Once again, our intrepid band of adventurers has left a place of safety and recuperation to plunge back into the uncertainty and danger of the wild. For the next several days, they travel swiftly on the wonderful ponies Beorn has loaned them. Tolkien mentions that they are able to relax, talk, and sing during the day, but at dusk, their unease returns, and they set watches and slide into troubling dreams featuring "the howl of hunting wolves and the cries of goblins." It is on the third such night that Bilbo notices "the shadowy form of a great bear prowling along in the same direction," but Gandalf tells him to "Take no notice!"

On the afternoon of their fourth day of travel, they reach the forest gate of Mirkwood, and Gandalf reminds them that they must now return the wonderful ponies to their formidable master. When the dwarves begin to grumble about this, he quickly admonishes them, "Mr. Baggins' eyes are sharper than yours, if you have not seen each night after dark a great bear going along with us . . . . Beorn may be your friend, but he loves his animals as his children. You do not guess what kindness he has shown you . . . nor what would happen to you, if you tried to take them into the forest."

The party then experiences a second blow when Gandalf informs them that he will be returning his horse personally, as he must leave the expedition of Thorin & Co. to attend to "pressing business away south." We learn later that this bit of "business" is none other than an assault by the White Council upon the Necromancer and his fortress of Dol Guldur in the south of Mirkwood. We have to wait until LOTR to discover that the Necromancer is none other than Sauron himself.

Gandalf tries to cheer the dwarves up by reminding them that, "I am sending Mr. Baggins with you. I have told you before that he has more about him than you guess." Indeed, Mr. Baggins has grown quite a bit since he left the comfort of his home in the Shire. He attempted to pick the pocket of a troll, was captured by goblins, and while lost in the depths of the Misty Mountains, he managed to discover a magic ring, survive his encounter with Gollum, and escape to rejoin the party all on his own. With Gandalf's departure, Bilbo is poised to assume an odd sort of leadership position with Thorin & Co., and they will indeed learn that there is much more to him than they could possibly guess!

Our hero, Bilbo, has certainly undergone a forced education since the time he began his adventure this spring. Once very comfortable and certain about the world and its ways on the basis of his experience in the Shire, by this time in the story, he must have questioned much of what he thought he knew. From the unexpected invasion and virtual coercion by a wizard and dwarves, to being waylaid by trolls and goblins, to being teased and well hosted by singing elves, to exchanging riddles with the unique Gollum, to being chased up trees by wolves and then rescued by talking eagles, Bilbo's set of categories of things that exist in the wide world was expanding by the day.

But perhaps one of the strangest and most memorable creatures he meets on his adventures is Beorn. He must have ridden out from Beorn's house this day shaking his head, but marvelling just a little about his rich exerience there. Although Shippey and Anderson provide cultural and linguistic background for this bear-man and his Carrock, within the story, this frightening yet ultimately principled shapeshifter had to have been one of Bilbo's most surprising eye-openers. Even Gandalf does not seem to understand Beorn well, other than to say that ". . . he is under no enchantment but his own." Here again, Tolkien does not find it necessary to answer every question about his world. Rather, his story is like real life in that questions persist.

Bilbo's stay at Beorn's hall (which Anderson tells us is typical of a Germanic hall such as is found in Beowulf) functions as a safe down-time in the story arc, a device of Tolkien's which allows him to build an even higher tension later. The descriptions of what they eat and drink, how they are served by talking animals, their sleeping accommodations, and the nightly absence of Beorn (the evidence of whose marauding they find one morning: a goblin's head on the gatepost and a warg-skin nailed to a tree) add richness and depth to the story. Beorn also provides them with gifts for their journey of transportation, weapons, and food, and stealthy protection to the edge of Mirkwood. This pattern of a visitation serves Tolkien well through The Lord of the Rings, but perhaps it is followed most closely by the hobbits' visit with Tom Bombadil, who is also under no enchantment but his own.

They leave knowing Beorn is a friend. And that means we shall see him again!

The Carrock: the fang. In its description it is a rather dramatic appearing place where the Eagles have deposited Gandalf, Dwarves and Hobbit. But from its heights, the Company travels most of the day to reach Beorn's Hall.

The name Beorn has been thoroughly researched by Tolkien scholars and is Old English for bear. Indeed, it also has its roots in the Norse, Bjorn, which connects to berserkers (something that will take on relevance later in the tale). We are also told that Beorn was a skin-changer who lived by day as a big and burly man, and by night he prowled as a bear. Tolkien paints him as gruff, abrupt, and very mysterious.

"The Hobbit mentions that dragons chased most men away from the northern lands, and it implies that the great bears of the northern mountains vanished when the giants appeared some time before the story unfolds. Beorn is associated with both bears and the northern men. If the skin-changers did not originate with Beorn then they must have lived in the mountains, and Gandalf does reveal he once overheard Beorn express the hope he would one day return to the mountains." *

The Company knows they are approaching Beorn's Hall when they encounter the large flower patches and his bee-pastures. Seems a likely setting for man and bear, does it not?

