Chapter Two: Roast Mutton:
Again, the book used is The Annotated Hobbit by Douglas A. Anderson.
Right from the beginning of the chapter we see that Bilbo's Took side is slowly
waking up. However, he's still conflicted about the idea of adventuring (leaning
more to the 'just going to forget it ever happened' side). That is, until Gandalf
reappears.
Gandalf shows Bilbo the note that was left by Thorin, and hustles him out
the door before he even knows what's going on. The next thing the hobbit realizes
is that he's left on this adventure, which at first doesn't seem so bad. Then
the scenery becomes spooky, with "old castles with an evil look, as if they
had been built by wicked people"(The Annotated Hobbit.65), and the weather
changes for the worse: wet and cold.
Even here, Middle-Earth is slipping in: the name of the region, the Lone-lands
is a translation of the Sindarin name 'Eriador', which it is called in The Lord of the Rings.
The troubles continued, with one of the ponies losing a large part of the
group's food supplies. However, here the first sub-adventure in the story comes
into being. The three trolls. Of course, things don't turn out as they are supposed
to, ending up with all of the dwarves and the hobbit captured. Of course, Gandalf
manages to free them, with everything working out fine in the end. They pick
up the swords found in the Trolls den and bury the gold.
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