THE HOBBIT Chapter 8
CHAPTER 8
Flies and Spiders
After sleeping most of the morning, Bilbo and the Dwarves woke up to realize where in the world they were. The Eagles had taken them far to the north. They were right on the border of Mirkwood Forest! Gandalf explained to the party that they would have to cross the forest if they wanted to get close to the Lonely Mountain.
There was no other way around, he said. To the north were the Iron Hills. They were full of goblins. To the south was the Necromancer - a creature too powerful even for Gandalf! There was no other way to go but through! It was a journey of many days. And the party did not have a lot of food and their ponies were lost in the goblin caves in the Misty Mountains.
“Gandalf, why do you keep talking about going into Mirkwood Forest as if you were not coming with us?” asked Thorin. “Because I am not coming with you, my good Dwarf!” answered Gandalf. “I have important business to the south. The Necromancer has been causing problems. I must see if I can help.”
“You are leaving us?” cried Bilbo. “How will we survive without you?” Gandalf looked at Bilbo and smiled. “I am trusting you to take care of the Dwarves now, my dear Burglar Baggins. I think you will be very useful to them. If I can, I will join you on the other side. But this is your adventure now - yours and the Dwarves’. I am confident you will be just fine.”
The Dwarves grumbled and complained. But Gandalf told them to stop acting like little Dwarflings. “Listen to me now. You must follow the trail through Mirkwood. Whatever you do, do not leave the trail! The forest is full of danger. Good-bye and good luck to you!” Gandalf turned and began walking south. “And remember, do not leave the trail!” Those were his final words.
The entrance to the trail was an arch made by two large trees. Their branches connected over the path. The path was dark. It was also very narrow - they had to walk in a single-file line under the branches. After a while, they looked back. They could not see the entrance. They could only see the dark trees and dark shadows.
There were strange noises in the forest. On both sides of the path, they could hear things moving in the leaves. They could hear branches cracking in dark places off the track. But the worst things they saw were the spider webs. The threads were very thick, like rope. They were in the trees on either side of the path. Bilbo could only imagine what kind of creature made them.
Very quickly they began to hate the forest. They hated it as much as they hated the dark tunnels of the goblins. They could not see the sky, and there was no wind under the branches. The forest was still and dark. It bothered the Dwarves and the Hobbit very much, and they were used to tunneling under the ground!
The nights were the worst part about the forest. They were so black that you could not see your hand in front of your nose! They could see nothing! Well, that is not exactly true: they could see the eyes. When it was Bilbo’s turn to watch at night, he could see the eyes shining in the darkness all around them.
Sometimes he could see pairs of yellow or red eyes. They would look at him from a little distance, and then disappear. “Insect eyes,” he thought, “they are too big to be animal eyes.”
The days and nights passed with no end in sight. They did not have much food left, and they did not know how much longer they would survive. One night, with their stomachs growling in hunger, Balin, who was leading the party along the path, called out: “What was that? I thought I saw a light shining in the forest.”
A long distance off the path they saw a red glow in the dark. Another point of light appeared, then another next to it. It seemed clear to them that the lights were torches and fires burning under the trees. Then they could smell the delicious smell of cooking meat! The Dwarves wanted to run off the path into the forest, but Bilbo reminded them about the warning Gandalf gave them: “Whatever you do, do not leave the trail!”
They argued for a moment. Then Thorin said, “A feast would be no good, if we did not return from it alive. But without food, we will not survive much longer!” Hunger decided it for them. They all left the path and walked into the dark forest together, towards the distant lights.
They crawled for a long time through the dark. Finally they came close to an open space in the trees - a clearing. They heard voices and laughter. There were many people in the clearing. Elves! There were forest Elves having a feast! Full of hunger, the party ran forward into the ring of light. Suddenly, the lights went out and the forest was black as black. The Elves were gone, and Bilbo and the Dwarves were lost in the black night. They could not even find each other, it was so dark!
Bilbo ran around in the dark calling out the names of the Dwarves! “Dori, Nori, Ori, Oin, Gloin, Fili, Kili, Bombur, Bifur, Bofur, Dwalin, Balin, Thorin Oakenshield!” The others were also calling out, but their cries began to move further and further away. And soon their cries for their friends turned into cries for help and cries of fear! Soon, all their cries disappeared into the distance. Bilbo was left alone in complete silence and in complete darkness.
That was one of Bilbo’s most miserable moments. He decided there was nothing to do but wait until the morning to look for his friends. So he sat down in the dark with his back against a tree and fell asleep. Soon, and not for the last time, he started to dream about his little Hobbit hole far, far away. In his hunger he began to dream of delicious eggs and toast and butter. Suddenly, he felt something touch him!
