The History of the Hobbit

by John D. Rateliff

  6 The word I have read here as hurrying might instead be keeping.

  Note that although this description of the terrain on the eastern side of Mirkwood does not quite match the final geography of the published book, it matches up perfectly with the first rough sketch of the lands near the Mountain which occurs as the last page of Plot Notes B (see pp. 366–7). It also fits tolerably well with the early version of the Wilderland Map that appears on Plate I [bottom]. By contrast, in the Wilderland map that accompanies the published text (DAA.[399]) the ‘Elf-path’ leads from the ‘Forest Gate’ in the west to the Elvenking’s Halls near the eastern edge of Mirkwood but does not actually reach the forest’s border (travel further east presumably all being along the Forest River). Moreover, heading due east from the end of the path on this map would not bring the traveller to the Lonely Mountain but instead to Lake Town.

  7 The detail that Bladorthin was heading back ‘to Medwed’ (whose name has already reverted back to the original after the ‘Beorn’ of the opening paragraphs) soon disappeared, but it remained implicit even in the published text: ‘I am not sending the horse back, I am riding it’ – [i.e., riding it back]. That Tolkien was uncertain about the wizard’s activities and whereabouts after leaving Bilbo’s company is clear from the various options and suggestions occurring in the final paragraphs of these Plot Notes; see below.

  8 The second half of this word is unclear, and it’s possible that Tolkien here wrote ‘beechmast’ (which means much the same thing), just as he did in the ‘Enchanted Stream’ episode he interpolated into the next chapter (see pages 351 & 357).

  9 The second half of this word is obscured by an ink-blot, but Tolkien has written the missing letters in above it.

  10 The cancellations and changes this line underwent were all made while it was first being written, a good indication of the speed with which Tolkien was setting down his thoughts.

  11 The use of the female pronouns for the spider is significant, since this makes her the only female character to actually appear in The Hobbit; see Commentary following Chapter VIII.

  12 The words ‘puts ring on’ are later struck through.

  13 Tolkien later slightly revised this line, adding in the two missing dwarf-names as follows: Dori Nori [Ori], Oinn & Gloinn, Balin Dwalin, Bivur [Bovur] & Bombr, Fili Kili Gandalf. The rhythm of the original sentence is better, and once again the omissions testify to the speed with which these rough plot-notes were written.

  The variant spellings of some of the dwarf-names here are not certain, given the roughness of the writing, but it seems as if Tolkien were experimenting with the idea of changing several of the other dwarf-names, no doubt as part of the Gandalf > Thorin / Bladorthin > Gandalf / Medwed > Beorn shift contemplated on the first page of these plot-notes. In each case the variant, which occurs only here, would de-Anglicize the name and bring it more into line with the form found in the Edda (see Appendix III).

  14 When he had reached this point, Tolkien cancelled the four preceding sentences (everything from ‘All except Gandalf’ to ‘poisonous spiders’) with a single slash through just over six lines (roughly a quarter of this manuscript page), then resumes in the middle of the page.

  15 The spider-poem appears with no extant preliminary drafting, although some such probably existed. Tolkien made only two minor changes in the text here, changing ‘spy’ to ‘see’ in the second line and ‘in’ to ‘up’ in the final line. When he came to write this poem into the actual manuscript (see Chapter VIII, p. 311) in the fully developed text of the passage based upon these plot-notes, he made two further minor changes in wording: ‘seek’ in line five became ‘look’, and ‘You never will’ became ‘You’ll never’ in the final line. Other than a few typographical changes, the poem otherwise remains unchanged from its first appearance here through into the published book.

  For more on ‘Attercop’ (adder-spider) and ‘Tom-noddy’, see p. 321.

  16 This sentence is written in the top margin and marked for insertion at this point.

  17 In marked contrast to the first spider poem (‘Attercop’), the second spider-poem (‘Lazy lob’) is full of changes and hesitations, seeming to indicate that what we have here might be the initial composition. Indeed, it looks as if Tolkien initially thought it might be as short as two lines: the cancelled line beginning ‘Then he’ was probably an anticipation of the line that follows the poem (‘Then he slashed’).

