Inklings | September Edition

   What-ho! 

    Well, I’m back (to quote Samwise Gamgee). Back to internet access and homework and Such Things. The next part of my (still unnamed) story will be coming sometime soon, but now it’s time for the September Inklings prompt! This month it’s a scene in a kitchen in book or film. 

   Today’s selection comes (somewhat predictably, I admit) from J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit. It may also serve as a Celebration Post, for today in 1937 The Hobbit was first published and tomorrow’s Hobbit Day (being the combined birthdays of Bilbo and Frodo Baggins.) So, happy Hobbit Weekend, everyone (that’s not what it’s officially called, of course, but it just seems to make sense… oh, bother. You get what I mean, right?)

I’m quoting from the book, but this scene of the movie was done So Well, so I’ll be using pictures throughout. (Credit to New Line Cinema, of course!)

    Right.

    Ahem. Anyhow, let’s set the scene. Picture a large kitchen—Bilbo’s kitchen, in fact—beautifully furnished with wood carvings and porcelain plates and hobbit-sized pantries in the back. That’s where our scene begins—until our lovely friends the dwarves arrive and begin singing riotously, of course.

    What fun!

    The dwarves ate and ate, and talked and talked, and time got on. At last they pushed their chairs back, and Bilbo made a move to collect the plates and glasses. 
    “I suppose you will all stay to supper?” he said in his politest unpressing tones.
    “Of course!” said Thorin. “And after. We shan’t get through the business till late, and we must have some music first. Now to clear up!”
    Thereupon the twelve dwarves—not Thorin, he was too important, and stayed talking to Gandalf—jumped to their feet, and made tall piles of all the things. Off they went, not waiting for trays, balancing columns of plates, each with a bottle on the top, with one hand, while the hobbit ran after them almost squeaking with fright: “Please be careful!” and “Please, don’t trouble! I can manage.” But the dwarves only started to sing:  

          

Chip the glasses and crack the plates!

Blunt the knives and bend the forks!

That’s what Bilbo Baggins hates–

Smash the bottles and burn the corks!

Cut the cloth and tread on the fat!

Pour the milk on the pantry floor!

Leave the bones on the bedroom mat!

Splash the wine on every door!

Dump the crocks in a boiling bowl;

Pound them up with a thumping pole;

And when you’ve finished, if any are whole,

Send them down the hall to roll!

That’s what Bilbo Baggins hates!

So, carefully! carefully with the plates!

    And of course they did none of these dreadful things, and everything was cleaned and put away safe as quick as lightning, while the hobbit was turning round and round in the middle of the kitchen trying to see what they were doing. Then they went back, and found Thorin with his feet on the fender smoking a pipe. 

    Isn’t this such a fun scene? Poor Bilbo’s quite overwhelmed (he’d like to insert here that those dwarves had No Blithering Right to toss his mother’s finest china about like that, and even though they did become his friends he still Vividly Remembers the shock it gave him) and the dwarves aren’t the most polite of guests. 

    It’s nothing, really, compared to what happened Afterwards (see the Burglary Contract, in which Incineration is mentioned multiple times) but still quite overwhelming—from Bilbo’s side—and laughable—from mine. Though, if the likes of Thorin Oakenshield and Company came waltzing into my kitchen with No Manners Whatsoever, I’m not sure I’d react any better than Bilbo.

Said reaction right here ^

    I’d probably smack His Majesty in the forehead with a spatula and tell him to get out until he learns a) manners and b) that No One is too important to sing fun songs. 

    Ya hear me, Thorin? That’s right. 

    (I would like to note, here, that I actually Rather Like Thorin… but the admonition remains.)

    Anyhow, this is one absurd and wonderful scene. What would you do if twelve dwarves (likely in need of a Very Thorough Bath) showed up at your door?

Namarië, 

Astrya