Thanks for the riddle link, Kathisa, but it is most annoying not to have the answers. Could you recommend a book about the Exeter riddles generally?
I broke down and bought another copy of TH, so now I’m catching up.
Do the colors of the drawves’ hoods have any significance? They reminded me of the rainbow of shirts that Gatsby had.
I may be mistaken about Bilbo–overgeneralizing from the fact that most hobbits (particularly those from the Hobbiton area) don’t know how to swim. I’ll check tonight, when I’ve got the book at hand.
Dol Goldur is the Necromancer’s stronghold in southern Mirkwood. It was Gandalf’s “business away south”, although that’s not explicitly stated in the book. Again, I can’t remember for certain whether or not it’s mentioned by name in The Hobbit, but it is mentioned when Gandalf explains why they shouldn’t try to circumnavigate the forest–goblins in the foothills to the north, and the Necromancer in the forest to the south. Remember that even Bilbo, sheltered as he was, had heard of the Necromancer (or so Gandalf implied). It was implicit (or so I always thought) that the Necromancer’s power was spreading northward, and that was why Mirkwood was so dark and dangerous at the time.
That would be “dwarves’,” you know, that dwindling race of dwarrows who delve and dwell underground. Yeesh.
Balance:
Teach me to pay closer attention. Look here in “Riddles in the Dark,” when Bilbo encountered Gollum’s subterranean lake:
Actually it was (the business anyway, if not the name Dol Goldur), on page 283 of my edition. But since that’s further than this discussion has yet progressed, I’ll leave it at that for now.
Incidentally, thank you, Euty, for moving the thread to the Cafe. I hope we’ll have a livelier discussion now that we don’t have to compete with all those “Cut or Uncut?” surveys over in IMHO anymore.
They were certainly terrible posers for me when I first read TH in high school. I can’t recall if I got a single one right. I’m certain I got most of them wrong.
I did find it interesting that you found them easy at 8, since so did my son (I read the book to him during bath times, and we’re now up to the Prancing Pony in LotR). He got all but one correct, and he didn’t seem to strain too much either. You are supporting my theory–despite your “edge”–that it is acquired mental baggage and pre-conceived notions that make the riddles difficult. They are much more simple for someone innocent.
Although I do consider my boy a particularly clever fellow…
Katisha, you said “all but one” of the riddles was traditional, and Bob Cos, you say your son guessed “all but one” of them; is the “one” in each case “What have I got in my pocket?”
So Bilbo’s idyll concludes as his barrel-barge floats out of the forest and draws near to the Lake-Town. He gets his first glimpse of his company’s objective:
Then he rides on to Esgaroth, a big city surrounded by water. Hmmm…did Tolkien ever visit America? Because this is beginning to sound a lot like Seattle and Mt. Rainier.
It’s interesting to see how the dwarves, once released from their barrels, defer completely and unashamedly to Bilbo now. Even regal Thorin, after stretching his cramped legs, asks the hobbit “what next?” as if Bilbo is the only one of the fourteen who could have sound ideas about what to do.
Now the first encounter with the Lake-men is interesting in light of that Salon.com article about Tolkien, which revealed Tolkien was an unapologetic monarchist. Esgaroth is the first democratic society we’ve seen, and we see evidence of the bureaucracy and small-mindedness that can accompany such. The guards at the gate try to dismiss our company, for example, for no better reason than that the Master of the town is eating supper.
And then when we do meet the Master he’s helpful to the dwarves, but only for the base reason that his people are starry-eyed at the possible fulfillment of old prophecies.
There’s no nobility in this man, nor any principle. Did J.R.R. see all democracies thus?
I’m in. I doubt we’ll have anything of substance to add, but I want to follow the thread because the kid and I are reading TH together.
No – I should have said “excepting ‘What have I got in my pocket?’” I’ll have to look it up, but I think the one Tolkien made up was the one that starts “An eye in a blue face saw an eye in a green face.”
