blue beard tucked into a golden belt, and very bright eyes under his dark-green hood. " This is a stark change from how Dwalin is shown in the movie, with a brunette beard and dark eyes.

While some readers have argued over the ages that it wasn't meant to literally be blue, others believe Dwalin's beard really was meant to be that way, in order to seem "otherworldly." When the script was written for the Hobbit film, Jackson opted to take out a lot of the whimsy to make it more in line with The Lord of the Rings , meaning Dwalin's blue beard was one of the first things to go.

Contacting The Eagles For Help

Once again the eagles created conversations in the lord of the rings prequel.

Another one of the biggest changes in the case of The Hobbit book vs movie sees Gandalf acting when he canonically did not. When Azog and his orcs descend upon the party at the end of the first Hobbit film, Gandalf contacts Gwaihir, the Lord of the Eagles , via a carrier moth. This was done primarily to act as a nod to the first Lord of the Rings film, where Gandalf escapes imprisonment from the rooftop of Orthanc, in much the same way.

Given Gandalf's relationship with the Eagles, the film version is probably the better one, despite the small change made to Tolkien and Lord of the Rings canon.

In the book, however, Gandalf never makes the attempt. Rather, Gwaihir himself notices the ruckus from afar, and soars through the skies to come to their rescue. It's hard to tell which version is better, but given Gandalf's relationship with the Eagles, the film version is probably the better one, despite the small change made to Tolkien and Lord of the Rings canon.

Lord Of The Rings: 25 Most Powerful Beings In The Tolkien Universe, Ranked

Thranduil's face, almost everything about the elven lord has been expanded.

More key differences between The Hobbit book and movie include Thranduil having a much more fleshed-out backstory that isn't in the novels. Interestingly, Thranduil is never referred to by name in The Hobbit book, but is simply called "the Elvenking." However, there's an even bigger difference between the text and the movie, which is Thranduil's burned face that he hides with magic.

Thranduil attributes this to the "fire serpents in the North," but this is not mentioned at all in the book, nor is there any record of elves being able to hide old wounds. It was primarily added to give Thranduil a more menacing and obsessive character, even though he proves himself to be one of the most powerful heroes in The Hobbit . Thranduil is one of several character in The Hobbit Peter Jackson added more dimensions to in order to turn a single book into a trilogy of movies, and it's one change that definitely makes the story better.

Tricking The Trolls

The hobbit movies granted bilbo a great hero moment.

The great The Hobbit book vs movie debate also sees a cunning act perpetrated by Bilbo originally belonging to Gandalf. In The Hobbit movies, it is Bilbo Baggins who cleverly tricks the trolls as they discuss the best ways to cook the dwarves . Eventually, the sun rises, and they are caught unawares, leading to their permanent demise.

Giving him this achievement certainly makes him seem more cunning and valuable to the overall quest.

In the book, it is Gandalf who actually deceives the trolls by throwing his voice, pretending to be one of them, and making them argue among themselves until dawn arrives , and turns them to stone. In the films, Gandalf was not present during the scene. The reason for this change is most likely to make Bilbo seem like a more competent hero, and giving him this achievement certainly makes him seem more cunning and valuable to the overall quest.

The White Council

Saruman and galadriel make an appearance the book doesn't include.

Differences between The Hobbit book and movie also see the inclusion of the White Council. The Hobbit movies feature the White Council, with both Saruman and Galadriel present in Elrond's home of Rivendell. However, neither Saruman nor Galadriel are mentioned in The Hobbit book, and the White Council does not meet during the narrative.

Though this is different from the book, it does act as fan service, as it means that viewers got to see some more of their favorite characters from The Lord of the Rings movie trilogy, as well as adding some more depth and drama to. The lack of the White Council in The Hobbit may also be because Tolkien wrote The Hobbit several decades before Lord of the Rings. Including Galadriel and Saruman in the cinematic prequel deepens ties between the two, and it's entirely possible Tolkien would have included them had the order he wrote the stories been reversed.

Jackson Added A Lot Of Material To Turn The Hobbit Into A Trilogy

Arguably the most glaring change brought up in The Hobbit book vs movie debate is the length. The Hobbit is a rather short book, especially in comparison to the intimidating size of Tolkien's Lord of the Rings trilogy . The question remains as to why Jackson or the studio would ever think it was a good idea to flesh the story out across three films.

Opinions on whether the additional length of The Hobbit trilogy definitely vary.

