Chapter 7: Queer Lodgings
The next morning Dawn woke. She ate cold mutton for breakfast which made her wonder what Buffy was eating.
The eagles soon took them to a great rock, almost a hill of stone, like a last outpost of the distant mountains, or a huge piece cast miles into the plain by some giant among giants.
"Farewell!" the eagles cried as they dropped everyone off on top of the rock, "wherever you fare, till your eyries receive you at the journey's end!" That is the polite thing to say among eagles.
"May the wind under your wings bear you where the sun sails and the moon walks," answered Gandalf, who knew the correct reply.
"I always meant to see you all safe (if possible) over the mountains," said Gandalf, "and now by good management and good luck I have done it. Indeed we are now a good deal further east than I ever meant to come with you, for after all this is not my adventure. I intend to look in on it again before it is all over as I still have a promise to keep to Ariel, daughter of Elrond, daughter of Buffy. But in the meanwhile I have some other pressing business to attend to."
The dwarves groaned and looked most distressed.
"I am not going to disappear this very instant," said Gandalf. "I can give you a day or two more. Probably I can help you out of your present plight, and I need a little help myself. We have no food, and no baggage, and no ponies to ride; and you don't know where you are. Now I can tell you that. You are still some miles north of the path which we should have been following, if we had not left the mountain pass in a hurry. Very few people live in these parts, unless they have come here since I was last down this way, which is some years ago. But there is somebody that I know of, who lives not far away. That Somebody made the steps on the great rock—the Carrock I believe he calls it. He does not come here often, certainly not in the daytime, and it is no good waiting for him. In fact it would be very dangerous. We must go and find him; and if all goes well at our meeting, I think I shall be off and wish you like the eagles 'farewell wherever you fare!'"
The dwarves begged Gandalf not to leave them.
"We shall see, we shall see!" Gandalf said, "and I think I have earned already some of your dragon-gold—when you have got it."
After that they stopped pleading. Then they each bathed in the river. Dawn was the only one that waited till the dwarves and Gandalf were finished then out of sight of the others she undressed and bathed as well. It was while Dawn was in the river that she noticed other changes. She was no longer fourteen years old, she was sure she was eighteen now.
"But how could that be," Dawn said.
A voice startled her. "Because you are an elf my dear."
While her head was the only thing above the water, Dawn instinctually covered herself. "Gandalf!" she looked around and saw that he was not in sight. "Where are you?"
"Behind the trees where I cannot see you," Gandalf said.
"Okay," Dawn said. "I'm getting out." She got out and quickly got dressed. "You can come out now."
Gandalf walked from behind the trees and over to her. "By human years you look to be eighteen. But you are far older than that."
"I know," Dawn said, "Just this side of forever. That's what Glory told me when I was trying to find out about the Key."
"The hell god you mentioned?" Gandalf asked as Dawn nodded.
During their stay at Rivendell after the revelation that Dawn was Elrond's daughter. She had told Elrond and Gandalf what she had been and why she had been created.
"Which means the Key was at least millions of years old," Dawn said.
Gandalf nodded. "Regardless of how old the Key was or is. Your body aged to the point of elvish maturity. At which point it stopped aging all together."
"I'm immortal?" Dawn asked.
"To some degree yes," Gandalf said. "You will not physically age from this point onward, and so will not die from old age. You also no longer have to worry about disease. But you can be killed by mortal means. A sword to the heart for example will kill you just as surely as it would me."
"Wow," Dawn said.
"Now tell me again about this Key," Gandalf said.
Dawn recited to Gandalf all she knew which to tell the truth was not much.
"So it can open the doorway between dimensions," Gandalf said. "Maybe with time we could teach you to harness it. Assuming of course it still resides within you. Then you could utilize it to return home. Amongst the many things that I must do when I leave the company. I will research this as well. If I have not returned by the end of the adventure. Return to your father. I will come to you there."
Soon they crossed the ford, and then began to march through the long green grass and down the lines of the wide-armed oaks and the tall elms.
