29 May Trolls!

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"They came to the hill and were soon in the wood. Up the hill they went; but there was no proper path to be seen, such as might lead to a house or a farm; and do what they could they made a great deal of rustling and crackling and creaking (and a good deal of grumbling and dratting), as they went through the trees in the pitch dark.

Suddenly the red light shone out very bright through the tree-trunks not far ahead.

'Now it is the burglar's turn,' they said, meaning Bilbo. 'You must go on and find out all about that light, and what it is for, and if all is perfectly safe and canny,' said Thorin to the hobbit."

Three very large persons were sitting round a very large fire of beech-logs. They were toasting mutton on long spits of wood, and licking the gracy off their fingers. There was a fine toothsome smell. Also there was a barrel of good drink at hand, and they were drinking out of jugs. But they were trolls. Obviously trolls.

Thus Bilbo discovers Bert, Tom, and William "Bill" Huggins; horrible, man-eating (when they can get it) monsters whose language is "not drawing-room fashion, at all."

" 'Blimey, Bert, look what I've copped!' said William.

'What is it?' said the others coming up.

'Lumme, if I knows! What are yer?'

'Bilbo Baggins, a bur - a hobbit,' said poor Bilbo, shaking all over and wondering how to make owl-noises before they throttled him.

'A burrahobbit?' said they a bit startled. Troll are slow in the uptake, and mighty suspicious about anything new to them.

[...]

' P'raps there are more like him round about, and we might make a pie,' said Bert. 'Here you, are there any more of your sort a-sneakin' in these here woods, yer nassty little rabbit," said he looking at the hobbit's furry feet; and he picked him up by the toes and shook him.

'Yes, lots,' said Bilbo, before he remembered not to give his friends away. 'No none at all, not one,' he said immediately afterwards.'

Right in the middle of the fight up came Balin. The dwarves had heard noises from a distance, and after waiting for some time for Bilbo to come back, or to hoot like an owl, they started off one by one to creep towards the light as quietly as they could. No sooner did Tom see Balin come into the light than he gave an awful howl. Trolls simply detest the very sight of dwarves (uncooked). Bert and Bill stopped fighting immediately, and 'a sack, Tom, quick!' they said. Before Balin, who was wondering where in all this commotion Bilbo was, knew what was happening, a sack was over his head, and he was down.

'There's lots more to come yet,' said Tom, 'or I'm mighty mistook. Lots and none at all, it is,' said he. 'No burrahobbits, but lots of these here dwarves. That's about the shape of it!'

'I reckon you're right,' said Bert, 'and we'd best get out of the light.'

And so they did.

Soon Dwalin lay by Balin, and Fili and Kili together, and Dori and Nori and Ori all in a heap, and Oin and Gloin and Bifur and Bofur and Bombur piled uncomfortably near the fire."

And so it is, that in the evening of 29 May, Bilbo and the dwarves, lost and wretched in the wilderness, followed a pleasant red light to the trolls. Lesson to be learned? Leave well enough alone! Or (since that really isn't in the spirit of the hobbit's adventure), wade right in - but be sure to have a wizard at your back!

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