By placing various amounts of filler in between established moments from the book, Jackson tried to fill in the blanks and create a stronger story. In truth, the entire tale could have been told in two parts, avoiding unnecessary filler and focusing on a tight narrative. Opinions on whether the additional length of The Hobbit trilogy definitely vary. However, it does make sense from a business perspective for obvious reasons (as it meant 3 movies worth of profits), and it does seem thematically fitting that the prequel to Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy is also one.

The Prologue

A welcome and scene-setting addition to the story.

One of the most welcomed differences between The Hobbit book and movie was the addition of a prologue. The world of Lord of the Rings is particularly complex, which is why the prologue in Fellowship of the Ring was so effective. Audiences were given something very similar at the start of The Hobbit , and even though it didn’t occur in the book, it did actually help establish the narrative moving forward.

Middle-earth lore was built across many books, with plenty of interesting details only appearing in footnotes. With such a wellspring of detailed information, these prologues helped create exposition and further pull audiences into the magnificent fantasy world. The introduction of a prologue to The Hobbit movies was also helpful for established Tolkien fans who'd read the novel. Since there were many changes to come, the prologue in The Hobbit established Peter Jackson's vision of Middle-earth before Lord of the Rings and that it would be different from the novel.

The Presence Of Radagast The Brown

Elevating the wizard was a wise move.

In The Hobbit , Tolkien mentions the wizard Radagast The Brown only a handful of times as one of the five wizards of Middle-earth. In the movies, Peter Jackson greatly expands his role, allowing the character to interact with the likes of Gandalf and Bilbo, while starring in his own scene in which he helps avert a group of goblins from catching up with the main characters. Having an additional wizard definitely enhanced the cinematic version of Middle-earth, and showed that Gandalf and Saruman weren't the only ones out there.

Radagast also provides comic relief as an innocent, eccentric, and bumbling character who hides a deep, vast power.

Radagast also provides comic relief as an innocent, eccentric, and bumbling character who hides a deep, vast power. The expanded story of Radagast's character is another welcome change in The Hobbit book vs. movie debate. Obviously, these parts of his personality never came across through Tolkien’s brief mention of his existence, but it was nice to see another wizard besides Gandalf and Saruman on Middle Earth.

All Wizards/Istari In Lord Of The Rings

The presence of tauriel, some felt evangeline lilly's character was unnecessary.

Sometimes new characters work, but Tauriel's addition is another one of the differences between The Hobbit book and movie that had audiences scratching their heads because of the way Jackson handled her arc. Played by Lost’s Evangeline Lilly, Tauriel is a character exclusive to the film adaptation of The Hobbit, and she isn’t in any of The Lord of the Rings films, the first The Hobbit movie, or the book, at any point.

This was one of the more controversial additions to the film trilogy, and one many fans felt was unnecessary. She was seemingly created to provide a strong, relatable female character that doesn’t really exist in The Hobbit , and also to act as one part of a tragically romantic love saga between herself, and the dwarven character Kíli. It also led to what seemed like a Hobbit plot hole, due to her character's unfinished story arc.

The Presence Of Azog

An additional villain in peter jackson's trilogy caused some chagrin.

The topic of Azog in The Hobbit book vs movie debate causes an issue, as his presence in the film speaks to a timeline problem. The character of Azog is one of the most powerful villains in the Hobbit/LOTR universe , and he does exist in Tolkien's established lore, but he was beheaded by the character Dain long before the events of The Hobbit took place . As such, the character was essentially lifted from the pages of Middle-earth history, and deposited into the trilogy to act as a principal antagonist.

Some readers took umbrage that Azog was included as another antagonist when he didn't originally have a part in the central story of The Hobbit .

With one arm missing, Azog proved to be an effective and intimidating villain that could act as a counterweight to Thorin Oakenshield's character. His story arc ended in suitably dramatic fashion during a final showdown between the two, in the third and final film. However, some readers took umbrage that Azog was included as another antagonist when he didn't originally have a part in the central story of The Hobbit .

The Presence Of Legolas

Orlando bloom's return had no literary basis.

One of the more debated negative differences between The Hobbit book and movie was the inclusion of Legolas. Peter Jackson wanted to establish some consistency between The Hobbit and Lord Of The Rings , even if the former was a prequel. As such, audiences see Legolas appear in both The Desolation of Smaug, and The Battle of the Five Armies .

