The Hobbit Discussion: "Roast Mutton" part 3

Finding Frodo

Finding Frodo

Tol Eressea
As the company approaches the source of the firelight, they send Bilbo on ahead to scout out the situation, ordering him to "hoot twice like a barn-owl and once like a screech-owl if he needs help.
http://www.birds.cornell.edu/AllAboutBirds/audio/Barn_Owl.html
http://www.birds.cornell.edu/AllAboutBirds/audio/Eastern_Screech-Owl.html

1. Can you imitate those calls? Are there other bird calls you know that you could give a signal with?

Bilbo walks toward the light in absolute silence, a skill he is proud of.

2. What is the secret to walking silently?

He sees three trolls sitting around a fire, roasting mutton and eating it and drinking beer. They are talking and arguing in a lower-class dialect of English (Westron?)

3. My Annotated Hobbit doesn't give this dialect a name. Would you say it is like a Cockney accent? Does that fit the trolls? Do the trolls' names fit them? Why or why not?

Rather than going back and reporting to the dwarves about the trolls, Bilbo decides to try his hand at burglaring first. He is inspired by stories he has read about burglars dealing with trolls.

4. What fairy tales or folk tales feature a burglar and a troll?

Bilbo decides to pick Bill-the-troll's pocket and pulls out a purse, which unfortunately is "the mischief" and speaks out in protest.

5. Is this the same "mischief" that caused the fire not to light and the pony to fall in the river?
6. Can you think of another story with a stolen item that cries out?

Bilbo is caught and almost gives his friends away. Luckily, the trolls are full of mutton and beer and they get into a fight about what to do with him rather than eating him immediately. During the fight, Bilbo scrambles out of the way, then collapses.

7. Which troll is your favorite?
Bilbo attempts to pick Bill's pocket
 
As the company approaches the source of the firelight, they send Bilbo on ahead to scout out the situation, ordering him to "hoot twice like a barn-owl and once like a screech-owl if he needs help.
1. Can you imitate those calls? Are there other bird calls you know that you could give a signal with?

No. But I think that is part of the point. Thorin doesn't ask Bilbo if he can make those calls, and doesn't choose the easiest calls to make. It's like little kids playing cowboys and Indians, except that this is not pretend. Well, it is pretend from our point of view, which is why it is funny, and not tragic. But in the context of the story it is not pretend.

Bilbo walks toward the light in absolute silence, a skill he is proud of.
2. What is the secret to walking silently?

You can look up anything on the internet. The proper clothing helps. So does keen observation of the ground in front of your feet. And so does precise physical control. Bilbo does not strike me as having the proper clothing, keen eyes, or precise physical control. So in his case Tolkien fobs it off as something that comes naturally to hobbits, however unlikely that may seem in Bilbo's case. Just call him Ninja Bilbo! It's not magic, according to the narrator, but it is part of the fantasy.

He sees three trolls sitting around a fire, roasting mutton and eating it and drinking beer. They are talking and arguing in a lower-class dialect of English (Westron?)

3. My Annotated Hobbit doesn't give this dialect a name. Would you say it is like a Cockney accent? Does that fit the trolls?

I don't know my English dialects well enough to geographically locate the trolls' speech. I do see a couple of dropped "h"s (one by the pocket purse). That could be a Cockney trait, but I don't know if other dialects do that as well. But it certainly isn't educated English, sometimes known as BBC English or Oxbridge English.

I think Tolkien actually tones down the dialect. A true representation of an English dialect might be hard to understand. I know I couldn't understand it when I encountered it. It was like a different language entirely. They might as well have been speaking German. In fact, my brother-in-law once thought someone was speaking a dialect of German (he knew German, but it also has dialects) and only later realized she was speaking Cockney English in Germany.

Do the trolls' names fit them? Why or why not?

Oddly, the trolls' names are more familiar than anyone else's names in the story. Their names make them seem contemporary, and along with their accents make them seem like a parody of working class louts. This might be a bit of classism making its way into the story. Sorry!

Rather than going back and reporting to the dwarves about the trolls, Bilbo decides to try his hand at burglaring first. He is inspired by stories he has read about burglars dealing with trolls.

