Inklings | April Edition

     Greetings! I recently stumbled across Heidi’s wonderful Inklings series at Along the Brandywine, and thought it would be wonderful to try it out. (Also, it doesn’t hurt that the name of my blog is Inkling Corner, now does it?) 

    Anyhow, the rules are As Follows: At any time during the month, on your own blog post a scene from a book or film that matches the prompt, including a link back here in your post. Then, leave a link to your entry in the comments section on the host website. That's it!

April's prompt is:

A scene with a cake in book or film

Are these traditional cakes? No. Am I unashamedly using them instead of the perfectly wondrous creation that is Bilbo’s birthday cake in The Lord of the Rings? Yes.

    Now, this a bit of a tricky one. A lot of the best ones I know of (like Anne’s famous cake recipe in Anne of Green Gables) have already been taken, so I did a Bit Of Thinking. And of course (really by this point you should have expected it) my mind went rather quickly to Bilbo’s Unexpected Feast in The Hobbit. Poor Bilbo! He couldn’t possibly have imagined, while eating that delicious cake of his, what was about to happen to him. 

‘Gandalf in the meantime was still standing outside the door, and laughing long but quietly. After a while he stepped up, and with the spike on his staff scratched a queer sign on the hobbit’s beautiful green front-door. Then he strode away, just about the time when Bilbo was finishing his second cake and beginning to think that he had escaped adventures very well.

The next day he had almost forgotten about Gandalf. He did not remember things very well, unless he put them down on his Engagement Tablet: like this: Gandalf Tea Wednesday. Yesterday he had been too flustered to do anything of the kind.

Just before tea-time there came a tremendous ring on the front-door bell, and then he remembered! He rushed and put on the kettle, and put out another cup and saucer, and an extra cake or two, and ran to the door.

“I am so sorry to keep you waiting!” he was going to say, when he saw that it was not Gandalf at all. It was a dwarf with a blue beard tucked into a golden belt, and very bright eyes under his dark-green hood. As soon as the door was opened, he pushed inside, just as if he had been expected.

He hung his hooded cloak on the nearest peg, and “Dwalin at your service!” he said with a low bow.

“Bilbo Baggins at yours!” said the hobbit, too surprised to ask any questions for the moment. When the silence that followed had become uncomfortable, he added: “I am just about to take tea; pray come and have some with me.” A little stiff perhaps, but he meant it kindly. And what would you do, if an uninvited dwarf came and hung his things up in your hall without a word of explanation?

They had not been at table long, in fact they had hardly reached the third cake, when there came another even louder ring at the bell.

“Excuse me!” said the hobbit, and off he went to the door.’

J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit

    This is a lovely, whimsical, and entirely under-appreciated scene for many reasons. Firstly, there are not one, not two, but three cakes which make an appearance—and of course there is the rather hilarious mater (not to Bilbo, but we can ignore that for the moment) of the dwarves devouring the entirety of the (rather sturdy) hobbit’s larders (he has three).  

Credit to New Line Cinema

    An incredible feat, if you ask me. Which no one has, but who’s to say I can’t volunteer my opinion anyway? 

    Ahem. Anyhow, that’s my little contribution for the day. Take it or leave it, as you will, but I hope you enjoyed it! 

Bilbo would like to add that he is still Not Pleased with the outcome of that particular series of Unexpected Visits. He spent the next five years after returning replenishing his stocks, and they are still nowhere near their former glory. (He blames Bombur). 

____

Namarië, 

Astrya