The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien: The Lost Chapter

SPOILER WARNING:

Below the book cover image are spoilers for the following chapters of The Hobbit

Chapter IV ‘Over Hill and Under Hill’

Chapter V ‘Riddles in the Dark’

Chapter VI ‘Out of the Frying Pan Into the Fire’

and the first volume of The Lord of the Rings (The Fellowship of the Ring)

The above is my 1981 paperback copy of The Hobbit, and, sad to relate, it has reached the end of its reading life, having fallen apart between pages 192 and 193.  I could never throw this companion of nearly thirty years out, but for my re-read I had to resort to a more robust hardback copy.

Which happened to be a 1937 first edition.  Thus I was able to read the original version of Chapter V, ‘Riddles in the Dark’ – which differs in several points from the revised second edition of 1951 and all subsequent reprints.

What is, in retrospect, the most important passage in the whole book is identical in both versions of the chapter.  Bilbo has regained consciousness after a fall to find himself alone in a tunnel in the mountains:

His head was swimming, and he was far from certain even of the direction they had been going in when he had his fall.  He guessed as well as he could, and crawled along for a good way, till suddenly his hand met what felt like a tiny ring of cold metal lying on the floor of the tunnel.  It was a turning point in his career, but he did not know it.

it was a turning point in Tolkien’s career too.  When he wrote The Hobbit, he thought of the ring Bilbo found, which conferred invisibility, simply as a useful tool in his subsequent adventures.  It was only when Tolkien came to think about writing a sequel that he developed the concept of the Ruling Ring, the Dark Lord’s most precious possession, which would drive the entire plot of The Lord of the Rings – or, if you prefer, provide the McGuffin that allowed Tolkien to explore themes of loyalty, friendship, obsession and sacrifice.

Having decided that the ring Bilbo found was an immensely powerful magical object which would enslave its possessor, Tolkien needed to find a way to make this tally with what had been said about it in The Hobbit – in particular, Gollum’s attitude toward it.  Thus the revisions to the second edition of The Hobbit, which is the one I read as a child.  Ever since I discovered that there was a ‘lost chapter’ I intended to read it for myself, and the Lord of the Rings readalong was the perfect opportunity to do it.

Detailed notes on all the points of difference are available online; I wanted to see what kind of impression the chapter made when read from beginning to end, compared to the later version which I knew so well.  (Quotations from the second edition are in black, and those from the first edition are in purple).

Bilbo’s discovery of the Ring come during my favourite adventure, the capture of his party by goblins in the Misty Mountains.  Tolkien sets the scene with some atmospheric description:

It was getting bitter cold up here, and the wind came shrill among the rocks.  Boulders, too, at times came galloping down the mountain-sides, let loose by mid-day sun upon the snow, and passed among them (which was lucky) or over their heads (which was alarming).  The nights were comfortless and chill, and they did not dare to sing or talk too loud, for the echoes were uncanny, and the silence seemed to dislike being broken – except by the noise of water and the wail of wind and the crack of stone.

Then comes a storm.  Reading through the rest of Chapter IV, it occurred to me that if Gandalf had been tweeting this part of the adventure, it would have streamed something like this:

Hardly dare hope we will pass without fearful adventure over great tall mountains with lonely peaks and valleys where no king rules

Pessimism justified. Thunder. Lightning. Rain. Hail. Giants throwing stuff

Found shelter under hanging rock. Best we can do

@ThorinOakenshield Well if you know anywhere better, take us there #whinge

Sending hobbit to look for better shelter

Hobbit huddled under blanket shaking like leaf incoherent with terror. Sending Fili and Kili to look for better shelter

@FiliKili Have you thoroughly explored the cave?

Found quite fair sized cave explored it with wandlight looks OK

@OinGloin No you can’t light a fire to dry your clothes #idiots

Time to get some kip. Night all!

@Sarumanthewhite Cannot make it in for meeting. Stuck in cave in Misty Mountains with 13 dwarfs 1 hobbit 15 ponies

@Sarumanthewhite Fine #okbelikethat

What is hobbit screaming about?

Great. About 50 goblins just spewed into cave and kidnapped companions. Killed a few, chasing the rest #typical

Hiding in shadows of throne cavern while Great Goblin interrogates Thorin. Think can rescue companions, ponies are toast I fear

Killed the Great Goblin #irock #glamdring

Lost in mountain being chased by goblins #couldbeworse #couldbebetter

Killed a few goblins, frightened the rest off #glamdring #orcrist

Goblins back. Killed a few more. Heading for the gate. Follow me everyone!

Escaped! Goblins won’t follow because they sparkle in the sun. Or something

Where is hobbit? #notagain

***

So Chapter V opens with Bilbo alone in the dark.  Having found the ring and put it in his pocket, he uses the light of his sword Sting to find his way along the tunnel – which ends in a lake.  Here he meets Gollum, who chooses this method of introducing himself.

Up came Gollum and whispered and hissed:

“Bless us and splash us, my precioussss!  I guess it’s a choice feast; at least a tasty morsel it’d make us, gollum!”  And when he said gollum he made a horrible swallowing noise in his throat.  That is how he got his name, though he always called himself ‘my precious.’

I was intrigued that Gollum’s use of the term ‘my precious’ was already present in this version – but only as a way of referring to himself. In the second edition and in The Lord of Rings the idea is taken further: Gollum refers to the Ring as the Precious, and it becomes clear that his personality is split – the part of himself he addresses as ‘his precious’ is the part which is dominated by the Ring.

Bilbo then tells Gollum his name – ‘very foolishly’, as Gandalf comments in The Fellowship of the Ring.  It was foolish, but to me it makes perfect sense: Bilbo at this stage is still unwary and inexperienced enough not to conceal his identity, even to someone like Gollum.  In The Lord of the Rings, as Sauron exerts all his strength to find the missing Ring, Bilbo’s name becomes a crucial piece of information – and it’s from Gollum that he discovers it.  So one line of dialogue published in 1937 becomes an essential building block of the plot of the trilogy developed over the following twenty years.