"So why was that rock called the Carrock?" asked Dawn as she went along at the wizard's side.
"He called it the Carrock, because carrock is his word for it. He calls things like that carrocks, and this one is the Carrock because it is the only one near his home and he knows it well."
"Who calls it? Who knows it?" Thorin asked.
"The Somebody I spoke of—a very great person. You must all be very polite when I introduce you. I shall introduce you slowly, two by two, I think; and you must be careful not to annoy him, or heaven knows what will happen. He can be appalling when he is angry, though he is kind enough if humoured. Still I warn you he gets angry easily."
"Is that the person you are taking us to now?" the dwarves asked. "Couldn't you find someone more easy-tempered? Hadn't you better explain it all a bit clearer?"—and so on.
"Yes it certainly is! No I could not! And I was explaining very carefully," answered Gandalf crossly. "If you must know more, his name is Beorn. He is very strong, and he is a skin-changer."
"He's a shape shifter," Dawn said.
"That is one name for what he can do, yes," Gandalf said as the dwarves looked at him in confusion. So he explained. "He changes his skin: sometimes he is a huge black bear, sometimes he is a great strong black-haired man with huge arms and a great beard. I cannot tell you much more, though that ought to be enough. Some say that he is a bear descended from the great and ancient bears of the mountains that lived there before the giants came. Others say that he is a man descended from the first men who lived before Smaug or the other dragons came into this part of the world, and before the goblins came into the hills out of the North. I cannot say, though I fancy the last is the true tale. He is not the sort of person to ask questions of.
"At any rate he is under no enchantment but his own. He lives in an oak-wood and has a great wooden house; and as a man he keeps cattle and horses which are nearly as marvellous as himself. They work for him and talk to him. He does not eat them; neither does he hunt or eat wild animals. He keeps hives and hives of great fierce bees, and lives most on cream and honey. As a bear he ranges far and wide. I once saw him sitting all alone on the top of the Carrock at night watching the moon sinking towards the Misty Mountains, and I heard him growl in the tongue of bears: 'The day will come when they will perish and I shall go back!' That is why I believe he once came from the mountains himself."
It was the middle of the afternoon before they noticed that patches of flowers had begun to spring up, all the same kinds growing together as if they had been planted. There was a buzzing and a whirring and a droning in the air. Bees were busy everywhere.
"We are getting near," said Gandalf. "We are on the edge of his bee-pastures."
After a while they came to a belt of tall and very ancient oaks, and beyond these to a high thorn-hedge.
"You had better wait here," said the wizard to the dwarves; "and when I call or whistle begin to come after me—you will see the way I go—but only in pairs, mind, about five minutes between each pair of you. Bombur is fattest and will do for two, he had better come alone and last. Come on Ms. Summers! There is a gate somewhere round this way." And with that he went off along the hedge taking Dawn with him.
Gandalf and Dawn soon came to a wooden gate, beyond which they could see gardens and a cluster of low wooden buildings. They pushed open the heavy creaking gate and went down a wide track towards the house.
"They have gone to tell him of the arrival of strangers," said Gandalf as several horses galloped away.
Soon they reached a courtyard. In the middle there was a great oak-trunk with many lopped branches. Standing near was a huge man with an axe, the horses were standing by him with their noses at his shoulder.
"Ugh! Here they are!" he said to the horses. "They don't look dangerous. You can be off!" He laughed a great rolling laugh, put down his axe and came forward.
"Who are you and what do you want?" he asked gruffly.
"I am Gandalf," said Gandalf.
"Never heard of him," growled the man. "And who here is this elvish lass?"
"I am Ariel, daughter of Elrond, daughter of Buffy," Dawn said.
"Never heard of any of them either," the man said.
"I am a wizard," continued Gandalf. "I have heard of you, if you have not heard of me; but perhaps you have heard of my good cousin Radagast who lives near the Southern borders of Mirkwood?"