However, Legolas doesn’t appear in the book at all, and it feels as if he was deposited into the film trilogy as a way to bring back an audience favorite. In truth, he added little to the overall story, and in some cases, actually deprived other characters of the limelight. Much like some other changes, it is entirely possible that Tolkien would have included Legolas had he wrote The Lord of the Rings first. Since he didn't, though, it's impossible to know for certain, which is why Orlando Bloom's return for the prequel movies will forever be a controversial change for hardcore Tolkien scholars.

The Barrels

A simple alteration that enhanced the cinematic experience.

It might not be as important as many other differences between The Hobbit book and movie, but the barrel scene is nevertheless worth mentioning. When the dwarves escape the hall of the elven king, they float down a river using barrels as boats. The movies shows the dwarves in open barrels, allowing them both to communicate with one-another and be seen by the audience. In the books, these are sealed, rather than open with the characters sticking out.

Unlike some differences between The Hobbit books and movies, the alteration here didn't disrupt the established plot in any way

Unlike some differences between The Hobbit books and movies, the alteration here didn't disrupt the established plot in any way, and was purely aesthetic. This allowed for a more visual connection to the scene, as it established the dwarves' presence, and also the battle that followed shortly thereafter. It also added more tension and excitement to the story, by introducing such a chaotic battle.

The Dwarf Deaths

Peter jackson's movies did three characters a serious injustice.

One of the most heated points of debate in the case of The Hobbit book vs movie has to do with Kíli, Fíli, and Thorin. One piece of storyline mentioned consistently between The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings is the death of Kíli, Fíli, and Thorin. However, the manner in which they died in the movies quickly became a point of contention among readers of Tolkien's works.

The movies show the three being slaughtered rather brutally during a fight with Azog and his orcs. The book finds them charging into a battle that they know they won’t survive, dying as brave heroes as a result. This might seem like a small change, but it's one that many have felt disrespected their characters. The book versions of the characters died fearlessly, whereas their cinematic equivalents were simply overpowered in a fight they likely believed they could win.

The Frodo Cameo

Some felt elijah woods returning to link both trilogies was unwise.

More scrupulous readers of Tolkien's works were a little put off by Frodo's inclusion in The Hobbit movie, as he didn't appear in the book at all. It can be argued that one of the more pointless moments in The Hobbit was Elijah Wood’s cameo appearance as Frodo Baggins. It occurred when Bilbo told him a very rough version of his original adventures. Since Tolkien would not write The Lord of the Rings until many years after The Hobbit, Frodo was not even a concept.

The cameo scene felt similar to what Jackson was trying to accomplish by including Legolas.

In fact, Tolkien’s version of this was the reverse, something that only further upset readers. At the start of The Fellowship of the Ring , it is likely that the opening scene of The Shire was built around the aging Bilbo, in order to glean some connection to the previously released Hobbit book. Therefore, it wasn't worth bringing Frodo into the Hobbit films at all, and the cameo scene felt similar to what Jackson was trying to accomplish by including Legolas.

Why The Ring Didn't Affect Bilbo The Way It Did Frodo

The history of sting.

The act of Bilbo finding, choosing, and naming his sword Sting was an important piece of development for the character, given its status as one of the most iconic weapons of Tolkien's works . Of course, this also turns out to be one of the biggest differences between The Hobbit book and movie. In the movie, he is simply given it by Gandalf, after the wizard finds it on the floor of the troll hoard.

The entire scene of the company finding the dwarven weapons seems a bit lazy in comparison to the books. It was more of a convenient way to establish the presence of the blades, with very little exposition or attention given to each of them. Tolkien goes into much more detail about Sting and the swords history in his writing, and it seems surprising that of all the elements of the story, Sting is one that Jackson dumbed-down, since the sword was already an established presence in his cinematic Lord of the Rings trilogy.

Bilbo's Age Difference

One of the biggest issues audiences had about the Hobbit trilogy was the changing of lead actor Ian Holm to Martin Freeman. This was understandable from a production perspective, as the late Ian Holm was already in his 70s by the late 2010s when The Hobbit was being produced. However, the chagrin from some fans wasn't due to disliking Martin Freeman, as his performance in the role was widely praised.

It was rather that Bilbo's age in the movies was a complete contradiction of Bilbo's character from the books , and by far the biggest sin cited in The Hobbit book vs movie debate. It is clearly established that Bilbo's possession of the One Ring meant that he maintained his youthful appearance for decades after finding it. Yet, the stark contrast in physicality between the two actors pretty much robs the story of that fact and creates a gaping plot hole.