Humble Servant – the Exeter Book doesn’t actually give the answers to its riddles, but I think most printed editions do speculate as to what they are. There’s a Penguin edition translated by Kevin Crossley Holland that seems OK. 
Tolkien and democracy: he wasn’t a big fan of the concept by any means, and Esgaroth is the most extensive portrayal of one in his works (though feel free to correct me on this point if I’m wrong). There are a few letters where he discusses his feelings about democracy, but unfortunately my copy of the Letters is packed up in a box.
I’m wondering if the comment early on along the lines of “they haven’t heard of the king around these parts” is also an indication of his attitude?
But then there’s the Shire, which as we see in LotR seems to be governed by a Mayor inasmuch as it’s governed at all (although strictly speaking it’s under the jurisdiction of the King of Arnor and Gondor). Of course, that’s getting more into LotR territory, since we learn very little about the Shire in TH…
I’d like to comment on the behavior of the wood elves. If you read the Silmarillion, you’ll find that the elves can be right bastards sometimes. Look at Feanor’s behavior…stubborn pride, arrogance, treachery, alongside leadership, bravery and craftmanship. In fact, Feanor seems modeled after Achilles.
And then we look at the behavior of Maeglin and his father (what was his name again?). Not the poster, but the character. Not what we think of as “typical” elves, but clearly Tolkien didn’t think all elf behavior had to be “good”. A lot of this goes back to the Norse mythology, where the idea that the protagonists are good and the antagonists are evil is laughable. Heros are heros not because they are good but because they are great.
And so, elves too have their faults. And elves and dwarves don’t get along, due to actions described in the Silmarillion. So it is perfectly in character for the king of the wood-elves to imprison the dwarves. He can do so without being “evil”. He is merely acting according to his nature.
Now, the implication that Middle Earth and our world are the same. I think it is clear that Tolkien meant for Middle Earth to be the extreme past of our earth. And the beginning of our earth is the end of the third age and the beginning of the fourth. Tolkien was perfectly happy with the idea of continents changing. The attack of the Numenoreans on Valinor caused the previously flat ME to become spherical, as later mariners proved by circumnavigating the globe.
So…ME is supposed to be our earth. The old poetry and epics that Tolkien loved and used as source material for ME were imagined to be records of the far distant past. Tolkien liked to imagine that he was’t inventing ME, but discovering it, uncovering ancient history and stories that had been lost.
I’m in too. I read TH for the first time back when the idea for this thead was being kicked around but before it got started, and I’m going to re-read now (with a more critical eye) and see if I can’t add to the discussion.
I agree here. There’s lots of stuff on the web saying that it’s a completely different world, but there are cues in the text that imply otherwise. The one that leaped out at me while reading FOTR the other day (for the 2nd time! Woo Hoo!) was while they were camping, and he noted that the “sickle” was climing in the sky, with a footnote pointing out that the sickle was their name for the Great Bear, which is of course Ursa Major or the Big Dipper.
I don’t remember the Big Dipper being referred to as a “sickle;” in The Hobbit Bilbo calls it the Great Wain.
But that doesn’t prove Middle-Earth is the past of our world, any more than the presence of ponies and trees in Middle-Earth does. If it were a different but parallel world, it could still have the same constellations.
A better argument is Tolkien’s line from the first chapter:
It’s a silly argument, in any case. Whether our own distant past or a parallel world, Middle-Earth is a different world from ours.
We know that Middle Earth has the same constellations we have (at least, our Big Dipper, Orion, and the star Sirius), it has the same year as ours, to within a second, and it has a single large moon, comparable to the sun, which cycles in a month of the same length as ours. Even aside from the “historical” connections in the text (saying that hobbits are rarely seen anymore, or that goblins invented many of our modern engines of war), the astronomical data pretty well pins it down.
A note on the Silmarillion, by the way: The Silmarillion itself isn’t really dry at all. The Valaquenta, however, which is published in the same volume, is extremely dry. If you’ve ever given up on the book, pick it up again, and just skip over the first few sections. You’ll be glad you did.
