The Hobbit

cords, and taking off the spider sitting in the middle of it,
     whack, dead. After that there was a deal of commotion in the spider-colony, and they forgot the dwarves for a bit, I can tell
     you. They could not see Bilbo, but they could make a good guess at the direction from which the stones were coming. As quick
     as lightning they came running and swinging towards the hobbit, flinging out their long threads in all directions, till the
     air seemed full of waving snares.
    Bilbo, however, soon slipped away to a different place. The idea came to him to lead the furious spiders further and further
     away from the dwarves, if he could; to make them curious, excited and angry all at once. When about fifty had gone off to
     the place where he had stood before, he threw some more stones at these, and at others that had stopped behind; then dancing among the trees he began to sing a song to infuriate
     them and bring them all after him, and also to let the dwarves hear his voice.
    This is what he sang:
    Old fat spider spinning in a tree!
    Old fat spider can’t see me!
        Attercop! Attercop!
            Won’t you stop,
    Stop your spinning and look for me?
    Old Tomnoddy, all big body,
    Old Tomnoddy can’t spy me!
        Attercop! Attercop!
            Down you drop!
    You’ll never catch me up your tree!
    Not very good perhaps, but then you must remember that he had to make it up himself, on the spur of a very awkward moment.
     It did what he wanted any way. As he sang he threw some more stones and stamped. Practically all the spiders in the place
     came after him: some dropped to the ground, others raced along the branches, swung from tree to tree, or cast new ropes across
     the dark spaces. They made for his noise far quicker than he had expected. They were frightfully angry. Quite apart from the
     stones no spider has ever liked being called Attercop, and Tomnoddy of course is insulting to anybody.
    Off Bilbo scuttled to a fresh place, but several of the spiders had run now to different points in the glade where they lived,
     and were busy spinning webs across all the spaces between the tree-stems. Very soon the hobbit would be caught in a thick fence of them all round him—that
     at least was the spiders’ idea. Standing now in the middle of the hunting and spinning insects Bilbo plucked up his courage
     and began a new song:
    Lazy Lob and crazy Cob
    are weaving webs to wind me.
    I am far more sweet than other meat,
    but still they cannot find me!
    Here am I, naughty little fly;
    you are fat and lazy.
    You cannot trap me, though you try,
    in your cobwebs crazy.
    With that he turned and found that the last space between two tall trees had been closed with a web—but luckily not a proper
     web, only great strands of double-thick spider-rope run hastily backwards and forwards from trunk to trunk. Out came his little
     sword. He slashed the threads to pieces and went off singing.
    The spiders saw the sword, though I don’t suppose they knew what it was, and at once the whole lot of them came hurrying after
     the hobbit along the ground and the branches, hairy legs waving, nippers and spinners snapping, eyes popping, full of froth
     and rage. They followed him into the forest until Bilbo had gone as far as he dared. Then quieter than a mouse he stole back.
    He had precious little time, he knew, before the spiders were disgusted and came back to their trees where the dwarves were hung. In the meanwhile he had to rescue them. The worst part of the job was getting up on to the long
     branch where the bundles were dangling. I don’t suppose he would have managed it, if a spider had not luckily left a rope
     hanging down; with its help, though it stuck to his hand and hurt him, he scrambled up—only to meet an old slow wicked fat-bodied
     spider who had remained behind to guard the prisoners, and had been busy pinching them to see which was the juiciest to eat.
     It had thought of starting the feast while the others were away, but Mr. Baggins was in a hurry, and before the spider knew
     what was happening it felt his sting and rolled off the branch dead.
    Bilbo’s next job was to loose a dwarf. What was he to do? If he cut the string which hung him up, the wretched dwarf would
     tumble thump to the ground a good way below. Wriggling along the branch (which made all the poor dwarves dance and dangle
     like ripe fruit) he reached the first bundle.
    “Fili or Kili,” he thought by the tip of a blue hood sticking