  Even so, relatively few changes were needed to bring this draft into the form found in the full manuscript: a few typographic corrections, the deletion of a superfluous ‘and’ in the penultimate line, and a new version of line three: ‘I am far more sweet than other meat’ make it match the version found in the first full text of Chapter VIII (see p. 311 below). In the First Typescript, the poem appears divided into two stanzas, as in the published book, and the final two lines replaced by

  You cannot trap me, though you try,

  in your cobwebs crazy.

  – again, the reading of the published text (which remained unaltered through all three editions in Tolkien’s lifetime). No drafting survives for the typescript variations, which are typed cleanly into the text of both typescripts.

  While presented as a piece of spontaneous doggerel, very much along the lines of the songs Curdie makes up to annoy the goblins in MacDonald’s The Princess and the Goblin (see commentary on Chapter IV), this little bit of verse is actually quite sophisticated in its metrics, employing internal rhyme, alliteration, and a variable number of syllables per line, often an odd number. In fact, Tolkien seems to be employing a loose form that is almost a parody of the Old English line, with four beats per line and a caesura in each odd-numbered line; the actual number of syllables being of only minor importance.

  18 The final word may instead be ‘dwarves’.

  19 The initial ‘D’ which begins this line is given a calligraphic treatment very like that of Father Christmas’s tremulous script.

  20 Fairy cake, or cupcakes, is a rather surprising light-hearted detail that was soon lost, but the idea of a special fairy-food associated with the elves re-emerged much later in The Lord of the Rings as elven waybread, or lembas. Known as cupcakes in the U.S., ‘fairy cakes’ are best known to American audiences from their appearance in Douglas Adams’ The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (episode 8); see The Complete Hitchhiker Scripts [1980, 1985], pages 165–6.

  21 The phrase ‘who has luckily been staying with him’ was struck through, no doubt as too convenient, not to mention being out of accord with the ‘pressing business’ Bladorthin claimed prevented him from accompanying Gandalf and company into Mirkwood. It does, however, match with the idea that the wizard was riding back to Medwed with the borrowed horse; see Text Note 7 above.

  22 ‘And they must’: I take this to mean that there is no alternate route available, for the reasons Bladorthin lays out for Bilbo on the eaves of Mirkwood. If so, it may be an indication that Tolkien had not yet thought out the final section of the book and that the re-establishment of the Kingdom under the Mountain was not yet envisioned; it certainly suggests that the overthrow of the Necromancer and decimation of the goblins of the northern mountains were not yet part of the story.

  23 It is probably not the Mountain itself that is ‘all burnt’ but the landscape surrounding it, the so-called Desolation of Smaug; see p. 483ff.

  24 The revision regarding the magic gates appears at the top of the page and is marked for insertion following the line ‘Description of the woodelves caves’. It marks the introduction of this motif; see p. 380, where the Elvenking says ‘There is no escape through my magic doors, for those who are once brought inside’ (cf. DAA.223).

  Tolkien’s Plot Notes

  Part of Tolkien’s compositional method was from time to time to stop and write out in very rough summary form the events of the story to come. Sometimes, as in this case, the material covered a few chapters; in other cases, as with Plot Notes B (see pp. 361–6), it was an attempt t
o sketch out the rest of the story to the end. This pre-drafting then formed a basis for the actual first draft that followed, and sometimes (as with the two spider-taunting poems) here and there the actual words of the plot notes find their way into the final published book. This is however the exception; for the most part these plot notes are very rough, often filled with sentence fragments and incomplete words, contradictory ideas, and other examples of ‘thinking on paper’. Since they represent the very first time Tolkien set down ideas about what was to happen in the book, and since those ideas sometimes diverge dramatically from what he finally settled on, they are among the most interesting and valuable sections of the entire manuscript. Unfortunately, because they are simply rough notes intended only for his own use and were typically written at great speed, they are also among the most illegible of all the Hobbit manuscripts. In this edition I have edited them as little as possible in order to convey something of the informality of this material: inserting all the quotation marks and similar punctuation would make these pages seem more finished and definitive than is in fact the case. As usual, doubtful readings are enclosed in French brackets: .