"Yes; not a bad fellow as wizards go, I believe. I used to see him now and again," said Beorn. "Well, now I know who you are, or who you say you are. What do you want?"
"To tell you the truth, we have lost our luggage and nearly lost our way, and are rather in need of help, or at least of advice. I may say we have had rather a bad time with goblins in the mountains."
"Goblins?" said the big man less gruffly. "O ho, so you've been having trouble with them have you? What did you go near them for?"
"We did not mean to. They surprised us at night in a pass which we had to cross; we were coming out of the Lands over West into these countries—it is a long tale."
"Then you had better come inside and tell me some of it, if it won't take all day," said the man leading the way through a dark door that opened out of the courtyard into the house.
Following him they found themselves in a wide hall with a fire-place in the middle. They passed through this dim hall, and came through another smaller door into a sort of veranda propped on wooden posts made of single tree-trunks.
Here they sat on wooden benches while Gandalf began his tale.
"I was coming over the mountains with a friend or two..." said Gandalf.
"Or two? I can only see one," said Beorn.
"Well to tell you the truth, I did not like to bother you with a lot of us, until I found out if you were busy. I will give a call, if I may."
"Go on, call away!"
So Gandalf gave a long shrill whistle, and presently Thorin and Dori came round the house by the garden path and stood bowing low before them.
"One or three you meant, I see!" said Beorn. "But these aren't elves, they are dwarves!"
"Thorin Oakenshield, at your service! Dori at your service!" said the two dwarves bowing again.
"I don't need your service, thank you," said Beorn, "but I expect you need mine. I am not over fond of dwarves; but if it is true you are Thorin (son of Thrain, son of Thror, I believe), and that your companion is respectable, and that you are enemies of goblins and are not up to any mischief in my lands—what are you up to, by the way?"
"They are on their way to visit the land of their fathers, away east beyond Mirkwood," put in Gandalf, "and it is entirely an accident that we are in your lands at all. We were crossing by the High Pass that should have brought us to the road that lies to the south of your country, when we were attacked by the evil goblins—as I was about to tell you."
"Go on telling, then!" said Beorn, who was never very polite.
"There was a terrible storm; the stone-giants were out hurling rocks, and at the head of the pass we took refuge in a cave, Ariel and I and several of our companions..."
"Do you call two several?"
"Well, no. As a matter of fact there were more than two."
"Where are they? Killed, eaten, gone home?"
"Well, no. They don't seem all to have come when I whistled. Shy, I expect. You see, we are very much afraid that we are rather a lot for you to entertain."
"Go on, whistle again! I am in for a party, it seems, and one or two more won't make much difference," growled Beorn.
Gandalf whistled again; but Nori and Ori were there almost before he had stopped.
"Hullo!" said Beorn. "You came pretty quick—where were you hiding? Come on my jack-in-the-boxes!"
"Nori at your service, Ori at..." they began; but Beorn interrupted them.
"Thank you! When I want your help I will ask for it. Sit down, and let's get on with this tale, or it will be supper-time before it is ended."
"As soon as we were asleep," went on Gandalf, "a crack at the back of the cave opened; goblins came out and grabbed Ariel and the dwarves and our troop of ponies—"
"Troop of ponies? What were you—a travelling circus? Or were you carrying lots of goods? Or do you always call six a troop?"
"O no! As a matter of fact there were more than six ponies, for there were more than six of us—and well, here are two more!" Just at that moment Balin and Dwalin appeared and bowed so low that their beards swept the stone floor. The big man was frowning at first, but they did their best to be frightfully polite, and kept on nodding and bending and bowing and waving their hoods before their knees (in proper dwarf-fashion), till he stopped frowning and burst into a chuckling laugh: they looked so comical.
"Troop, was right," he said. "A fine comic one. Come in my merry men, and what are your names? I don't want your service just now, only your names; and then sit down and stop wagging!"
"Balin and Dwalin," they said not daring to be offended, and sat flop on the floor looking rather surprised.