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

As Bilbo Baggins celebrates his 111th birthday, he recounts the extraordinary journey that changed his life. Guided by the enigmatic wizard Gandalf, Bilbo joins a band of Dwarves on a perilous quest to reclaim their homeland from the fearsome dragon, Smaug. Along the way, they face treacherous foes, unearth long-buried secrets, and discover unexpected courage within themselves. With danger lurking at every turn, Bilbo's adventure unfolds in a tale of friendship, sacrifice, and the enduring power of hope.

Director Peter Jackson

Release Date December 14, 2012

Distributor(s) Warner Bros. Pictures

Writers Philippa Boyens, Fran Walsh, Peter Jackson, Guillermo del Toro

Cast Hugo Weaving, Elijah Wood, Ian McKellen, Andy Serkis, Richard Armitage, Martin Freeman, Cate Blanchett, Ken Stott, James Nesbitt, Ian Holm, Christopher Lee

Rating PG-13

Sequel(s) The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug

Aleteia 2024 Summer Book List: Books for Teens

John Touhey | Aleteia

Summer is a time for teens to relax from the stresses of school. At the same time, it is important to keep them engaged — intellectually, creatively, and spiritually. They will naturally associate books with schoolwork, of course. That’s why it’s so important that we propose books to them that are actually be interesting and fun to read!

The seven books on this list fit those criteria to a tee. Here you will find exciting stories and engaging characters, as well as fascinating takes on the events and culture that have shaped today’s world.

Note: Many of these books may be too challenging — intellectually and thematically — for younger readers. Fret not, however! Our list of Summer Books for Kids will publish soon! And also check out our fiction and nonfiction  summer book recommendations for  adult  readers . Some of those may appeal to older teens as well.

Summer book recommendations for teens

Human Adventure Books, 2024.

Three teens find themselves lost in the woods without explanation or resources. A mysterious stranger offers them help, but should they accept? Sara Allegrini’s The Net asks the kinds of urgent questions that any lonely or alienated teenager will instantly relate to. It doesn’t hurt that the story is full of nail-biting suspense.

2 murder at penwood manor

Loyola Press, 2023.

Murder at Penwood Manor is the fifth book in the award-winning Harwood Mysteries series by Antony Barone Kolenc. Set in medieval England, we start off in a Benedictine Abbey where an orphaned boy with no memory of his past takes the name Xan (short for Alexander). Xan and his new friends set out to uncover his identity — but run into other perplexing mysteries and grave dangers as the series continues. Readers can begin with the first book, Shadow in the Dark , or dive straight into Penwood Manor , which skews older than the earlier books in the series.

3 A Lion for a Tomb

Unseen Books, 2024.

Novelist, Aleteia contributor, and homeschooling mom Sarah Robsdottir says of this book: “My teens and I really enjoyed Corinna Turner’s latest release  Lion for a Tomb  this year. The award-winning author of the  I Am Margaret  series does not disappoint with this educational and entertaining book about a modern teen whose life is powerfully impacted by St. Ignatius of Antioch.”  

4 TOLKIEN AND FAITH

Voyage Comics, 2022.

If your teen loves The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit , then you will definitely want to add Tolkien and Faith to their shelf. The book is a collection of fun and insightful essays that explain the Catholic vision at the heart of the great writer’s mythology and storytelling. If you are a Tolkien fan, you will probably be tempted to steal the book from your teen so that you can read it, too — or you could just order two copies!

5 Saint Joan: The Girl Soldier

Louis de Wohl was one of the most popular Catholic writers of the 20th century. His enthralling biographies of the saints are still read day, probably because he made them so relatable, even at their most heroic. Saint Joan: The Girl Soldier , written for young people, is one of de Wohl’s best. Your teens probably know the basic story of the young woman who rose to command an army at God’s behest, but De Wohl helps readers enter into her spirit in a way that is never preachy.

6 Cathedral

Harper Collins, 1971 & 1995.

Yes, Cathedral by David Macaulay is a kid’s book, but it remains captivating for every age group — in fact, the older you get, the more you will want to dive deeper. How did the people of the Middle Ages manage to conceive and construct these immense temples of God? The answer to that question is what makes Cathedral, Forge, and Waterwheel the perfect “read more about” book on the topic. Teens who love science will be especially delighted to learn about the impressive technical feats of the supposed “Dark Ages.” It turns out maybe they weren’t so dark after all.

We will publish individual articles about these books throughout the summer. And don’t forget to check out our adult and kids’ lists (coming soon) as well!

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