  The most remarkable thing about these plot notes occurs in the first three lines, where Tolkien arrives at the final forms of the names for three major characters, then fails to implement that change (cf. his later reluctance to abandon Bingo for Frodo in the Lord of the Rings drafts, e.g. HME VI.221). Not until some time later, after a lengthy break in composition that may have lasted as long as a year, did he incorporate these name changes: see pages 437, 472, 476, & 679 below. It is particularly notable that the name Thorin (Oakenshield) emerged complete, with his cognomen or epithet already present, and indeed all the new names appear in their exact final forms, even though their adoption was delayed for several more chapters.

  For the most part these plot notes adhere closely to the story as it actually came to be written, though with some significant departures. Unsurprisingly, the further into the story it goes the more it drifts from the familiar events, and the end of the tale is entirely absent. Thus, here Gandalf (= Thorin) evades capture by the spiders not because he has been enchanted by the wood-elves but by his own martial prowess, and his capture by the elves comes afterwards. Also, Tolkien was in considerable uncertainty about how Bilbo was to rescue the dwarves from the wood-elves’ dungeons. The magic of the Elvenking’s Gates seems to have been stronger in the initial conception, preventing even the unseen Bilbo from escaping that way, and hence leading to the episode of the barrels as a means of escape not for the dwarves but for Bilbo himself. In all three variants on the last page of these Plot Notes Tolkien re-introduces both Medwed and Bladorthin, the latter of whom re-enters the story just long enough to get Gandalf & Company out of one last tight spot before once again vanishing. Some of the ideas Tolkien considered here but ultimately rejected seem to have influenced the next set of plot notes as well; see pp. 361ff.

  Finally, some apparent departures between the Plot Notes and the familiar text are the result of later changes to the latter – for example, Dori plays a more prominent role in the story in these projections. There is no mention of the enchanted stream here, but then that entire episode is similarly absent from the initial draft of what is now Chapter VIII, having only entered in later through an interpolation (see ‘The Enchanted Stream’, p. 347). Similarly, the idea that Bilbo would find the lost path again and use spider-thread to guide the dwarves back to it, although it does not appear in the published book, was part of the first full draft; see pages 309–14 and ‘The Theseus Theme’, p. 335.

  Chapter VIII

  Mirkwood

  As before, the manuscript continues without anything more than a paragraph break between what are now Chapters VII (‘Queer Lodgings’) and VIII (‘Flies & Spiders’), the new chapter starting in the middle of manuscript page 99 (Marq. 1/1/7:23).

  They walked in single file. The entrance to the track was like a sort of arch leading to a gloomy tunnel made by two great trees that leant together, too old and hung with ivy and shaggy with lichen to bear many leaves of their own. The track [> path] itself was narrow, winding on among the great trunks of trees, about as wide and clear as a rabbit-track. Soon the light at the entrance was like a little bright hole far behind, and the quiet was so deep that their feet seemed to thump along, while all the trees listened. But their eyes were getting used to the dimness, and they could see some way to each side in a sort of darkened green light. Just occasionally a little beam of sun that had the luck to creep in through some opening in the leaves from above and still more luck in not being caught by the tangled boughs beneath, stabbed down thin and bright [. But >] before them, but this was seldom.

  There were black squirrels in that wood.TN1 As their eyes got used to seeing things they could see them whisking off the path and scuttling behind tree trunks. There were other quiet noises, grunts scuffles and hurryings in the undergrowth and among the leaves piled endlessly thick on the forest floor, but what made the noises they could not see.

