Middle-earth Journeys

The king's cave was his palace...

August 24: At dusk the dwarves are captured by wood elves & taken to the Elvenking’s halls

Demoralised by Thorin‘s capture, and exhausted after escaping from the spiders, Bilbo & the dwarves desperately search for a way out of Mirkwood. The dwarves are in no state to offer any resistance to the wood-elves, but Bilbo is quick-witted enough to slip on the ring, and make his way invisibly to the Elvenking’s halls in the wake of the wood-elves and their prisoners.

The Elvenking is an interesting figure: guardian of Mirkwood, he sits “ . . . on a chair of carven wood. On his head was a crown of berries and red leaves, for the Autumn was come again. In the Spring he wore a crown of woodland flowers. In his hand he held a carven staff of oak.”

Tolkien’s description brings to mind the Green Man, who traditionally represented nature and the cycle of the seasons. The oak tree is King of the Greenwood and symbolises the power of the High King and his ancient and spiritual link to the land. In pagan tradition the Oak King fights with the Holly King at the Summer and Winter solstice to bring about the changing of the seasons. Tolkien would have been familiar with these mythologies, as they underlie the poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, which Tolkien co-edited with E V Gordon during the early 1920s.

The treatment the dwarves receive at the hands of the wood-elves is in contrast to the way they are dealt with by the goblins in Chapter IV. Then, they were led off in chains and left to rot; here the King orders them to be untied while he questions them. Angered by their trespassing - which has roused the spiders - and their refusal to reveal their mission, he has them locked up until one of them changes his mind, but they will be treated decently in the meantime. Are the dwarves right to defy the Elvenking or are they merely being stubborn and greedy?

Bilbo spends many, many days in hiding, venturing into the woods from time to time but never daring to go too far and unwilling to desert his imprisoned companions:

“I am like a burglar that can’t get away, but must go on miserably burgling the same house day after day,” he thought. “This is the dreariest & dullest part of all this wretched, tiresome, uncomfortable adventure” . . . he often wished, too, that he could get a message for help sent to the wizard, but that of course was impossible, and he soon realised that if anything was to be done, it would have to be done by Mr Baggins, alone and unaided.”

Although Bilbo finds this wait frustrating, it is a character building exercise. Until now he has relied on his sword and quick wits to see him through, making snap decisions. Forced to be patient, Bilbo shows himself to be determined and resourceful, working out where each dwarf is held, eventually discovering Thorin’s cell “in an especially deep, dark place” and becoming a means of communication between them all.

Thorin takes new heart at this; he and the other dwarves now rely on Bilbo to get them out of their predicament:

“ . . . . they all trusted Bilbo. Just what Gandalf had said would happen, you see. Perhaps that was part of his reason for going off and leaving them,”

Bilbo finds the dwarves’ dependence on him a burden, but it is the making of him. By biding his time he eventually finds a means by which they can all escape . . .

Lovely entry! One does get the sense that this part of the story is actually the beginning of the "coming of age tale" that all children's stories ultimately are.

All these entries are great - I've enjoyed reading them so much. This has been a great exercise to all take part in!

I've always been really interested in the Green Man and it's fascinating to see echoes of it here. It's not something that had occurred to me before but it fits with all the myths associated with the woods and trees that have been appearing since we entered Mirkwood.

Bilbo grows every step of the way, doesn't he? These entries have really brought that into focus.

I hadn't thought of the association with the Green Man, but then we aren't raised with these myths in the States. This is where our 'international' membership is such a boon!

I've read that in a lot of the 'coming of age' myths, the hero finds his true nature underground and in the dark!

Ladies, I am the one who truly benefits from all these entries because I read them as I post them and I am having a ball remembering the The Hobbit through your eyes!

Will have to think of another project when we finish this one.

Yes--the underground motif carries all through Tolkien, doesn't it--what comes to mind now without thinking is Moria and the Paths of the Dead, and even Mordor at Mount Doom--all of which marked turning points for various folk.

Yes - it's such a strong recurring theme and is a major part of the Hero Journey in so many mythologies. I guess it's a kind of 're-birthing' .

Riv - another project after this would be great! iI's got us all thinking and discovering new things.

Perhaps we should tackle The Silmarillion?!? It would need to be a chapter-by-chapter project (with the chapters broken down into manageable segments), rather than a calendar, but I think it would be a wonderful opportunity to illuminate Tolkien's "Bible of Arda" for those who have found it too difficult or dense or "archaic" to appreciate previously. I know it sounds daunting, but wouldn't it be wonderful to be part of something that might be instrumental in helping others to gain an appreciation for the origins of Tolkien's great work?

I would personally volunteer to start us off with The Ainulindale "The Music of the Ainur" -- my absolute favorite chapter in the entire work -- the creation of the world through music! How divine!

What do you think?

I think it would be great to do the Sil--and you are quite right to envision breaking it down. But I think it may take a team of us to even begin to break it down properly before we start to write. Because it is not so much a narrative as a collection of stories, most of them complicated, involved and richly layered and textured, this will be an enormous task. I am not naysaying--just testing the waters to make sure we all the time for this kind of committment.

Thanks librislove! This would be quite a project, but I don't think we need to try to rush through it. If we could find a way to break it down into manageable segments with the goal of then publishing a new entry every two weeks or so? I don't think that would overtax our abilities.

In the spirit of this possibility, I have changed my signature line to Eru's declaration of creation -- Ea! Let it Be!

Yikes! I know the Sil so superficially, so it would be good news and bad news for me. Question: is the Sil arranged chronologically in some way? Isn't there a rough timeline in the LOTR appendix?

By the way, I like the new sig line!

It is somewhat chronological, but some of the stories do overlap, time-wise, so I don't think we should attempt to set it up as a "Calendar" but more of a "Journey" through The Silmarillion, taking each chapter in the order in which it is presented in the book, and breaking each chapter into manageable segments for summarization and commentary by our esteemed colleagues, hopefully with lovely illustrations by our favorite Tolkien artists.

Glad you like my new quote, Merry!

I believe we started that calendar a few years back at WRoR. Didn't we call it The Calendar of the Ages, Merry? I thought we had copied at least some of it before they closed. I remember doing the entries.

Will have to look.

OMG--I can't believe I forgot about doing that!

You are not alone Merry--I hope it is not lost......