Summary: Chapter 18
If more of us valued food and cheer and
song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world.
(See Important Quotations Explained)
When Bilbo awakens, he is still lying with a bad headache
on the side of the mountain, but he is otherwise unharmed. From
the camps below, he sees that his side has won the battle against
the goblins and Wargs. A man comes searching for Bilbo but cannot
find him until the hobbit remembers to take off his magic ring.
Bilbo is carried back to the camp where Gandalf waits and is delighted
to see the hobbit alive. However, there is sad business to attend
to. Bilbo must say farewell to Thorin, who is mortally wounded.
Thorin asks Bilbo’s forgiveness for the harsh words spoken earlier.
Fili and Kili have also been killed, but the rest of
the dwarves have survived. Gandalf describes the end of the battle
for Bilbo: the eagles, watching the movements of the goblins, came
just in time and turned the tide of battle. Yet things still might
have gone badly were it not for the sudden appearance of Beorn in
the shape of a bear, massive and enraged. This sent the rest of
the goblins scattering, and now they are all either dead or in hiding.
Summary: Chapter 19
The dead are buried, and Dain is crowned the new King
under the Mountain. The dwarves are at peace with the lake men and the wood
elves. Bard is the new Master of Lake Town, and from his share of
the treasure, he gives Bilbo a handsome sum. Soon, it is time for
the hobbit to return home. He travels with Gandalf and Beorn, taking
the long way north around Mirkwood, for nothing could persuade him
to enter that forest again. They spend most of the harsh winter
at Beorn’s house, with much feasting and merriment.
In the spring, they continue on to Rivendell. There,
Gandalf and Elrond exchange many tales of great deeds, past and
present, while Bilbo recovers from his weariness and wounds through
rest and the magic of the elves. Bilbo learns the reason Gandalf
left the company near Mirkwood: he was fighting alongside the council
of wizards to drive the Necromancer out of the forest. Finally,
Bilbo and Gandalf travel the last, long stretch of road back to
the hobbit lands. Approaching his home, Bilbo receives a nasty surprise.
He has been presumed dead, and the contents of his hill are being
auctioned off.
Though he puts a stop to the auction and recovers most
of his valuables, Bilbo is never again really accepted by the other
hobbits. They view his adventuring with skepticism, and his return
with gold and tales of dragons and war only confirms the hobbits’
suspicion that Bilbo has gotten in over his head. This Bilbo doesn’t
mind—now that he has a wizard, elves, and the occasional dwarf coming
to visit him, he does not care much for the company of respectable hobbits.
Most important, however, he still has his kettle, his pipe, and
all the comforts of his home at Bag End.
Analysis: Chapters 18–19
Thorin’s parting words resolve The Hobbit’s
central conflict. Thorin at last regrets his greed, and he recognizes
the value of a race like the hobbits (and particularly of Bilbo),
which he had scorned at the beginning of the book. “If more of us
valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a
merrier world,” Thorin says. Bilbo’s love of food, cheer, and song
seem like undesirable qualities when we first meet him in his hill
at Bag End. However, the great elves share these qualities, while
the ill-fated Thorin does not.
