Hobbit2 - Chapter 01 - An Unexpected Party

[Tuor in Gondolin]

Anyone who hasn't should try to get a copy of The Annotated Hobbit c1988, by
Douglas A. Anderson. In addition to giving various published versions of the Hobbit (including the original Gollum riddle chapter) there are numerous illustrations and some blurbs/reviews from various countries. In Chapter I alone including Hungary, Russia, Portugal, Rumania, France, etc. as well as sketches by Tolkien.

Btw, "Struck by lightning! Struck by lightning!"

And wouldn't you like to know more about the land of the wild Were-worms in the last desert.

[Guinevere]

The first chapter is always such fun to read!

And I agree with Esty that the dwarves' song is the turning point in the chapter. I guess its effect on the reader is the same as on Bilbo. I am so glad that in the upcoming Hobbit movie they kept this song, and what I hear of it in the trailer even sounds quite appropriate to me!

I think Tolkien did well not to keep the dwarven magic in. The effect of "magic" is much greater when only used sparingly!

Though I haven't seen the annotated Hobbit, I read somewhere about the original names, and knew that "Gandalf" was one of the Dwarves. ("Gandalf" figures in fact in the "dvergatal" in the Völuspa)

[jallanite]

No-one has yet mentioned any similarity between the portion of this chapter where one dwarf after another unexpectedly arrives on Bilbo’s doorstep and the famous Marx Brothers Stateroom scene where person after person comes to Groucho’s stateroom with reasons why they should be admitted to the madness.

See http://www.tcm.com/mediaroom/video/2...tate-Room.html .

Of course this film was released in 1935, more than two years after Tolkien first finished The Hobbit at the end of 1932. So Tolkien could not have been influenced by the film. Similarities must be coincidence, unless both the writers for the film and Tolkien might have been influenced by some related or identical earlier work.

Does anyone know of such a work?

When I first read the book as a child I was impressed by its authenticity, as I remembered encountering at least some of the dwarf names previously, probably remembered from some children’s book on Norse mythology which included all or part of the Eddic list of dwarf names. So I assumed that hobbits were also authentic as the word hobbit looked authentic.

Much, much later I learned that hobbits are authentic, appearing in a list of spirits in the Denham Tracts, which even Tolkien years after writing the story no longer recalled, if indeed Tolkien had not invented a word which only by coincidence already existed.

I don’t see that any magic need by assumed in respect to the musical instruments. See http://www.vintagedrum.com/barry_col..._bass_drum.htm for a collapsible bass drum patented in 1917. The dwarves had expected this to be a final party before setting off (as it was) and so naturally brought their instruments. Only Thorin’s harp and the two viols are specified as being especially large. And in the next chapter it is specified about the dwarves’ ponies:

… each pony was slung about with all kinds of baggages, packages, parcels, and paraphernalia.

I expect we should imagine that the dwarves had the instruments with them on their journey until most of their provisions were stolen when the dwarves were captured by the goblins.


What puzzles me is that Fíli and Kíli each arrive at Bag End with “a bag of tools and a spade.” What did they expect to do with those at Bag End? Perhaps they are to be understood as recent purchases which Fíli and Kíli have decided not to bother to take to Bywater before heading to Bag End.