"Now go on again!" said Beorn to Gandalf.
"Where was I? O yes—I was not grabbed. I killed a goblin or two with a flash—"
"Good!" growled Beorn. "It is some good being a wizard, then."
"—and slipped inside the crack before it closed. I followed down into the main hall, which was crowded with goblins. The Great Goblin was there with thirty or forty armed guards. I thought to myself 'even if they were not all chained together, what can a dozen do against so many?"'
"A dozen! That's the first time I've heard eight called a dozen. Or have you still got some more jacks that haven't yet come out of their boxes?"
"Well, yes, there seem to be a couple more here now—Fili and Kili, I believe," said Gandalf, as these two now appeared and stood smiling and bowing.
"That's enough!" said Beorn. "Sit down and be quiet! Now go on, Gandalf!"
So Gandalf went on with the tale, until he came to the fight in the dark, the discovery of the lower gate, and their horror when they found that Dawn had been mislaid. "We counted ourselves and found that there Ariel was missing. There were only fourteen of us left!"
"Fourteen! That's the first time I've heard one from ten leave fourteen. You mean nine, or else you haven't told me yet all the names of your party."
"Well, of course you haven't seen Oin and Gloin yet. And, bless me! here they are. I hope you will forgive them for bothering you."
"O let 'em all come! Hurry up! Come along, you two, and sit down! But look here, Gandalf, even now we have only got yourself and ten dwarves and the elf that was lost. That only makes eleven (plus one mislaid) and not fourteen, unless wizards count differently to other people. But now please get on with the tale."
When Gandalf came to their climbing into trees with the wolves all underneath, Beorn got up and strode about and muttered: "I wish I had been there! I would have given them more than fireworks!"
"Well," said Gandalf very glad to see that his tale was making a good impression, "I did the best I could. There we were with the wolves going mad underneath us and the forest beginning to blaze in places, when the goblins came down from the hills and discovered us. They yelled with delight and sang songs making fun of us. Fifteen birds in five fir-trees ..."
"Good heavens!" growled Beorn. "Don't pretend that goblins can't count. They can. Twelve isn't fifteen and they know it."
"And so do I. There were Bifur and Bofur as well. I haven't ventured to introduce them before, but here they are."
In came Bifur and Bofur. "And me!" gasped Bombur puffing up behind. He was fat, and also angry at being left till last. He refused to wait five minutes, and followed immediately after the other two.
"Well, now there are fifteen of you; and since goblins can count, I suppose that is all that there were up the trees. Now perhaps we can finish this story without any more interruptions."
By the time Gandalf had finished his tale and had told of the eagles' rescue and of how they had all been brought to the Carrock, the sun had fallen behind the peaks of the Misty Mountains and the shadows were long in Beorn's garden.
"A very good tale!" said Beorn. "The best I have heard for a long while. If all beggars could tell such a good one, they might find me kinder. You may be making it all up, of course, but you deserve a supper for the story all the same. Let's have something to eat!"
"Yes please!" the dwarves all said together. "Thank you very much!"
"Thank you," Dawn said.
Inside the hall it was now quite dark. Beorn clapped his hands, and in trotted four beautiful white ponies and several large long-bodied grey dogs. Beorn said something to them in a queer language like animal noises turned into talk. They went out again and soon came back carrying torches in their mouths, which they lit at the fire and stuck in low brackets on the pillars of the hall about the central hearth.
There they had supper. All the time they ate, Beorn in his deep rolling voice told tales of the wild lands on this side of the mountains, and especially of the dark and dangerous wood, that lay outstretched far to North and South a day's ride before them, barring their way to the East, the terrible forest of Mirkwood.
And finally they settle down to sleep. It was full morning when Dawn awoke. One of the dwarves had fallen over her in the shadows where she lay, and had rolled down with a bump from the platform on to the floor. It was Bofur, and he was grumbling about it.
"Get up lazybones," he said, "or there will be no breakfast left for you."