Something like a strong sticky string was against his hand. He tried to move, but his legs were already covered in the same stuff. So when he stood up, he fell over! Then the giant spider, that had been tying him up in its web, came from behind a tree. It jumped at Bilbo! He could only see the creature’s eyes, but he could feel its strong legs trying to wrap the horrible sticky threads round and round him.
He was lucky that he woke up at that moment. Soon he would have been covered with the sticky thread. But Bilbo was ready to fight! He used his hands to beat the creature away - it was trying to poison him, like small spiders poison flies before they eat them. Then Bilbo remembered his little sword. He drew it out and the spider jumped back!
Bilbo had time to cut his legs free. Now it was his turn to attack! He came at the massive spider and struck it with his sword right in the eyes. The spider made a terrible sound. It jumped and danced and threw its legs in horrible movements. Bilbo struck it again with the point of his sword. It fell dead, its legs in the air. His sword was covered in black blood.
Bilbo was alone. No Dwarves. No wizard. No help from anyone else. That was very important to Mr. Baggins. He felt like a different person. He felt much stronger. He felt much more courageous, even with an empty stomach. He looked at his little sword. “I will give you a name,” he said to it, “and I will call you Sting!” He wiped the blood from the sword on the grass and put it back in its scabbard.
“Now,” he said to himself, “I must find the Dwarves!” He did not know where they were exactly, but he guessed. Bilbo put on his ring and went into the dark forest to look for them. He imagined his friends were more or less in the same situation as he had been - caught by spiders! So, he followed the spider webs where they were the thickest and darkest. His guess was a good one!
After walking a long distance, he came to a place in the forest that was darker than dark - the spider webs were so thick that they obscured the light! Suddenly, he saw that there were huge and horrible spiders in the trees above him. Even with the ring on, he was afraid they would discover him. Then, he saw them - the Dwarves! They were hanging from the branches above him like white bags. They were covered in the sticky spider threads, but he could see parts of their hoods and the tips of their noses. They were motionless.
He heard the spiders making a terrible noise, as if they were talking to each other. And to his amazement, he could understand them! They were talking about the Dwarves! “It was a difficult fight, but it was worth it,” said one spider. “They have nasty thick skins, but I imagine they have good juices inside.” “Yes, they will taste delicious, especially after they hang for a while,” said another spider.
“Kill ‘em, I say,” hissed a third spider, “kill ‘em now and hang ‘em dead for a while.” “I think they are already dead,” said the first spider. “That they are not. I saw one moving just now. They are waking up again from their beautiful spider sleep. Come, I’ll show you.” Then the fat spider ran along a thick spider thread over to the Dwarves. Bilbo was horrified!
The spiders began to prick the hanging dwarves with their hairy legs. The fattest hanging bag - it must have been Bombur - kicked the spider hard. It fell from the branch. “You were right,” laughed one spider, “they are still alive and kicking!” “I’ll put an end to that,” hissed the spider that fell. It climbed back up the tree and was ready to bite!
Bilbo saw that he must do something. He could not climb the trees like a spider, and he did not have anything to shoot with. But he saw that all around him on the ground there were many stones. As a young Hobbit boy, Bilbo was known in the Shire as a good shot throwing stones. As an older Hobbit, he was also quite good at bowling and darts and other throwing games.
So he picked up one of the stones, a nice round stone that fit nicely in his hand. Then, Bilbo threw the stone! It hit the spider right on the head! It fell unconscious off the branch and hit the ground on its back - its legs curled into its fat body.
The next stone went flying through a big spider web, breaking its thick threads. The spider that was in the middle fell from the tree and hit the ground, dead. These attacks caused a lot of commotion in the spider colony. The spiders forgot the Dwarves for a moment and they went to look for whoever was throwing the stones.
They came down from the trees as quick as lightning, crawling and swinging. They could not see Bilbo, but they threw out long threads of sticky rope in his direction. They tried to capture him in their webs! Bilbo moved quickly and quietly to a different place. Then he had an idea: he would lead the angry spiders further and further away from the Dwarves.
He began to call the spiders names to infuriate them, and so the Dwarves could hear his voice. “Attercop! Attercop! You old fat spiders! Stop spinning your webs and come get me! You’ll never catch me!” he called out. It wasn’t very good, but the spiders were furious! As he ran away, he threw more stones at the spiders. There were dozens and dozens of them in the trees, following him from above.
