The real problem with Bilbos journey is the troll fire visible from the last Bridge. While Bilbo & Co. needed only a couple of hours to reach the Trolls, the timepressed Ranger Aragorn needed a fiew days to find the same spot.
But there is an explaination for this: If we lock to the textual history of The Hobbit we find that the last bridge was added to this passage to build a link to The Lord of the Rings. Beforhand the road which they followed hand run alongside a river for a while. And that river was obviuosly not the Mitheithel but the Bruine.
So Tolkiens failure was the addition of the last Bridge in this passage. He himself never marked the simple solution.
I think this one of the few passages were the canon could contradict the text of the last edition of a book published by Tolkien himself. Since if we take the text of the first Hobitt edition we would have no contadition at all.
That the Dwarves needed much longer than Frodo and his freinds can be explained: If you look at the beginning of the juorney it is said that they were approaching very slow and carrying great store of goods. I think that they faigined to be on a bussines trip, which was not so uncommen for Dwarves. But that would also mean that they had to stop in each village to sell their goods. That would explain any lenght of the journey.
Respectfully
Findegil
|