Dawn opened her eyes and glared at Bofur but got up the same. "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 sign of him anywhere, though we found breakfast laid as soon as we went out."
"Where is Gandalf?" asked Dawn, moving off to find something to eat as quick as she could.
"O! Out and about somewhere," they told her.
But they saw no sign of Gandalf that day, until the evening. Just before sunset he walked into the hall as they were having supper.
"Where is our host, and where have you been all day yourself?" the dwarves cried as they had not seen Beorn all day either.
"One question at a time—and none till after supper! I haven't had a bite since breakfast."
At last Gandalf pushed away his plate and jug and 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 the pillars of the hall, changing them into all sorts of different shapes and colours, and setting them at last chasing one another out of the hole in the roof.
"I have been picking out bear-tracks," he said at last. "There must have been a regular bears' meeting outside here last night. I soon saw that Beorn could not have made them all: there were far too many of them, and they were of various sizes too. I should say there were little bears, large bears, ordinary bears, and gigantic big bears, all dancing outside from dark to nearly dawn. They came from almost every direction, except from the west over the river, from the Mountains. In that direction only one set of footprints led—none coming, only ones going away from here. I followed these as far as the Carrock. There they disappeared into the river, but the water was too deep and strong beyond the rock for me to cross. It is easy enough, as you remember, to get from this bank to the Carrock by the ford, but on the other side is a cliff standing up from a swirling channel. I had to walk miles before I found a place where the river was wide and shallow enough for me to wade and swim, and then miles back again to pick up the tracks again. By that time it was too late for me to follow them far. They went straight off in the direction of the pine-woods on the east side of the Misty Mountains, where we had our pleasant little party with the Wargs the night before last. And now I think I have answered your first question, too," ended Gandalf, and he sat a long while silent.
Next morning they were all wakened by Beorn himself. "So here you all are still!" he said. "Not eaten up by Wargs or goblins or wicked bears yet I see." He tickled Dawn who laughed. "Little bunny is getting nice and fat on bread and honey," he chuckled. "Come and have some more!"
Dawn glanced at Gandalf she was not sure if it was possible for her to get fat anymore. All the elves she had seen in Rivendell had been fit and muscular.
So they all went to breakfast with him. Beorn was most jolly for a change; indeed he seemed to be in a splendidly good humour and set them all laughing with his funny stories; nor did they have to wonder long where he had been or why he was so nice to them, for he told them himself. He had been over the river and right back up into the mountains. From the burnt wolf-glade he had soon found out that part of their story was true; but he had found more than that: he had caught a Warg and a goblin wandering in the woods. From these he had got news: the goblin patrols were still hunting with Wargs for the dwarves, and they were fiercely angry because of the death of the Great Goblin, and also because of the burning of the chief wolf's nose and the death from Gandalf's fire of many of the chief servants.
"It was a good story, that of yours," said Beorn, "but I like it still better now I am sure it is true. You must forgive my not taking your word. If you lived near the edge of Mirkwood, you would take the word of no one that you did not know as well as your brother or better. As it is, I can only say that I have hurried home as fast as I could to see that you were safe, and to offer you any help that I can. I shall think more kindly of dwarves after this. Killed the Great Goblin, killed the Great Goblin!" he chuckled fiercely to himself.
"What did you do with the goblin and the Warg?" asked Dawn suddenly.
"Come and see!" said Beorn, and they followed round the house. A goblin's head was stuck outside the gate and a warg-skin was nailed to a tree just beyond.
Beorn then promised them ponies for each of the dwarves, and a horse for Dawn and Gandalf, for their journey to the forest, and he would lade them with food to last them for weeks with care, and packed so as to be as easy as possible to carry. "But your way through Mirkwood is dark, dangerous and difficult," he said. "Water is not easy to find there, nor food. The time is not yet come for nuts (though it may be past and gone indeed before you get to the other side), and nuts are about all that grows there fit for food; in there the wild things are dark, queer, and savage. I will provide you with skins for carrying water, and I will give you some bows and arrows. But I doubt very much whether anything you find in Mirkwood will be wholesome to eat or to drink. There is one stream there, I know, black and strong which crosses the path. That you should neither drink of, nor bathe in; for I have heard that it carries enchantment and a great drowsiness and forgetfulness. And in the dim shadows of that place I don't think you will shoot anything, wholesome or unwholesome, without straying from the path. That you MUST NOT do, for any reason."