4. What fairy tales or folk tales feature a burglar and a troll?

Well, I've heard stories of ninjas that would be similar in tone. Or how about Robin Hood? How about stories of Loki the Trickster? Or, as we shall see, Gandalf the Trickster. And Gandalf uses a technique also seen in fairy tales or folk tales. I don't think it is the burglar and the troll that are important, but the concept of tricking the trolls, which is what Gandalf does.

Bilbo decides to pick Bill-the-troll's pocket and pulls out a purse, which unfortunately is "the mischief" and speaks out in protest.
5. Is this the same "mischief" that caused the fire not to light and the pony to fall in the river?

Yes and no. It is bad luck, but in this case it is not just random bad luck, but a protection spell put upon the purse, apparently.

6. Can you think of another story with a stolen item that cries out?

Jack and the Beanstalk.

Bilbo is caught and almost gives his friends away. Luckily, the trolls are full of mutton and beer and they get into a fight about what to do with him rather than eating him immediately. During the fight, Bilbo scrambles out of the way, then collapses.

As we will learn later, this is not just luck, but Gandalf's trickery. But it does seem lucky, which leads me to wonder whether other things that seem like luck, good or bad, are in fact part of a design.

7. Which troll is your favorite?

William, because he's full and wants to let Bilbo go.
 
Oldest Troll Courtier: Let's see if you've
got a wisdom tooth
That can crack the nut of our monarch's riddle!

The Troll King: What is the difference between Trolls and Men?

Peer Gynt: There isn't any, as far as I can gather;
Big Trolls would roast and little ones would claw you
Just as with us if only we dared do it.

The Troll King: True; we're alike in that and other things too.
Still, just as morning's different from evening,
So there's a real difference between us,
And I will tell you what it is. Out yonder
Under the skies men have a common saying:
"Man, to thyself be true!" But here, 'mongst Trolls,
“Troll, to thyself be enough!" it runs.

-Henrik Ibsen, “Peer Gynt”


1. Can you imitate those calls?

Not well.


Are there other bird calls you know that you could give a signal with?

Loon, killdeer, bobwhite, whippoorwill.


Bilbo walks toward the light in absolute silence, a skill he is proud of.

2. What is the secret to walking silently?

Heel first and bare feet.


3. My Annotated Hobbit doesn't give this dialect a name. Would you say it is like a Cockney accent?

At least it ain’t American.


Does that fit the trolls?

And some say we never meet the working class in Tolkien!


Do the trolls' names fit them?

Which names? Tom, Bert and Bill or Thomas, Burton, and William?

“Huggins”, of course, is more suitable for a name like Bunny Huggins. Which may be the point.


Why or why not?

I’m thinking a sly dig at the more famous Henry Higgins, whom Shaw partly based on Henry Sweet, an earlier Oxfordian philologist, whose everlasting shame was that he never was able to get tenure despite his ground-breaking work.

"Higgins is not a portrait of Sweet, to whom the adventure of Eliza Doolittle would have been impossible; still, as will be seen, there are touches of Sweet in the play."
-Shaw, preface to Pygmalion.

One can argue that Sweet was (and remains) a far more influential philologist than Tolkien.


Rather than going back and reporting to the dwarves about the trolls, Bilbo decides to try his hand at burglaring first. He is inspired by stories he has read about burglars dealing with trolls.

4. What fairy tales or folk tales feature a burglar and a troll?

There’s Pinkel the Thief in Andrew Lang’s fairy books.


Bilbo decides to pick Bill-the-troll's pocket and pulls out a purse, which unfortunately is "the mischief" and speaks out in protest.

5. Is this the same "mischief" that caused the fire not to light and the pony to fall in the river?

We actually found the source of the mischief. According to tradition trolls in the vicinity just naturally (unnaturally?) cause bad luck.


6. Can you think of another story with a stolen item that cries out?

The golden harp in Jack and the Beanstalk.


7. Which troll is your favorite?

Essie.

“Ah, poor little blighter, let him go.”
 
According to Wikipedia:

In Swedish everyday folklore trolls often were blamed for bad luck or accidents - in the north of Sweden the "vittra" often played this role. In some parts of Sweden they still, when things go wrong, say: "Det går troll i det här" meaning "It walks/goes troll in this" meaning that something brings or has extraordinary misfortune coming with it. For example: If everything goes wrong in a project you can say: "Det verkar som om det går troll i det här projektet" meaning "It looks like there it goes/are walking trolls in this project".
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Yep, no wonder the party had bad luck!

