The Hobbit Illustrated by the Author (Tolkien Illustrated Editions)

by J.R.R. Tolkien

In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort.

From "Fellowship of the Ring": `There must have been a mighty crowd of dwarves here at one time ' said Sam; `and every one of them busier than badgers for five hundred years to make all this, and most in hard rock too! What did they do it all for? They didn't live in these darksome holes surely?' `These are not holes,' said Gimli. `This is the great realm and city of the Dwarrowdelf. And of old it was not darksome, but full of light and splendour, as is still remembered in our songs.'

“Stand by the grey stone when the thrush knocks,” read Elrond, “and the setting sun with the last light of Durin’s Day will shine upon the key-hole.”

"This bad Latin can be translated like so: Descend into the crater of Snæfellsjökull, which the shadow of Scartaris caresses before the First of July, brave traveler, and you will reach the center of the earth. I have done so myself. Arne Saknussemm." - Jules Verne's "Journey to the Center of the Earth"

When Bilbo opened his eyes, he wondered if he had; for it was just as dark as with them shut. No one was anywhere near him. Just imagine his fright! He could hear nothing, see nothing, and he could feel nothing except the stone of the floor. Very slowly he got up and groped about on all fours, till he touched the wall of the tunnel; but neither up nor down it could he find anything: nothing at all, no sign of goblins, no sign of dwarves.

When I came to, my face was damp, but damp with tears. I couldn’t say how long I had been unconscious. I had no way to tell what time it was. Never had anyone faced solitude as complete as mine. Never had anyone been abandoned so completely. (Jules Verne's "Journey To the Center of the Earth")

The sound came hissing louder and sharper, and as he looked towards it, to his alarm Bilbo now saw two small points of light peering at him. As suspicion grew in Gollum’s mind, the light of his eyes burned with a pale flame. “What have you lost?” Bilbo persisted. But now the light in Gollum’s eyes had become a green fire, and it was coming swiftly nearer.

"I saw that the eyes that glanced at me shone with a pale-green light. I did not know then that a reddish luminosity, at least, is not uncommon in human eyes. The thing came to me as stark inhumanity. That black figure with its eyes of fire struck down through all my adult thoughts and feelings, and for a moment the forgotten horrors of childhood came back to my mind." - HG Wells, "The Island of Doctor Moreau"

Fili and Kili were at the top of a tall larch like an enormous Christmas tree. Dori, Nori, Ori, Oin, and Gloin were more comfortable in a huge pine with regular branches sticking out at intervals like the spokes of a wheel. Bifur, Bofur, Bombur, and Thorin were in another. Dwalin and Balin had swarmed up a tall slender fir with few branches and were trying to find a place to sit in the greenery of the topmost boughs. Gandalf, who was a good deal taller than the others, had found a tree into which they could not climb, a large pine standing at the very edge of the glade. He was quite hidden in its boughs, but you could see his eyes gleaming in the moon as he peeped out.

From Carlo Collodi's "The Adventures of Pinocchio" (1883): "After running almost ten miles, Pinocchio couldn’t take anymore. So, feeling he was done for, he climbed the trunk of a very tall pine tree and seated himself at the very top of the branches. The murderers too tried to climb the tree, but after they got halfway up the trunk, they slipped and, as they fell back down onto the ground, skinned their hands and feet. But they didn’t let that defeat them. Instead, they gathered some dry wood to make a bundle at the foot of the tree and set it on fire. In no time at all, the pine tree started to burn and then to blaze, like a candle stirred by the wind." (translation by John Hooper and Anna Kraczyna)

Goblins are not afraid of fire, and they soon had a plan which seemed to them most amusing. Some got all the wolves together in a pack. Some stacked fern and brushwood round the tree-trunks. Others rushed round and stamped and beat, and beat and stamped, until nearly all the flames were put out—but they did not put out the fire nearest to the trees where the dwarves were. That fire they fed with leaves and dead branches and bracken. Soon they had a ring of smoke and flame all round the dwarves, a ring which they kept from spreading outwards; but it closed slowly in, till the running fire was licking the fuel piled under the trees.

“A very good tale!” said he. “The best I have heard for a long while. If all beggars could tell such a good one, they might find me kinder. You may be making it all up, of course, but you deserve a supper for the story all the same. Let’s have something to eat!”

In "The Odyssey," Eumaeus says something similar to a beggar (who is Odysseus in disguise): "That was a splendid tale, old man! It worked. You will get all the clothes and things a poor old beggar needs—at least for now." - Emily Wilson translation

Bilbo was a pretty fair shot with a stone, and it did not take him long to find a nice smooth egg-shaped one that fitted his hand cosily. As a boy he used to practise throwing stones at things, until rabbits and squirrels, and even birds, got out of his way as quick as lightning if they saw him stoop; and even grownup he had still spent a deal of his time at quoits, dart-throwing, shooting at the wand, bowls, ninepins and other quiet games of the aiming and throwing sort—indeed he could do lots of things, besides blowing smoke-rings, asking riddles and cooking, that I haven’t had time to tell you about. There is no time now. While he was picking up stones, the spider had reached Bombur, and soon he would have been dead. At that moment Bilbo threw. The stone struck the spider plunk on the head, and it dropped senseless off the tree, flop to the ground, with all its legs curled up. The next stone went whizzing through a big web, snapping its cords, and taking off the spider sitting in the middle of it, whack, dead. After that there was a deal of commotion in the spider-colony, and they forgot the dwarves for a bit, I can tell you. They could not see Bilbo, but they could make a good guess at the direction from which the stones were coming.

