The Hobbit

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.

This is a story of how a Baggins had an adventure, and found himself doing and saying things altogether unexpected.

There is little or no magic about them, except the ordinary everyday sort which helps them to disappear quietly and quickly when large stupid folk like you and me come blundering along, making a noise like elephants which they can hear a mile off.

As I was saying, the mother of this hobbit—of Bilbo Baggins, that is—was the famous Belladonna Took, one of the three remarkable daughters of the Old Took, head of the hobbits who lived across The Water, the small river that ran at the foot of The Hill.

long ago one of the Took ancestors must have taken a fairy wife.

but certainly there was still something not entirely hobbitlike about them, and once in a while members of the Took-c...

the fact remained that the Tooks were not as respectable as the Bagginses, though the...

although he looked and behaved exactly like a second edition of his solid and comfortable father,

They always do bestie

“What do you mean?” he said. “Do you wish me a good morning, or mean that it is a good morning whether I want it or not; or that you feel good this morning; or that it is a morning to be good on?”

They used to go up like great lilies and snapdragons and laburnums of fire and hang in the twilight all evening!”

With that the hobbit turned and scuttled inside his round green door, and shut it as quickly as he dared, not to seem rude. Wizards after all are wizards.

He had only just had breakfast, but he thought a cake or two and a drink of something would do him good after his fright.

Mood fr

“Dwalin at your service!”

But it was not Gandalf. Instead there was a very old-looking dwarf

“Balin at your service!”

“Kili at your service!” said the one. “And Fili!”

Dori, Nori, Ori, Oin, and Gloin were their names;

Bifur, Bofur, Bombur, and especially Thorin!”

in fact no other than the great Thorin Oakenshield himself,

and was beginning to wonder whether a most wretched adventure had not come right into his house.

And of course they did none of these dreadful things, and everything was cleaned and put away safe as quick as lightning, while the hobbit was turning round and round in the middle of the kitchen trying to see what they were doing.

He had a cloud of them about him already, and in the dim light it made him look strange and sorcerous.

when Thorin struck it the music began all at once, so sudden and sweet that Bilbo forgot everything else, and was swept away into dark lands under strange moons, far over The Water and very far from his hobbit-hole under The Hill.

Then something Tookish woke up inside him, and he wished to go and see the great mountains, and hear the pine-trees and the waterfalls, and explore the caves, and wear a sword instead of a walking-stick.

this most excellent and audacious hobbit—may the hair on his toes never fall out!

quite lost on poor Bilbo Baggins, who was wagging his mouth in protest at being called audacious and worst of all fellow conspirator,

a journey from which some of us, or perhaps all of us (except our friend and counsellor, the ingenious wizard Gandalf) may never return.

But he was rudely interrupted. Poor Bilbo couldn’t bear it any longer. At may never return he began to feel a shriek coming up inside, and very soon it burst out like the whistle of an engine coming out of a tunnel.

the poor little hobbit could be seen kneeling on the hearth-rug, shaking like a jelly that was melting.

“Gets funny queer fits, but he is one of the best, one of the best—as fierce as a dragon in a pinch.”

and in this way the battle was won and the game of Golf invented at the same moment.

Pls

He looks more like a grocer than a burglar!”

He suddenly felt he would go without bed and breakfast to be thought fierce.

“Of course there is a mark,” said Gandalf. “I put it there myself.

I have chosen Mr. Baggins and that ought to be enough for all of you. If I say he is a Burglar, a Burglar he is, or will be when the time comes.

There is a lot more in him than you guess, and a deal more than he has any idea of himself.

“This was made by Thror, your grandfather, Thorin,”

“It is a plan of the Mountain.”

Old Smaug has lived there long enough now to find out anything there is to know about those caves.”

but Smaug could not creep into a hole that size, not even when he was a young dragon, certainly not after devouring so many of the dwarves and men of Dale.”

He loved maps, and in his hall there hung a large one of the Country Round with all his favourite walks marked on it in red ink.

but warriors are busy fighting one another in distant lands, and in this neighbourhood heroes are scarce, or simply not to be found.

which he meant: “What am I going to get out of it? and am I going to come back alive?”

Dragons steal gold and jewels, you know, from men and elves and dwarves, wherever they can find them; and they guard their plunder as long as they live

There was a most specially greedy, strong and wicked worm called Smaug.

After that there were no dwarves left alive inside, and he took all their wealth for himself.

Later he used to crawl out of the great gate and come by night to Dale, and carry away people, especially maidens, to eat, until Dale was ruined, and all the people dead or gone.

“I have often wondered about my father’s and my grand-father’s escape. I see now they must have had a private Side-door which only they knew about.

have often wondered about my father’s and my grand-father’s escape. I see now they must have had a private Side-door which only they knew about.

“Never you mind. I was finding things out, as usual;