The Hobbit

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.”
    Bilbo and the dwarves had now plenty to think about, and they asked no more questions. They still had a long way to walk before
     them. Up slope and down dale they plodded. It grew very hot. Sometimes they rested under the trees, and then Bilbo felt so
     hungry that he would have eaten acorns, if any had been ripe enough yet to have fallen to the ground.
    It was the middle of the afternoon before they noticed that great patches of flowers had begun to spring up, all the same
     kinds growing together as if they had been planted. Especially there was clover, waving patches of cockscomb clover, and purple
     clover, and wide stretches of short white sweet honey-smelling clover. There was a buzzing and a whirring and a droning in
     the air. Bees were busy everywhere. And such bees! Bilbo had never seen anything like them.
    “If one was to sting me,” he thought, “I should swell up as big again as I am!”
    They were bigger than hornets. The drones were bigger than your thumb, a good deal, and the bands of yellow on their deep
     black bodies shone like fiery gold.
    “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 through which you
     could neither see nor scramble.
    “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 Mr. Baggins! There is a gate somewhere round this way.” And with that he went off
     along the hedge taking the frightened hobbit with him.
    They soon came to a wooden gate, high and broad, beyond which they could see gardens and a cluster of low wooden buildings,
     some thatched and made of unshaped logs: barns, stables, sheds, and a long low wooden house. Inside on the southward side
     of the great hedge were rows and rows of hives with bell-shaped tops made of straw. The noise of the giant bees flying to
     and fro and crawling in and out filled all the air.
    The wizard and the hobbit pushed open the heavy creaking gate and went down a wide track towards the house. Some horses, very
     sleek and well-groomed, trotted up across the grass and looked at them intently with very intelligent faces; then off they galloped to the buildings.
    “They have gone to tell him of the arrival of strangers,” said Gandalf.
    Soon they reached a courtyard, three walls of which were formed by the wooden house and its two long wings. In the middle
     there was lying a great oak-trunk with many lopped branches beside it. Standing near was a huge man with a thick black beard
     and hair, and great bare arms and legs with knotted muscles. He was clothed in a tunic of wool down to his knees, and was
     leaning on a large 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, standing in front of them and towering tall above Gandalf. As for Bilbo
     he could easily have trotted through his legs without ducking his head to miss the fringe of the man’s brown