Gollum then suggests the riddle game:

“It must have a competition with us, my preciouss!  If precious asks, and it doesn’t answer, we eats it, my preciousss.  If it asks us, and we doesn’t answer, we gives it a present, gollum!”

This is where the two versions begin to diverge, for in the version I read growing up, Gollum offers, if Bilbo wins, to show him the way out.  I have to say the second version is far more plausible, even setting aside the nature of the Ring.  Bilbo has nothing to gain from getting a present, whereas he desperately needs to find the way out.  Gollum, on the other hand, has nothing to lose from showing Bilbo the way out: why would he offer a present instead, even something of far less importance than the Ring?

The riddle game proceeds along much the same lines in both versions, and the tension is equally high, as Bilbo’s life is at stake.  And in both versions the game ends with Bilbo asking Gollum what he has in his pocket.  Gollum is offered three guesses, and with the final one – ‘String, or nothing!’ – he loses the game.  This is what happens in the first edition:

“Both wrong,” cried Bilbo very much relieved; and he jumped at once to his feet, put his back to the nearest wall, and held out his little sword.  But funnily enough he need not have been alarmed.  For one thing Gollum had learned long long ago was never, never to cheat at the riddle-game, which is a sacred one and of immense antiquity.  And there was the sword.

So at this point in the chapter the threat to Bilbo is removed.  On discovering the loss of the Ring:

I don’t know how many times Gollum begged Bilbo’s pardon.  He kept on saying: “We are ssorry; we didn’t mean to cheat, we meant to give it our only pressent, if it won the competition.”  He even offered to catch Bilbo some nice juicy fish to eat as a consolation.

Gollum tells Bilbo that he has lost a ring, and Bilbo realises that this is probably the very ring he has found.  But he keeps quiet about it, insisting that Gollum show him the way out in lieu of a present.

So Bilbo slipped under the arch, and said goodbye to the nasty miserable creature; and very glad he was.  He did not feel comfortable until he felt quite sure it was gone, and he kept his head out in the main tunnel listening until the flip-flap of Gollum going back to his boat died away in the darkness.

By contrast, in the second edition the tension continues to build as Gollum, discovering his loss, attacks Bilbo only to miss him because he has accidentally slipped on the Ring.  Then Bilbo has to follow him to the exit and finally leap over him to get away. Gollum’s shrieks follow him down the passage:

Now faint as an echo, but menacing, the voice came behind:

“Thief, thief, thief!  Baggins!  We hates it, we hates it, we hates it for ever!”

In both versions, when Bilbo arrives at the goblins’ back door, he isn’t wearing the Ring, and the goblin guards see him.  In the first edition, although he knows the ring makes people invisible, he simply doesn’t think to put it on.  In the second edition, the ring has mysteriously slipped off his finger:

Whether it was an accident, or a last trick of the ring before it took a new master, it was not on his finger…A pang of fear and loss, like an echo of Gollum’s misery, smote Bilbo…

So the little incident acquires much more significance – this passage, beside suggesting the malice and agency of the Ring, sets up a parallel between Bilbo and Gollum which will be developed to great effect in The Lord of the Rings.

Once the true nature of the Ring had been established in The Lord of Rings it became totally implausible that Gollum would ever have given it away.  Tolkien therefore revised The Hobbit.  In the foreword to The Lord of the Rings he explains the existence of two versions by explaining that Bilbo had lied about how he came into possession of the Ring – wishing, as Gandalf puts it, ‘to establish his claim to the Ring beyond doubt.’

While I was very interested to read the ‘lost’ version of ‘Riddles in the Dark’, the second is a vast improvement – and not only because it makes sense in the context of The Lord of the Rings.  It is also more logical and far more dramatic.  The two portrayals of Gollum have a lot in common – in both versions he is a pretty nasty piece of work and would have Bilbo for dinner if he could get away with it .  But in the first edition he seems weaker, more fearful, less dangerous.  What is missing is the element of obsession which, proving stronger than his fear, will eventually drive him out of the mountains in search of the Ring.

If you would like to hear Tolkien reading from ‘Riddles in the Dark’, click on the image to go to Youtube:

The Quest of Erebor

Anyone interested in the links between The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings should read the section entitled ‘The Quest of Erebor’ in Unfinished Tales.  It contains two drafts of Gandalf’s previously unpublished account of how he came to decide that Bilbo should go with the dwarves to the Lonely Mountain in the first place.  There’s a wonderful conversation between Gandalf and Thorin, who is dubious about including Bilbo in the party, and Gandalf tells the story of the Unexpected Party from his point of view:

Next day, Wednesday, April the 26th, I brought Thorin and his companions to Bag End; with great difficulty so far as Thorin was concerned – he hung back at the last.  And of course Bilbo was completely bewildered and behaved ridiculously.  Everything in fact went extremely badly for me from the beginning; and that unfortunate business about the “professional thief”, which the Dwarves had got firmly into their heads, only made matters worse.

Gandalf also expands a little on his meeting with Thorin’s father Thrain in the dungeons of the Necromancer, and explains how it was that Thrain, while losing the lesser Ring of Power he had possessed, had managed to keep hold of the map of the Lonely Mountain and the key – without which the events in The Hobbit could never have taken place:

I think that the Dark Power had desired nothing from him except the Ring only, and when he had taken that he troubled no further, but just flung the broken prisoner into the pits to rave until he died.  A small oversight, but it proved fatal.  Small oversights often do.

Tags: jrr tolkien, the hobbit, the lord of the rings, unfinished tales