Bilbo moved quickly from one place to another to try to attract the spiders. But other spiders were using their webs to make a fence all around to trap the annoying thing calling them names. Soon, Bilbo would not be able to escape. He saw this and began to cry, “Lazy lob and crazy cob, come catch the invisible fly! You cannot trap me, you lazy bees!” He took out his little sword and cut the last web that would catch him, and he ran deeper into the forest.
Bilbo ran as far away into the forest as he could. The angry spiders followed him. He had very little time now before the spiders would go back to the Dwarves. He ran back silently to where he saw the Dwarves hanging from the trees. It was quite difficult to climb up the tall tree to rescue them. But he used a thick spider thread like a rope to climb up. It stuck to him and it hurt him, but he succeeded!
Bilbo’s next job was to free the Dwarves. What could he do? They were very high off the ground. If he cut a Dwarf down, they would fall and surely be hurt. “No time!” he thought. He took his little blade and cut the threads that covered the closest Dwarf. Out fell Kili! Bilbo and the Dwarves were lucky. The floor of the forest was covered with a thick layer of dead leaves. Kili fell hard, but he was not injured!
Bilbo worked quickly, and soon there was a pile of spider-poisoned Dwarves lying on the forest floor. Bilbo climbed quickly down the same spider thread and tried to help the Dwarves. “Quickly now,” he said, “there is no time for questions. Here come the spiders. We must fight to escape!”
Then the battle began. The Dwarves were exhausted and sick with poison, but some had knives and some had sticks, and all of them could find stones to throw. And Bilbo had Sting! But there were simply too many spiders! The party was getting tired. In the end, Bilbo could not think of anything. He had only one choice - he must let the Dwarves know about his magic ring.
He was sorry about that, but there was nothing else to do. “I am going to disappear,” he said. “I will lead the spiders away from you. You Dwarves keep together and go in that direction towards the Elf fires from last night.” They did not understand, but Bilbo could not wait any more. He put the ring on his finger and disappeared!
Soon the Dwarves could hear Bilbo in the distance calling out to the spiders - calling them fat and calling them lazy. This made the spiders so angry that they abandoned the Dwarves - who had stones and knives and sticks - and they ran after the voice in the distance. The Dwarves did not have any option. They began to move away from Bilbo’s voice and towards where the Elves had been the night before.
But the Dwarves were not fast enough. Soon they were almost surrounded by several spiders that followed them instead of the voice. The Dwarves had to run for a little and then turn to fight for their lives. They repeated this many times, and they were becoming exhausted. They could not continue for much longer.
Suddenly, Bilbo appeared and cut down many of the spiders. The spiders were scared of the bright blade. They did not follow after the surprising attack. The Dwarves and Bilbo escaped, and they found their way back to the Elf clearing. There was good magic there, and the spiders did not follow them.
But the adventurers' luck was about to run out. Suddenly, out from the trees came a whole company of Elves, armed with swords and shields and spears and bows and arrows. All the commotion caused by the Dwarves the night before had attracted the spiders, and the Elves had come to discover what was going on. Bilbo quickly put on his ring and disappeared. But the Dwarves were very visible, and now they were prisoners of the Elves of Mirkwood.
Elves do not love Dwarves. They pushed and dragged the Dwarves back to their fortress in the forest. The Elves of Mirkwood lived in caves and caverns under the ground. The caves were like the Dwarven caves, but brighter and not as deep. Bilbo followed them carefully, trying not to be heard.
In the enormous cave, close to the edge of Mirkwood on the eastern side, lived the forest Elves’ greatest king. The king’s cave was his palace. It was also his dungeon. That is where the Elves were taking the poor, exhausted Dwarves. Bilbo was almost left behind again, as the Elves brought the Dwarves into the caves, and the front gate closed behind them.
And it is there that the Elf king questioned the Dwarves about their journey. As I said before, the Elves did not love the Dwarves. Far in the past they were enemies. They went to war against each other because of gold and treasure. Now, this Elf king of Mirkwood loved treasure more than anything. So when he questioned Thorin and the Dwarves about their journey, they refused to answer the Elf king.
“If you will not answer my questions, Dwarf, I will let you sit in the dark until you think of an answer,” said the Elf king. “Take them away! Keep them safe until they are ready to talk.” Then the Elf guards put iron chains on the Dwarves and took them deep into the caves. They gave the Dwarves food and drink. Forest Elves are not goblins, after all.
There, in the dungeons below Mirkwood forest, the Dwarves became prisoners of the forest Elves. Bilbo was alone and scared inside the caves. He was not a prisoner, but he also could not leave! He had his ring on, but the Elves other senses than their eyesight. He found a dark corner to hide, and to think, and finally to sleep. He dreamed, not for the last time, of his comfortable Hobbit home a long, long, long way away to the west.
