Master of Middle Earth Read Online Free PDF Page A

pop!; the fire from his wand explodes with a poof; Bombur falls out of a tree plop onto the ground; Bilbo falls splash! into the water, and so on at every turn. Nor are these sound effects limited to
the prose. Many of the poems are designed more for onomatopoeic purposes than
for content. One prime example is the song of the goblins underground after
their capture of Bilbo and the dwarves, with its Clash! crash! Crush, smash! and Swish, smack! Whip crack and Ho, ho, my lad. The elves'
barrel-rolling song has all the appropriate noises, from roll-roll-rolling to splash plump! and down they bump! Tolkien knows that up to a
certain age children like their stories to be highly audible. 3
    But the question
as to what age Tolkien is addressing cannot be long deferred. Probably he
himself had no precise answer in mind, but the very nature of the tale and the
methods of its telling draw the principal parameters. The children listening to
its recital must be young enough not to resent the genial fatherliness of the
I-You technique, the encapsulated expositions, sound effects, and the rest, yet
old enough to be able to cope with the fairly stiff vocabulary used on many
occasions and to make at least something of the maturer elements that keep
cropping up in what they hear. For, although The Hobbit is predominantly
juvenile fiction, it is not all of a piece. Much of the confusion about it
arises from the fact that it contains episodes more suited to the adult mind
than the child's.
    One such is Bard's
claim to a share in Smaug's treasure after he has killed the dragon, a claim
made not only on his own behalf but also on behalf of the elves and the people
of Lake-town. Tolkien has built up here a very pretty conundrum in law, equity,
and morals. The treasure consists of a hoard gathered by Thorin's ancestors,
but Smaug has mingled with it unstimated valuables belonging to Bard's
forebears in the city of Dale. So Bard has a clear legal claim to some unclear
fraction. The Lake-town men have no title in law to any portion but rest their
case on the argument that Thorin owes them an equitable share because the
dwarves roused Smaug to destroy their town, leaving them now destitute; and besides
they helped to outfit the dwarf expedition when it was penniless. Bard invokes
for them, in fact, the general principle that the wealthy "may have pity
beyond right on the needy that befriended them when they were in want."
And what of the elves' contention that the dwarves stole the treasure from them
in the first place, as against the dwarf reply that they took it in payment for
goldsmith work for the elves under a contract which their king later refused to
honor? A Solomon might well pick his way gingerly among these claims and
counterclaims, especially when faced with Thorin's answer that he is not
responsible for Smaug's devastations, and will not bargain under threat of
siege by an army anyway. If so, what is even the wise child to make of it all?
    Well, Tolkien does
not leave his audience, young or old, without some guidance. He comes right out
and says of Bard's claim when first uttered, "Now these were fair words
and true, if proudly and grimly spoken; and Bilbo thought that Thorin would at once
admit what justice was in them." Thorin's refusal is characterized as
dwarfish "lust" for gold fevered by brooding on the dragon's hoard.
The experienced reader of Tolkien's other writings recognizes here his usual
condemnation of the cardinal sin of "possessiveness," which besets
dwarves as a race and which indeed is at the core of all the evil underlying
the War of the Ring, and much other ill in the world besides. But Bard is a
little too eager to resort to arms, being himself somewhat afflicted by the same
curse. He has to be rebuked by the elf king, who contrives to conquer the same
inclination to greed in his own breast, "Long will I tarry, ere I begin
this war for gold . . . Let us hope still for something that will bring
reconciliation." Bilbo