Text:
It was full morning when he awoke. One of the dwarves had fallen
over him in the shadows where he lay, and had rolled down with a bump from the
platform on to the floor. It was Bofur, and he was grumbling about it, when
Bilbo opened his eyes.
"Get up lazybones," he said, "or there will be no breakfast left
for you."
Up jumped Bilbo. "Breakfast!" he cried. "Where is breakfast?"
"Mostly inside us," answered the other dwarves who were moving
about the hall; "but what is left is out on the veranda. We have been about
looking for Beorn ever since the sun got up; but there is no sigh of him
anywhere, though we found breakfast laid as soon as we went out."
"Where is Gandalf?" asked Bilbo, moving off to find something to
eat as quick as he could.
"O! Out and about somewhere," they told him. But he saw no sign of
he wizard all that day until the evening. Just before sunset he walked into the
hall, where the hobbit and the dwarves were having supper, waited on by Beorn’s
wonderful animals, as they had been all day. Of Beorn they had seen and heard
nothing since the night before, and they were getting puzzled.
"Where is our host, and where have you been all day
yourself?" they all cried.
"One question at a time – and none till after supper! I haven’t
had a bit since breakfast."
At last Gandalf pushed away his plate and jug – he had eaten two
whole loaves (with masses of butter and homey and clotted cream) and drunk at
least a quart of mead – and he took out his pipe.
. . . "I will answer the second question first," he said, "– but bless me! This
is a splendid place for smoke rings!" Indeed for a long time they could get
nothing more out of him, he was so busy sending smoke rings dodging round
pillars of the hall, changing them into all sots of different shapes and
colours, and setting them at last chasing one another out of the hole in the
roof. They must have looked very queer from outside, popping out into the air
one after another, green, blue, red, silver-grey, yellow, white; big ones,
little ones; little ones dodging through big ones and joining into
figure-eights, and going off like a flock of birds into the distance.
Q: Clotted Cream: There is an English Tea shop here in downtown Honolulu. It is
really wonderfully enchanting. Little sandwiches and scones serves on a layered
platter, English Tea in real china cups and saucers, flowery tablecloths,
Victorian décor, the ‘meal’ or ‘tea’ is designed to share with others and
served with real "Clotted Cream", which I never heard of before. I went the
first time with a friend who knows about such things. It is rich, yet light and
tasty, different from butter. – What do you know about clotted cream and what
part it has in the English society? What does that detail add to the story?
Q: Smoke Rings: How do you think Gandalf gets coloured smoke rings? Does he
delight in delaying answering questions and keeping folks waiting? What
purpose(s) might he have in delaying? (or is it the story-tellers purpose to us
readers?) Do Gandalf’s smoke rings have a special place of fondness in your
heart?
Q: Comments: Do you have any thing to say about the day they had with the
animals without Beorn or Gandalf…or anything
else?
* * * * * * * * * * *
Links for this week’s RR discussions: Queer Lodgings Chapter #7:
1. Notation Page for ‘Queer Lodgings’; 2. Beorning Questions; 3. The Beornings Book quotes ; 4. Artists of Middle-Earth [OneRing.net]; 5. Queer Lodgings Annotated Art: [Torania.com] "Mightier than Estë is Nienna, sister of the Fëanturi; she dwells alone. She is acquainted with grief, and mourns for every wound that Arda suffered in the marring of Melkor. So great was her sorrow, as the Music unfolded that her song turned to lamentation long before its end, and the sound of mourning was woven into the themes of the World before it began. But she does not weep for herself; and those who hearken to her learn pity, and endurance in hope. . . . All those who wait in Mandos cry to her, for she brings strength to the spirit and turns sorrow to wisdom." Valaquenta
Aloha & Mahalo – What is The Aloha Spirit