"That is all the advice I can give you. Beyond the edge of the forest I cannot help you much; you must depend on your luck and your courage and the food I send with you. At the gate of the forest I must ask you to send back my horses and my ponies. But I wish you all speed, and my house is open to you, if ever you come back this way again."
They thanked him, of course, with many bows and sweepings of their hoods and with many an "at your service, O master of the wide wooden halls!"
All that morning they were busy with preparations. Soon after midday they ate with Beorn for the last time, and after the meal they mounted the steeds he was lending them, and bidding him many farewells they rode off through his gate at a good pace.
They made their way towards Mirkwood, they camped at sunset and started again the next day. Beorn had said that they should reach the forest-gate early on the fourth-day.
By the afternoon of the fourth day they had reached the eaves of Mirkwood, and were resting almost beneath the great overhanging boughs of its outer trees.
"Well, here is Mirkwood!" said Gandalf. "The greatest of the forests of the Northern world. I hope you like the look of it. Now you must send back these excellent ponies you have borrowed. And your horse as well, Ms. Summers."
The dwarves were inclined to grumble at this, but Gandalf told them they were fools. "Beorn is not as far off as you seem to think, and you had better keep your promises anyway, for he is a bad enemy. Ms. Summers' eyes are sharper than yours, if you have not seen each night after dark a great bear going along with us or sitting far off in the moon watching our camps. Not only to guard you and guide you, but to keep an eye on the ponies and horses too. Beorn may be your friend, but he loves his animals as his children. You do not guess what kindness he has shown you in letting dwarves ride them so far and so fast, nor what would happen to you, if you tried to take them into the forest."
"What about your horse, then?" said Thorin. "You don't mention sending that back."
"I don't, because I am not sending it."
"What about your promise then?"
"I will look after that. I am not sending the horse back, I am riding it!"
Then they knew that Gandalf was going to leave them at the very edge of Mirkwood.
"Now we had this all out before, when we landed on the Carrock," he said. "It is no use arguing. I have, as I told you, some pressing business away south; and I am already late through bothering with you people. We may meet again before all is over, and then again of course we may not. That depends on your luck and on your courage and sense; and I am sending Mr. Baggins with you. I have told you before that he has more about him than you guess, and you will find that out before long. So cheer up Dawn and don't look so glum. Cheer up Thorin and Company! This is your expedition after all. Think of the treasure at the end, and forget the forest and the dragon, at any rate until tomorrow morning!"
When tomorrow morning came they unburdened the ponies and Dawn's horse and then shouldered the packages as evenly as possible. Then they sent the ponies and Dawn's horse on their way.
Now Gandalf too said farewell. "Good-bye!" he said to Thorin. "And goodbye to you all, good-bye! Straight through the forest is your way now. Don't stray off the track!—if you do, it is a thousand to one you will never find it again and never get out of Mirkwood; and then I don't suppose I, or anyone else, will ever see you again."
"Good-bye! If you won't come with us, you had better get off without any more talk!" Thorin said.
"Good-bye then, and really good-bye!" said Gandalf, and he turned his horse and rode down into the West. But he could not resist the temptation to have the last word. "Good-bye! Be good, take care of yourselves—and DON'T LEAVE THE PATH!"
Then he galloped away and was soon lost to sight.
"O good-bye and go away!" grunted the dwarves.
Now began the most dangerous part of all the journey. They each shouldered the heavy pack and the water-skin which was their share, and turned from the light that lay on the lands outside and plunged into the forest.