“fifteen birds in five fir trees”—’
‘Good heavens’ growled Medwed ‘Don’t pretend goblins can’t count. They can. Twelve is’nt fourteen [> fifteen], and they know it.’
‘Well no, of course not. There was Bifur and Bofur too. I haven’t ventured to introduce them before, but here they are.’
In came Bifur and Bofur. ‘And me’ said Bombur puffing up last: he was rather fat, and he didn’t like being left till last.
‘Well now there are fifteen of you’ said Medwed ‘And since goblins can count, I suppose that is all there were up in the trees. Now perhaps we can finish the tale without more interruptions’. You see how clever Bladorthin had been – Medwed was really very excited by their story, just like you were, and so he forgot to be rude and gruff and grumpy, and did not send them all off quick (as he usually did with all strangers that come to his gates).
When the wizard had finished the story, and told of the eagles, and of their flight to the Carrock, the sun had [gone >] fallen to the tops of the Misty Mountains, & the shadows were long in Medwed’s garden.
[‘Supper!’ he said >] ‘A very good tale’ said Medwed. ‘The best I have heard for a long while. You may be making it all up, of course, but you deserve a supper for the story all the same. Let’s have something to eat!’
‘Yes please’ they all said. ‘Thank you very much!’
This brings the text to the bottom of manuscript page 87 (Marq. 1/1/7:11). Sometime at or about this point, Tolkien paused briefly in the narrative to sketch out events for the following scene (and beyond) in what became the earliest of the surviving ‘Plot-Notes’ (Plot Notes A), the full text of which is given immediately following this chapter, beginning on p. 293. The text resumes, without apparent break, on the top of the next page (manuscript page 88, the back of the same unlined foolscap sheet).TN24
Inside the hall it was now grown dark. Medwed clapped his hands and in trotted four beautiful white ponies, and a number of large [f
Such a dinner they ate as they had not eaten since they left the house of Elrond. The light of the torches flickered on the walls, and there were candles on the table. All the while Medwed in his gruff voice told tales of the wildlands on this side of the mountains, and specially of the dark and dangerous wood – the Great Forest – that lay more than a day’s long ride to the East. The Dwarves listened and shook their beards, for they knew they had to pass that forest, and that after the Mountains it was the worst of the dangers [> perils] they had to pass before they came to the dragon’s stronghold. They also told many stories of their own, but Medwed did not seem very interested; most of them were about gold and silver and jewels and the making of them, and he did not appear to care for such things: there were no things of gold or silver in his house, and few save knives of any metal at all.
They sat long at table, till it was dark night outside. Then the fires in the middle of the hall were built up with fresh logs and the torches put out, and there they sat in the light of the flames with the pillars of the hall standing tall and dark at top like trees of the forest. Whether it was magic or not Bilbo heard what sounded like a wind in branches stirring in the rafters, and the hoot of owls. He began to nod because he was very sleepy and the voices seem[ed] far away, until he woke with a start and heard the end of a song of the dwarves.
‘The wind was on the withered heath,
But in the forest stirred no leaf:
There shadows lay by night and day,
And dark things silent crept beneath.
The wind came down from mountains cold,
And like a tide it roared and rolled;
till branches groaned, the forest moaned,
and leaves were laid upon the mould.
The wind went on from West to East –
all movement in the Forest ceased,
But shrill and harsh across the marsh
Its whistling voices were released
The grasses hissed their plumes were bent
The reeds were rattling – on it went
o’er shaken pool neath heavens cool
[neath >] where racing clouds were torn & rent
It passed the lonely Mountain bare
And swept above the Dragons lair.
There black and dark lay boulders stark –
No light but of the moon was there’TN25
The[n] Medwed stood up and said that the time had come for sleep – ‘for you’ he said. ‘In this hall you may sleep sound & safe, but I warn you not to stray outside its walls till the sun’s up, on your peril’.
Beds were brought from the sides of the hall and ranged in a row at one side. For Bilbo there was a little mattress of straw, and coverings of fur. He snuggled into them, too, very gladly, summer-time though it was.
Then Medwed went out, and the great door creaked & slammed. The fire burnt low; and Bilbo fell asleep. But in the night he woke; and sawTN26 the fire had burnt to nothing but a few embers; the dwarves were asleep (by their breathing); a splash of white on the floor came from the high moon which was peering down through the smoke-hole in the roof.
There was a growling sound outside, and a noise as of some great animal scuffling at the door. Bilbo wondered what it could be – whether it could be Medwed in enchanted shape and if he would come in as a bear, and kill them. He hid under the skins, and in spite of his fright went at last to sleep again.
It was full morning when he woke – the dwarves were moving about: one of them had fallen over him on the floor, as a matter of fact, and was grumbling about it. Bofur it was.
‘Get up lazybones’ he said, ‘or there’ll be no breakfast left for you.’