A pint-size and barefoot girl throws stones from out of the darkness to save her somewhat bumbling friends from a pair of outlaws, in Larry McMurtry's "Lonesome Dove" (1985): Jim opened his pistol. He was trying to reload and watch for rocks, too, squinting into the darkness. Another rock came in low and he managed to turn and take it on his thigh, but it caused him to drop three bullets. Roscoe was beginning to feel more hopeful. He was remembering all the varmints Janey had brought into camp—probably she had used them to sharpen her aim. His hope was she’d start throwing for the head before the men got around to killing him. Hutto was calmer than Jim. He reached over, got his shotgun and broke the breach. 'I’ll tell you, Jim,' he said, 'you just keep sitting there drawing her fire. I’ll load up with some buckshot. Maybe if she don’t brain you before the moon rises, I can catch the angle and shoot her. Or at least chase her out of chunkin’ range.' He reached into the pocket of his buckskin coat for some shells, and as he did, a miracle happened—for in Roscoe’s mind a miracle it was. He stood there, naked and wet, sure to be murdered within a few minutes unless a slip of a girl, armed only with rocks, could defeat two grown men armed with guns.

Not far from the mouth of the Forest River was the strange town he heard the elves speak of in the king’s cellars. It was not built on the shore, though there were a few huts and buildings there, but right out on the surface of the lake, protected from the swirl of the entering river by a promontory of rock which formed a calm bay. A great bridge made of wood ran out to where on huge piles made of forest trees was built a busy wooden town, not a town of elves but of Men, who still dared to dwell here under the shadow of the distant dragon-mountain.

Stapi is a small town of about thirty houses, and built directly on top of a lava bed under the sunlight reflected from the volcano. - Jules Verne's "Journey To the Center of the Earth"

Bilbo was now beginning to feel really uncomfortable. Whenever Smaug’s roving eye, seeking for him in the shadows, flashed across him, he trembled, and an unaccountable desire seized hold of him to rush out and reveal himself and tell all the truth to Smaug. In fact he was in grievous danger of coming under the dragon-spell.

'Your bow, Legolas! Bend it! Get ready! It is Saruman. Do not let him speak, or put a spell upon us! Shoot first!' (Gimli in "The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers") “Dear friend, don’t listen to anything that the monster says. Kill him before you become confused.” (Enkidu in Stephen Mitchell's translation of The Epic of Gilgamesh)

Now a nasty suspicion began to grow in his mind—had the dwarves forgotten this important point too, or were they laughing in their sleeves at him all the time? That is the effect that dragon-talk has on the inexperienced. Bilbo of course ought to have been on his guard; but Smaug had rather an overwhelming personality.

We came over hill and under hill, by wave and wind, for Revenge. Surely, O Smaug the unassessably wealthy, you must realize that your success has made you some bitter enemies?”

I have eaten his people like a wolf among sheep,

Now I am old and strong, strong, strong, Thief in the Shadows!” he gloated. “My armour is like tenfold shields, my teeth are swords, my claws spears, the shock of my tail a thunderbolt, my wings a hurricane, and my breath death!”

Who can pry open the doors of his face? All around his teeth is terror. His back is rows of shields, closed with the tightest seal. No arrow can make him flee, slingstones for him turn to straw. Missiles are deemed as straw, and he mocks the javelin’s clatter. (Robert Alter's translation of Job 41: 6-7, 20-21)

“Old fool! Why, there is a large patch in the hollow of his left breast as bare as a snail out of its shell!”

"Old fool" is what the Lord of the Nazgul calls Gandalf, after destroying the gate of Minas Tirith. Gandalf calls Butterbur an old fool, and Rory Brandybuck refers to Bilbo as a silly old fool. Those are the only instances of "old fool" in The Hobbit and LOTR. In the Rankin Bass animated "The Hobbit," Thorin flings the phrase at Gandalf, and Bilbo says it to Smaug, too. Appropriately, Bilbo calls himself a fool only a few paragraphs later, after unwisely jeering at Smaug when taking leave of him.

Ponies take some catching, I believe, after a long start. And so do burglars,” he added as a parting shot, as he darted back and fled up the tunnel. It was an unfortunate remark, for the dragon spouted terrific flames after him, and fast though he sped up the slope, he had not gone nearly far enough to be comfortable before the ghastly head of Smaug was thrust against the opening behind. Luckily the whole head and jaws could not squeeze in, but the nostrils sent forth fire and vapour to pursue him, and he was nearly overcome, and stumbled blindly on in great pain and fear. He had been feeling rather pleased with the cleverness of his conversation with Smaug, but his mistake at the end shook him into better sense.

‘Hey, you, Cyclops! Idiot! The crew trapped in your cave did not belong to some poor weakling. Well, you had it coming! You had no shame at eating your own guests! So Zeus and other gods have paid you back.’…. But my tough heart was not convinced; I was still furious, and shouted back again, ‘Cyclops! If any mortal asks you how your eye was mutilated and made blind, say that Odysseus, the city-sacker, Laertes’ son, who lives in Ithaca, destroyed your sight.’... Polyphemus raised a rock far bigger than the last, and swung, then hurled it with immeasurable force. It fell a little short, beside our rudder, and splashed into the sea; the waves surged up, and pushed the boat ahead, to the other shore. (Emily Wilson's translation of "The Odyssey")