Well I wouldn’t belabor this, but he is, after all, recommending a morality to us; if we are fundamentally part of his world because it is our distant past, then this morality can be seen as a “natural law” for us, something inherent to who we are, not just parallel to what we are. If they could do great deeds, I can too because we’re organically the same–that sort of thing.
Here’s a hodgepodge of questions from the earlier chapters I have finished (BTW, I really admire those of you who can remember everything from the Silmarillion and the other works–I can’t keep it straight in my head without peeking):
How do the stone giants fit into the world? They seem to be good (or at worst neutral) since Gandalf plans to ask them to block up an orc cave.
Aren’t the wargs scary? I read Willa Cather’s My Antonia (which has a horrifying story of wolves attacking a bridal party and the drivers saving themselves) around the time I first read TH, and between these descriptions of wolf packs, my enthusiasm for the reintroduction of wolves into populated areas has gone way done. Why do we have the “lone wolf” as an icon when they are much more dangerous in packs? Is a lone wolf more noble because it doesn’t pillage with its pack?
Why is the riddle game “sacred”?
Beorn and Tom Bombadil seem to play parallel roles in TH and TLOTR. How old is the tradition of a bears meeting ground where they dance? I’ve seen some old prints of this.
“‘What! a furrier, a man that calls rabbits conies, when he doesn’t turn their skins into squirrels?’, asked Bilbo.” (From the Queer Lodgings chapter, asked about Beorn.) What does the part about turning their skins into squirrels mean??
Am I right in thinking that the orcs use Anglo-Saxon words almost exclusively?
Which bee and honey stories am I supposed to be remembering when Beorn’s bees are discussed, or what is the symbolism? Clotted cream and royal jelly (combs and honey)–a rich natural feast–yum.
Ah, the “skin changer” joke is just a joke. Bilbo wonders if he turns rabbit skins into squirrel skins.
4: Bombadil and Beorn do fill similar roles, but then, so too do Elrond (in both Hobbit and LotR) and Galadriel and Faramir in the trilogy. As someone mentioned earlier, Tolkien always puts “rest stops” in, in between the adventures.
5: I always got the impression that Bilbo was referring to more-or-less fake furriers, of a person who would take cheap furs like rabbits, and cut and dye them to look like more expensive pelts. Such was probably a rather lucrative, if shady, business at one time.
6: They’re even more Anglo-Saxon than you noticed. In one of the appendices, Tolkien mentions that he had a great deal of work in cleaning up the language that the orcs used, as they spoke in much the same manner that orc-minded folks still do today.
Rather a short chapter this time out, at least in terms of plot happenings: they leave Esgaroth, go to the Mountain and open the door.
The dwarves are such a bunch of jerks! Bilbo has saved all their lives once (from the spiders) and their freedom once (the Elvenking), and now all they can do is sit on the Doorstep and complain that he’s not getting the door open for him. Never go adventuring with dwarves, I always say.
I don’t understand why the thrush knocking on the stone with a snail shell was what Bilbo needed to realize how to open the secret door.
Hmm, can’t think of any other comments. What’ve y’all got?
I thought about this too as I puzzled over it, but why would you turn rabbit skins into squirrel skins?–rabbit is nicer and more costly. Lemur’s got it though–the prior sentence talks about Beorn being a skin-changer, so that’s the joke. I guess I can take getting whooshed by Tolkien.
I liked the bit about “orc-minded folks” too–a pit-worthy insult for anyone who’s read the book.
The thrush was mentioned in the rune letters on Thorin’s map: “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.” Just don’t ask how the map maker could enslave a thrush to the task of hanging around Smaug’s lair every Durin’s Day for 200 years just in case someone showed up and needed to hear it knock.
A chapter where not much happens is OK with me–it’s realistic–too many books try for non-stop action. (Not that I’m giving anyone permission to write entire books where nothing happens, mind.)
Has it been 200 years since Smaug ran off the dwarves? I don’t recall where that was explicitly stated in the book. How long do dwarves live, then?
Obviously I should have paid closer attention about the thrush in the beginning.