As for Sweet the philologist, perhaps he was so influential because he did not get tenure. And as I recall, C.S. Lewis did not get tenure either.
 
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1. Can you imitate those calls? Are there other bird calls you know that you could give a signal with?

I've never heard an owl IRL, so I'm sure my imitation would be limited to a generic "Who! Who!". I’ve been told I do a pretty good turkey, though. For a chicken, you’d have to go to Ugly Troll.
 
And it surprises me how much of this would come naturally to Bilbo. For one thing, the leathery sole of the hobbit foot would have to match the recommended mocassin exactly in texture--I can't imagine it working out any other way. His bare feet would have none of he potential problems of fit or texture, and they would not sweat on a cool April night.

The text also said that wool was the best material to wear. As that would be the most likely material for our hobbit to wear anyway, that works out beautifully.

As for special walking techniques, they would need specially learned by you and me, but not necessarily by a hobbit. Tolkien starts out the book at the very beginning saying that hobbits are naturally stealthy--it's a sensible adaptation for a small creature with little fighting capability. Their hips and ankles would have to have evolved slightly different angles, unnoticeable to the casual observer, perhaps, but naturally inclining them to walk silently. And they would learn the correct way of walking straight from crawling, imitating their elders. Bilbo probably doesn't have to think about it much at all.

Also, give him his size--less chance to brush against things. Smaller animals usually move more quietly (You ought to hear the way deer crash through the foliage around here! You can often tell what sort of critter is in the bush by the volume of the racket giving you a clue as to size.)

Yes, I know, I rationalize--but there's so much excellent material here to work with! It not only seems possible, but downright likely, and hence not really a rationalization, in this case, at all.
 
I could do a fairly serviceable barn-owl, and I imagine anyone could if they ever heard it (Yes, it's sort of (Huh-who! Who!") but I can't imagine anyone doing a screech owl except possibly a Tuvan throat-singer! They make noise like something that doesn't entirely belong on the planet. I think Tolkien did this deliberately, making the task hopeless for poor Mr. Baggins.
 
But I see no evidence that Bilbo's clothing was tight fitting (quite the opposite if he was borrowing from the dwarves) or that he had the physique of a dancer. Yes, rationalizations can be made, but other than the bare feet Tolkien did not make them, he just said that hobbits are naturally quiet, and that was that.
 
I have absolutely no skill with bird calls. But I have heard horned owls around our place from time to time, and could probably imitate one. Hooooo....(falling pitch) I could whistle a meadowlark call so you could tell it wasn't some other bird, but it would never fool a troll.

Walking silently reminded me of my first grade days, back in 1962, when our teacher had us all walk forward and then stop and look at our feet, which were all splayed outward. She claimed that Native Americans would walk with their feet pointing forward, which was why they could be silent in the woods. I started trying to walk with my toes pointing forward, and developed that habit, but it hasn't made me particularly silent. On the other hand, it was probably good for me, since I'm pretty knock-kneed.

Like others in this thread, I thought of the harp in Jack in the Beanstalk calling out when he tried to steal it (and visualized the old Gene Kelly movie.)

As long as we're talking about trolls, this is pretty off-topic, but I had a professor in college who used to see trolls when he went hiking in the mountains. I eventually wrote a poem based on him:

Arne and the Troll

Three mathematicians walked in the woods
In the musty, dusty pines.
Through groves of aspens, green and white,
And alpine meadows, clear and bright,
They talked of points and lines.

They climbed to where the trees grow thin,
Where glaciers creek and roll,
And Richard saw an elk leap high,
And Robert saw an eagle fly,
But Arne saw a troll.

"Look, there's a troll!" said Arne,
But Robert shook his head.
"You're silly to insist it's so.
There's no such thing as trolls, you know."
"I saw it!" Arne said.

"But where's your logic?" Richard said,
"And what's your QED?
Your proof must have some curious twists
To make me think that there exists
A troll I cannot see."

"For rings and fields and open sets
My proofs will leave no doubt.
But if your eyes refuse to see
The troll that waits behind that tree--"
And then the troll leapt out.

