I’m probably falling foul of copyright and leaving myself open to accusations of plagiarism, but anyway, here’s a school exercise in which I rewrote part of The Hobbit from Bilbo’s point of view. You will see that my teacher was not impressed.
The Journey To The Mountains
We were all on horseback to start with, but when we got into the wood we had to get off because of the low branches. Gandalf had gone on ahead to plan our route. Thorin was leading our group. I, Bilbo, was at the back and feeling nervous. I had been enrolled, you might say, to the group as burglar so I could steal the gold from Smaug, the dragon, in the mountains.
Thorin ordered us to stop. “Bilbo,” he said, “go and see what that light is up ahead.” I made my way to the front and saw a reddish light through the trees. I gulped and went on.
As I got nearer I heard voices, troll’s voices, so I kept hidden. I saw that one of them was leaning against a tree, so I got round behind him and tried out my luck as a pickpocket. Unfortunately for me, I did not know that trolls’ purses are full of mischief and as as I drew it out of the troll’s pocket, it cried, “What are you doing?”
Immediately I was seized by the troll. “Hm, I wonder if he’s nice to eat,” he said. “What are you?” he said, shaking me.
“A bur- a hobbit.” I said.
“A Burrahobbit,” he said. “I’ve never heard of those before, what do you make of it?” said the troll, handing me to another.
“Dunno, but how shall we eat him?” said troll 2.
“Squash him and fry him,” said the third troll.
“No, toast him,” said troll 2.
“I found him so I say roast him,” said troll 1.
They started a fight over what to do and I was forgotten. They stopped when they heard someone coming. It was the dwarves and soon all lay in a pile with sacks over their heads. Then the trolls started another fight and luckily for us they fell into the fire and were burnt to death. I helped the others out of the sacks and just then Gandalf appeared.
“Come on, we’re behind schedule.” And we all hurried up, leading our horses.
It was not long before we reached the road and that let us go much faster. Nightfall we had reached the hidden valley with the last homely house in. The next morning we were up early and on our way to the Misty Mountains. It was very exciting for me being a hobbit, as I had hardly ever gone further than the big water near our village.
When we got out of the valley, there was a lot of swamps and big holes that could easily let a horse fall in, and I am sure that is what would have happened if Gandalf didn’t know the way. It was another day and night over swamps, rivers and holes before we reached the foot of the mountains, our trek was over, for a while.
Teacher’s Comments
C+
You were clearly told to write a description of a journey, By writing part of “The Hobbit” you have retold part of a story rather than described a journey.
(c) M. Robert Gibson
First written 1976-04-01
School exercise.
Don’t forget, it was written by a schoolboy.
It is published here for purely selfish vanity reasons.
M. Robert Gibson 