  The nastiest thing they saw was the cobwebs: Dark thick [> dense] cobwebs, with threads extraordinary thick, often stretched from tree to tree, or tangled in the lower branches on either side of them. But none were across their path; whether because some magic kept this path open or not they did not know.TN2

  Very soon they got to hate the forest almost as heartily as they had disliked the tunnels of the goblins. But they had to go on and on long after they were sick for the sight of the sun and of the sky, and longed for the feeling [> feel] of the wind on their faces. It was still and dark and stuffy down under the unbroken forest roof. Nights were the worst. It then became pitch dark – not what you call pitch-dark, but really pitch: so black you simply couldn’t see anything. Bilbo tried flapping his hand in front of his nose, but he couldn’t see [added: them] at all. It isn’t true to say they couldn’t see anything: they could – eyes. They slept all closely huddled together, and took it in turns to watch; and when it was Bilbo’s turn he would see gleams in the darkness round them, and sometimes pairs and pairs of yellow or red or green eyes would stare at him from a little distance and then slowly fade and disappear. And they would sometimes look down from the branches above. That frightened him more still. But the eyes he liked least were horrible pale bulbous sort of eyes – ‘insect eyes’, he thought, ‘not animal eyes, only they are much too big’.TN3

  Although [he >] it was not cold at first they tried lighting a watch-fire at night, but they soon gave it up. It seemed to bring hundreds [of] eyes all round, only the creatures (whatever they were) were careful never to let their bodies show in the little flicker of the flames. Worse still it brought thousands of great dark grey and black moths, some nearly as big as your hand flapping and whirring round their ears. They could not stand that, nor the big bats (black as a top hat) either; so they gave up fires, and just sat or dozed in the enormous uncanny dark.TN4

  This went on for what seemed ages and ages to the hobbit; and he was always hungry, for they were very very careful with their provisions. Yet as time went on, days and days, they began to get anxious. The food would not last forever, and was in fact already running low. Yet the path straggled on just as before, and there was no change in the forest. The only new thing that happened was the sound of laughter [added: often], and once of singing, in the distance. The laughter was the laughter of fair voices not of goblins, and the singing was beautiful, but it sounded so eerie and strange, that they were not at all comforted.

  At last their food began to give out; and they could not find any thing in the wood to eat to eke out what they carried. Nothing wholesome seemed to grow here, [but >] only funguses, or [pale >] herbs with pale leaves and unpleasant smell. In parts where beech-nutsTN5 grew, and were already dropping their mast (for autumn was now far on)TN6 they tried gathering the nuts, but they were hard and bitter. Yet they liked the beechen part of the wood best for here there was no undergrowth, the shadows were less dense, the light was clea
rer, and sometimes they could see for a longish way all round them – an endless vista of great straight trunks like the pillars of huge dark hall. In these parts they heard the laughter.

  Of course it was Bilbo that had to climb a tree. Not in the beech-grown parts, [but >] for their trunks were too smooth and their branches too high. But in what seemed a sort of valley mostly filled with oaks, when their food was nearly gone,TN7 the dwarves said:

  ‘Some one must take a look round, and the only way is to climb the tallest tree we can see’.

  They chose the hobbit because of course to be of any use the Climber must get his head above the topmost leaves, and so he must be light enough for the highest and slenderest branches to bear him. Poor Bilbo hadn’t had much practice in climbing trees; but they hoisted him up into the lowest branches of the tallest tree they could find near, and up he had to go as best he could.

  He pushed his way up through the tangled twigs, getting slapped in the eye, and all greened and grimed [with >] from the old bark of the big boughs. All the time he was hoping there were no spiders in that tree.TN8 He slipped and caught himself, he struggled up places were the branches grew difficult, and at last he got near the top. There he found spiders all right, but only small ordinary ones; and he found out why they were there. They were after the butterflies! When at last poor little Bilbo swaying Dangerously on the small top branches poked his head out of the leaves he was nearly blinded. He could hear the dwarves shouting up at him from far below, but he could not answer, only hold on and blink. The sun was shining brightly and it was a long time before he could bear it. Then he saw all round him a sea of dark green ruffled here and there by the breeze. And there were hundreds [of] butterflies. I expect they were a kind of ‘purple emperor’, but they were dark dark velvety black without any markings at all.