"Beware, you foolish little men,
This is the end of you.
Into my cave I'll take you three
That is, unless you set for me
A task I cannot do."

But Arne laughed. "You have proposed
A dangerous game, you'll own.
For if I set a task for you
That I can do that you can't do
Then you'll be turned to stone."

"I'm stronger than the glaciers,"
The old troll said with glee.
"I'm sure that I'm a match for you.
There is no doubt that I can do
The task you set for me."

"This polynomial equation
Of the ninth degree
Has nine solutions it will yield
(Because we're in the complex field.)
Now find them all for me."

"Oh, not equations!" cried the troll,
And gave an awful groan.
While Dick and Bob turned weak with fright,
The troll became a ghastly white,
And shimmered into stone.

Then Arne took a piece of chalk
And held it thoughtfully.
He touched the troll's broad granite breast
And brushed the lichens off its vest
And wrote there, "QED".


November 18, 1983
 
The book starts out with a long list of the foods in Bilbo's pantry, and a feast. One of the enticements of Thorin's account about treasure is that they will never need to worry about food again -- they'll just trade treasure for food, as his forefathers did in prosperous times.

Bilbo's idea of adventure is that it makes you late to dinner, and it turns out he is right, although that's hardly the most dangerous consequence. The troll adventure is all about food. The party can't make a fire for dinner and then loses its food. That leads them to the trolls, who are obsessed with finding something to eat other than mutton, and think dwarves will do nicely -- but then Gandalf gets them arguing about how best to prepare their meal. When Gandalf reveals himself, it turns out he was also looking for supplies, i.e., food.

I think we will find that this theme continues, as pretty much every adventure along the way involved either a loss of supplies or an attempt to restock supplies, sometimes successfully (Rivendell, Beorn, Long-lake). It turns out that adventuring does make you late for dinner, and risks making you into someone else's dinner.

Then when the dragon is slain, and the dwarves get their treasure, they refuse to trade it for food, and the elves and men decide to starve them out. On his deathbed Thorin has finally learned his lesson: "If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world." It's all about the food.

I remember little about food in The Silmarillion. I remember many feasts in LotR, but little starvation -- the lembas took care of that. Indeed, for a long time Frodo and Sam lived on nothing but lembas, a spiritual kind of food. But there is no lembas in The Hobbit, and food or lack of food is important throughout the book.
 
I do love that Troll poem of yours! And for once, the polynomial itself was the "solution"! [laugh]
 
Both The Hobbit and LotR have a running focus on food whenever a hobbit's point of view is involved. Obviously this includes almost all of The Hobbit, something we can follow in the coming weeks. Greed for food is another childish trait that makes a hobbit so particular, and a particularly good hero for a children's story.

But I think you are downplaying the importance of food in The Lord of the Rings, since hobbits are such important characters in that story. Check it out again: it's not just about "many feasts, but little starvation." Also, there is a running dialogue in LotR between lembas and regular food. The hobbits complain more than once that lembas does not satisfy the way real food does, so that they are "hungry" even when they are not, so to speak. As well, they often do not have enough lembas, and both Merry and Pippin, and Frodo and Sam, are on the verge of starvation at several points, despite having some lembas to prolong their survival.

I agree that The Hobbit is probably more food-oriented overall, along the lines you point out. I think that might be not just because of Bilbo, although that is important. It's also because The Hobbit is more of a just plain travel adventure. Food, or the lack of it, is very important during a journey, something Tolkien prided himself on taking account of in his writing. It also, as you note, provides an excuse for incidents.

The other aspect of travel that provides incidents is encounters with unpleasant strangers: food has little to do with the dwarves' capture by goblins, near death at the hands of the wargs and goblins, their capture by spiders, or their escape from the Elven halls. And of course food is not what the quest for the Mountain is about. The dwarves are not starving when they begin their plotting against Smaug.
 