Up jumped Bilbo. ‘Where is breakfast?’ said he.
‘Mostly inside us’ said the dwarves; ‘but what is left is out on the veranda. We have been about looking for Medwed, ever since the sun got up. But there is no sign of him anywhere. Breakfast we found laid on the veranda.’
‘Where is Bladorthin[?]’ said the hobbit, moving off to find breakfast, as quick as he could.
‘O[!] out and about somewhere’, they told him.
But Bilbo saw no sign of Bladorthin all day until evening. Just before sunset he came into the hall, where Bilbo and the dwarves were having supper – waited on by Medwed’s marvellous animals, as they had been all day. Of Medwed they had seen nor heard a sound, since the night before; and they were getting puzzled.
‘Where do you think he is?’ they asked Bladorthin as he came in, ‘and where have you been to all day, yourself?’
‘One question at a time – and none till after supper: I haven’t had a bite since breakfast’.
At last Bladorthin who had eaten two whole loaves (with butter and honey and clotted cream), and drunk a whole jug of mead (which is made out of honey) – pushed away his plates, and took out his pipe.
‘I will answer the second question first’ he said – ‘but bless me this is a splendid place for smoke-rings!’ And not for a long time could they get anymore out of him, he was so busy sending smokerings dodging round the pillars of the hall, changing them into all sorts of different colours, and setting them at last chasing one another out of the smoke hole in the roof. They mu
st have looked very funny from outside – popping out into the air one after another green blue, red, silver-grey, yellow; big ones, little ones; little ones dodging through big ones, and joining into figures-of-eight, and going off like a flock of birds into the distance.
‘I have been picking out bear-tracks’ Bladorthin said at last. ‘There must have been a regular bear-meeting outside here last night. I soon saw that Medwed could not have made them all – there were far too many of them, and they were of various sizes too: I should say little bears, big [> large] bears, ordinary bears, and gigantic big bears must have been dancing outside from dark to nearly dawn. They came from almost all directions except West from over the river, from the Misty Mountains. In that direction [led >] only one set of footprints went – none coming, only going away from here. They were the largest set of all. I followed them as far as the Carrock. There they disappeared into the river, but the water was too deep and strong for me to cross just there. [I had to > beyond the Carrock >] The Carrock, if you remember, stands nearly in the middle of the river, and is join[ed] to this bank by a ford and stepping stones, but on the other side a deep swirling channel runs under its overhanging side. I had to walk miles before I could find a [ford >] wide stretch where the water was slow and shallow enough for me to swim, and then miles back to pick up the tracks. By that time it was too late for me to follow them far. They went straight away in the direction of the pine woods on the east side of the Misty Mountains, where we had our pleasant little meeting with the wargs the night before last.
‘And that I think has answered your first question, too’ ended Bladorthin, and he sat a long time silent.
The hobbit thought he knew what Bladorthin meant. ‘What shall we do’, he cried ‘– if he brings all the wargs and goblins down here, we shall all be caught and killed. But I thought you said he was not a friend of theirs!’
‘So I did – and don’t be silly. You had better go to bed. Your wits are asleepy’, said Bladorthin.TN27
There was nothing else to do, so Bilbo did go to bed, and while the dwarves sang songs he dropped asleep, still puzzling his little [head]TN28 about Medwed, till he dreamed a dream of hundreds of black bears dancing slow heavy dances round and round in the moonlight in the courtyard. Then he woke up and heard the same scuffling, scraping, snuffling, and growling as before.
Next morning, they were wakened by Medwed himself.
‘So here you all are still!’ he said. He picked up the hobbit and laughed: ‘not eaten by wargs or goblins, yet I see’. And he poked Mr Baggins’ waistcoat most disrespectfully. ‘Little bunny getting nice and fat again on bread and honey, I see’, he said. ‘Come and have some more!’.
So they went and had breakfast. Medwed was most jolly. He seemed to be in a splendidly good temper, and set them all laughing with his funny stories. They did [not]TN29 have to wonder long where he had been, or why he was so nice to them; for he told them himself. He had been off over the river and right back to the mountains – from which you can guess he could travel quick, as a bear at any rate. He had soon found out, from the burnt clearing, that part of their story was true. But he had found out more than that. He had caught a warg and a goblin wandering in the woods – the goblin patrols were still hunting for the dwarves, and were fiercely angry because of the death of their great chief; and the wolves had not forgotten the burning of the chief warg’s nose, and the killing of many of his servants by Bladorthin’s fire.
So they told him. But they got no sympathy from him. He hurried home delighted to offer what help he could to Bladorthin & his friends.
‘What did you do to the goblin and the warg?’ said Bilbo.
‘Come & see!’
A goblin’s head was stuck on a pole outside Medwed’s gate, and a warg skin was nailed to a tree just outside. Medwed could be a fierce enemy. But now he was their friend; and encouraged by his kindness, they told him all their story.