* - from Beorning Questions by Michael Marinez

This eventful day starts badly for Bilbo. As we discover later, Gandalf's magic has enabled the others to escape the goblins, but Bilbo is accidentally left behind, unconscious on the tunnel floor. On waking, he crawls around looking for a way out.

And then he finds the ring.

In fact, his hand "meets" it - has the ring chosen a new owner? "It was a turning point in his career, although he did not know it" - Tolkien is talking about Bilbo but this applies equally to himself.

For a while Bilbo despairs. Then, heartened by the idea that his sword was forged in Gondolin, he continues through the darkness and finds Gollum - a small, dark, slimy creature living near an underground lake, who will eat him - given the chance! Trapped, Bilbo makes a pact with Gollum: they will trade riddles. If Bilbo wins, Gollum shows him the way out. If he loses, Gollum eats him . . .

Tolkien's children would have recognised Bilbo's riddles, which are drawn from popular fairy tales, while Gollum's go back to Anglo-Saxon times. Tolkien is amusing himself here by incorporating oral tradition, having already called his "rabble of Eddaic-named dwarves*" after characters in the Norse saga Völuspá - and 'Gandalf' means 'elf with a staff' (gand-aelf)**.

As the riddles get harder, Bilbo panics; he guesses the last one by "pure luck" (Bilbo has a lot of "luck" throughout his adventures, which suggests that fate is at work). Unable to think of another, he absent-mindedly touches the ring and cries "What have I got in my pocket?". Gollum thinks it's part of the game, and is stumped. There is no cheating - this is a children's story!

Reluctantly Gollum agrees to show Bilbo the way out, secretly planning to use the ring - which he doesn't realise he's lost - to become invisible, and kill Bilbo. Of course, he can't find it, and,suspecting the truth, attacks. Bilbo flees, the ring slips onto his finger, and he discovers that he can follow Gollum to the exit without being seen. Gollum, talking wildly to himself, veers between searching for the ring and luring Bilbo back to the goblins. Yet Bilbo pities Gollum and chooses not to kill him before escaping. Shippey** points out that Bilbo empathises with Gollum because he has far more in common with him than he does with the dwarves . This display of mercy, along with the discovery of the ring, has great significance for the future of Middle-Earth.

Bilbo catches up with Gandalf and the dwarves, but when they swap escape stories, Bilbo decides not to mention the ring. They resume their journey but are forced to climb trees to escape wolves. Gandalf bombards the wolves with flaming pine cones, which attracts the goblins, but also the eagles, who arrive as the goblins and wolves set fire to the tree trunks. The eagles carry Thorin's company to their eyrie and once again Bilbo is nearly left behind, clinging desperately to Dori's legs.

In Tolkien's wider mythology the eagles are a manifestation of the Thought of Manwë, a force for good. Here they effect a vital rescue and will do so again in The Hobbit and LOTR. But for now we leave Bilbo and his companions in the eyrie, resting before they carry on towards the Lonely Mountain.

*source: Christopher Tolkien, HoME The Return of the Shadow, HarperCollins 1988
** source: Tom Shippey, Roots & Branches, Walking Tree Publishers 2007

After leaving Rivendell, the company ventures into the Misty Mountains. A storm comes a few days into the journey and Kili and Fili are sent to find shelter. They find a cave and claim to have checked it thoroughly. While in the cave, Gandalf amuses the dwarves and hobbit with smoke rings and then they all fall asleep, except Bilbo. He cannot sleep and when he does finally fall asleep, he has horrible dreams.

"It was the last night they used the ponies, packages, baggages, tools and paraphernalia they had brought with them. It turned out a good thing, that night, that they had brought little Bilbo with them after all. For somehow,he could not go to sleep for a long while, and when he did sleep, he had very nasty dreams. He dreamed that crack at the wall of the back of the cave got bigger and bigger and opened wider and wider and he was very afraid but could not call out or do anything but lie and look. then he dreamed that the floor of the cave was giving way and he was slipping beginning to fall down, down, goodness knows where to! At that he woke up with a horrible start and found that part of his dream was true! A crack had opened at the back of the cave and was already a wide passage. He was just in time to see the last of the ponies tails disappearing into it. of course he gave a very loud yell, as loud a yell a hobbit can give, which is surprising for their size. Out jumped the goblins!"

In the chaos, and in a flash, the Goblins carry off the dwarves and Bilbo, but Bilbo's scream alerted Gandalf and he escaped, which allowed him to later free the others from the Goblins.

So, Bilbo served a great purpose, because without his dream and scream, they all would have been captured and the journey would have ended. Who knows who would have ended up with the Ring and how Middle-earth would have faired?

This event also marks the second capture of the company by the enemy. The capture is a result of dwarf mistakes. The capture leads the company deep under the mountains, which essentially leads Bilbo to the Ring, which would not have happened otherwise, thus affecting the future of all Middle-earth.