...with the dwarves' capture by goblins,
"For goblins eat horses and ponies and donkeys (and other much more dreadful things), and they are always hungry... 'Bite them! Gnash them!'... rushed at Thorin with his mouth open."

near death at the hands of the wargs
"'He'll be eaten if we don't do something,' said Thorin, for there were howls all round them now"

and goblins,
"Roast 'em alive, or stew them in a pot; / fry them, boil them and eat them hot?"

their capture by spiders,
"'Aye, they'll make fine eating, when they're hung a bit,' said another."

or their escape from the Elven halls
"'I hope I never smell the smell of apples again!' said Fili. 'My tub was full of it. To smell apples everlastingly when you can scarcely move and are cold and sick with hunger is maddening. I could eat anything in the wide world now, for hours on end—but not an apple!'"
 
1. Can you imitate those calls? Are there other bird calls you know that you could give a signal with?
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Seagull, Cockatoo, Kingfisher [:)]


Bilbo walks toward the light in absolute silence, a skill he is proud of.
2. What is the secret to walking silently?
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I would have thought that would depend on what you're walking on.
The elves walked lightest of all - so Im not sure its soley (excuse pun) to do with stature - maybe more method.


He sees three trolls sitting around a fire, roasting mutton and eating it and drinking beer. They are talking ana arguing in a lower-class dialect of English (Westron?)
3. My Annotated Hobbit doesn't give this dialect a name. Would you say it is like a Cockney accent? Does that fit the trolls? Do the trolls' names fit them? Why or why not?
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Couldn't say ... but I see the purse voice as Cockney (and female).


Bilbo decides to pick Bill-the-troll's pocket and pulls out a purse, which unfortunately is "the mischief" and speaks out in protest.
5. Is this the same "mischief" that caused the fire not to light and the pony to fall in the river?
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Im not seeing bad luck here (although in after thought it is bad luck) as much as I see a spontaneous naive and bad idea for a little 'trying to prove your worth' ...
Thats the bad luck, and maybe its deserved here ... he was trying to steal a purse!


7. Which troll is your favorite?
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I like the three of them ... they are all characters!


Other Comments?
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Food a
nd eating does seem to have a great part in the story - but also the word danger/dangerous and safety - everything seems to be a threat or has a presumption of it being unsafe and potentially harmful.


Cheers
Elven x
 
One of the best parts of Thorin's description of life in the Lonely Mountain, was not needing to do anything for food - not bothering to grow it, and not needing to work for it.
In a way, even this quest is about food (the dwarves say it is about gold and harps - but these are symbols of property and leaisure); and what would a child remember about the good life the dwarves want to return to?
 
The other aspect of travel that provides incidents is encounters with unpleasant strangers: food has little to do with the dwarves' capture by goblins, near death at the hands of the wargs and goblins, their capture by spiders, or their escape from the Elven halls. And of course food is not what the quest for the Mountain is about. The dwarves are not starving when they begin their plotting against Smaug.
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The party gets captured by goblins because they were looking for a dry cave in which to prepare dinner during a fierce storm. After that they lose their provisions and, as well as saving their lives, must find more food. Bilbo's encounter with Gollum has a lot to do with food, because if Bilbo loses he will be Gollum's dinner.

The party gets captured by spiders because they left the path in search of food. The spiders capture them because they were looking for food.

Similarly, the party gets captured by the elves because they were looking for food. When questioned, the dwarves keep saying that they were starving. When they reach Lake-town, they celebrate with a feast and get new provisions.

One of the attractions of treasure, as explained by Thorin, is that the dwarves never had to worry about food or grow their own food, they could just purchase it from others. You rightly noted that this would seem to make them vulnerable to the food providers, and indeed that will prove the case when the dwarves actually come into possession of Smaug's treasure, and refuse to trade it for food, while the elves and men threaten to starve them out.

It's not just Bilbo who is obsessed with food, either. Bombur is even more obsessed, but all the dwarves are starving in Mirkwood.

As for LotR, I agree that we do hear a good deal about food, but I think there is a difference, and lembas is a big part of that difference. I'll have to think about the difference some more, but I think we agree it is there.
 
While I have no specific quote to prove so, I believe it says somewhere in the first chapter, or the second, that Hobbits are known to walk silently. I think it's just their natural talent, they have small feet meant for creeping through the earth.

Though I don't know any fairytales with a burglar and troll (it's on the tip of my tongue), this scene is very reminding of those kinds of themes. As for one with a stolen object that cries out, that's easy, "Jack and the Beanstalk". [:)]
 
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