“There were many people there, elvish-looking folk, all
dressed in green and brown and sitting on sawn rings of the felled trees in a
great circle. There was a fire in their midst and there were torches fastened
to some of the trees round about; but most splendid sight of all: they were
eating and drinking and laughing merrily.
The smell of the roast meats was so enchanting that,
without waiting to consult one another, every one of them got up and scrambled
forwards into the ring with the one idea of begging for some food. No sooner
had the first stepped into the clearing than all the lights went out as if by
magic. Somebody kicked the fire and it went up in
rockets of glittering sparks and vanished.”—J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit
After they are given the old heave-ho from Gandalf
the Wizard, Bilbo Baggins and the dwarves find themselves in a dark forest
where they are soon starving and thirsty. Bombur (the Fat) does not do much but
provoke the others into arguments (over how fatigued and deprived they are).
The quote above refers to one of the strange occurrences
in the dark forest (other than the humongous spiders); that is the disappearing
elvish feast. More than once the starved party of adventurers falls upon some
seemingly amazing feasting, only for its revelers to disappear as though they
were smoke. The Tolkien Society connects this aspect of the story with another
yarn: the English tale of Sir Orfeo that features a fairy hunt its hero can only
see dimly.
They report
that Orfeo’s would have been a story with which Tolkien was familiar. Simply
put, Orfeo is a king who enjoys playing the harp and is in love with the
beautiful Heurodis. One day fairy people take her as their prisoner, dragging
the beauty into the woods. Orfeo temporarily ditches his kingdom and all things
comfortable in order retrieve his love from the woodland Otherworld. The story
has a long history, being traced back to the works of Ovid and Virgil.
Considering, the circumstances that drove Sir Orfeo
into the woods (with nothing but a harp), do you find any similarities between
him and one of The Hobbit’s prime
characters?
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