CONTENTS
CHAPTER I: AN UNEXPECTED PARTY
CHAPTER IV: OVER HILL AND UNDER HILL
CHAPTER V: RIDDLES IN THE DARK
CHAPTER VI: OUT OF THE FRYING-PAN INTO THE FIRE
CHAPTER VIII: FLIES AND SPIDERS
CHAPTER IX: BARRELS OUT OF BOND
CHAPTER XII: INSIDE INFORMATION
CHAPTER XV: THE GATHERING OF THE CLOUDS
CHAPTER XVI: A THIEF IN THE NIGHT
CHAPTER XVII: THE CLOUDS BURST
CHAPTER XVIII: THE RETURN JOURNEY
This is a story of long ago. At that time the languages and letters were quite different from ours of today. English is used to represent the languages. But two points may be noted. (1) In English the only correct plural of dwarf is dwarfs, and the adjective is dwarfish. In this story dwarves and dwarvish are used*, but only when speaking of the ancient people to whom Thorin Oakenshield and his companions belonged. (2) Orc is not an English word. It occurs in one or two places but is usually translated goblin (or hobgoblin for the larger kinds). Orc is the hobbits’ form of the name given at that time to these creatures, and it is not connected at all with our orc, ork, applied to sea-animals of dolphin-kind.
Runes were old letters originally used for cutting or scratching on wood, stone, or metal, and so were thin and angular. At the time of this tale only the Dwarves made regular use of them, especially for private or secret records. Their runes are in this book represented by English runes, which are known now to few people. If the runes on Thror’s Map are compared with the transcriptions into modern letters† †, the alphabet, adapted to modern English, can be discovered and the above runic title also read. On the Map all the normal runes are found, except
The last two runes are the initials of Thror and Thrain. The moon-runes read by Elrond were:
On the Map the compass points are marked in runes, with East at the top, as usual in dwarf-maps, and so read clockwise: E(ast), S(outh), W(est), N(orth).
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.
It had a perfectly round door like a porthole, painted green, with a shiny yellow brass knob in the exact middle. The door opened on to a tube-shaped hall like a tunnel: a very comfortable tunnel without smoke, with panelled walls, and floors tiled and carpeted, provided with polished chairs, and lots and lots of