This is what he promised to do for them. He would provide ponies for each of them, and a horse for Bladorthin, and would lade them with food (nuts, flour in bags; twice-baked cakes of flour and honey; sealed jars of cream; dried fruits, and pots of honey) to last them with care for weeks, yet easy enough carry.TN30 Water he said they would not want until they came to the forest, for there were stream and springs along the road. ‘But your road through the forest is difficult and dangerous’, he said; ‘as difficult and dangerous as the path across the mountains. Water is not easy to find there, nor food. For the time is not come for nuts which is all there is growing there that can be eaten; and the wild things are dark queer and savage in there. I will provide you with skins for carrying water, which you had better fill before you enter the forest. You will see one stream, a strong black one, if you hold to the path, but I doubt if it is good to drink. I have heard that it carries enchantment, and brings a frightful drowziness. I will give you four bows and arrows,TN31 but I doubt if you will shoot anything in the dim shadows of that place, without straying from the path – which you MUST NOT DO. And I doubt if it would be good to eat if you shot it.
‘Beyond the edge of the forest I cannot help you. There at the edge I must ask you to send back my horse and my ponies.’TN32
They thanked him, of course, with many bows and sweepings of hoods and with many an ‘at your service, O master of the wide wooden halls!’TN33
All the morning was busy with preparations. Soon after mid day they eat with Medwed for the last time and set off at a good pace, for said he: ‘The goblins will not dare to cross the river at the Carrock or to come near my house – it is well protected at night! – but the river bends towards the forest northwards, and so do the [forest >] mountains, and I have heard of their raiding across the river and into the forest before now! If they should track [> have tracked] you, or tracked the warg and goblin that I captured and have found my trail, they might try to cut you off that way. I should be off now as quick as may be!’.
So they said goodbye, and rode out a little gate from his high hedges on the east side. The sun was behind them, and the meadow lands lay all golden before them.TN34 They rode N.E. as Medwed directed them towards the beginning of the track through the forest. The sun was only just going westward & the meadowlands lay all golden about them. It was difficult to think of goblins behind them, or the Dark paths before them.
After [> In] several days riding in sunny weather they met with no adventure and saw nothing save grass and flowers and birds [added: & scattered trees] and occasionally herds of red deer browsing or sitting in the noon in the shade of trees, or in the long grass with only the antlers of the harts [showing >] sticking up like dead branches of trees (thought Bilbo).
So eager were they to press on that they often rode on after dusk and into night beneath the moon, before they camped under a big tree. Then Bilbo thought he saw away to the right or to the left, the shadowy form of a great bear prowling along in the same direction. But if he dared to mention it to Bladorthin, the wizard only said: ‘Hush, hush – take no notice!’
At last one evening they camped at the very edge of the forest, which all day they could see as a black and
‘This is “Mirkwood”’ said Bladorthin. ‘The greatest of all forests of the North. And now we [> you] must send back [these excellent beasts that we >] the ponies you have borrowed’.
The dwarves were inclined to grumble at this – but Blad. told them they were fools. ‘Medwed is not as far off as you think; and you had better keep your promises – to him at any rate. Mr Baggins’ eyes are sharper than yours’ said he, ‘if you have not seen eac
h night after dark a great bear going along with us. Medwed loves these [horses >] ponies as his children – you can hardly guess what a favour he has granted you in letting them ride so far [> in letting you ride them so far]!’
‘What about your horse then?’ said Gandalf. ‘You don’t mention sending it back!’
‘I don’t, because I am not sending it’.
‘What about your promise then?’
‘I am not sending it back, I am riding it back’, said the wizard.TN35 Nothing they could say would make him change his mind.
‘No!’ he said ‘you won’t catch me going through Mirkwood, unless I am obliged – and I am not. I told you some time ago that I was going to say goodbye, & that I had already come much further than I meant to.TN36 You were lucky to have me to help you across the mountains! Not a step further this way, thank you! The rest is your affair – though if you ever find the dragon (& escape him again!) I hope you will remember your old friend. I have got other business on hand now that can wait no longer’.
And the next morning he said the same. The evening before the dwarves had turned the ponies’ heads back homewards, and sent them galloping away. They did not seem to mind the gathering dark – but rather to be glad to turn their tails towards the gloom of Mirkwood. As they went off, Bilbo could have sworn that a thing like a black bear left the shadows of the wood and trotted after them.
Now Bladorthin sat on the horse Medwed had lent him, and said ‘Farewell!’ Bilbo felt very unhappy. He had gone just inside the forest after breakfast, & it seemed as dark inside there in the morning as at night, and very secret – ‘a sort of watching & waiting feeling’ said the hobbit to himself.
An interpolated section dealing with the troll-key is written into the top margin of manuscript page 98 and marked for insertion at this point. The writing of this additional text looks to be quicker and sloppier than the main passage and was thus probably added later:
The History of the Hobbit Page 32
