A Better Place - The Hobbit Fanfiction

Fourth Entry - Beorn's House

“Why is it called the Carrock?” asked Bilbo as he walked at the wizard’s side.

“He called it the Carrock, because carrock is his word for it. He calls things like that carrocks, and this one is the Carrock because it is the only one near his home and he knows it well.”

“Who calls it? Who knows it?”

“The Somebody I spoke of—a very great person. You must all be very polite when I introduce you. I shall introduce you slowly, two by two, I think; and you must be careful not to annoy him, or heaven knows what will happen. He can be appalling when he is angry, though he is kind enough if humored. Still I warn you that he gets angry easily.”

We all walked a little closer to Gandalf to hear this, hoping he would loose a couple more hints as to how not to anger the only person within miles likely to feed us. “Is this the person you are taking us to now?” they asked. “Couldn’t you find someone more easy-tempered? Hadn’t you better explain it all a bit clearer?” –and so on.

“Yes it certainly is! No I could not! And I was explaining it very carefully,” answered the wizard crossly. “If you must know, his name is Beorn. He is very strong, and he is a skin-changer.”

“What! a furrier, a man that calls rabbits conies, when he doesn’t turn their skins into squirrels?” asked Bilbo.

“Good gracious heavens, no, no, no, NO!” said Gandalf. “Don’t be a fool Mr. Baggins if you can help it; and in the name of all wonder don’t mention the word furrier again as long as you are within a hundred miles of his house, nor rug, cape, tippet, muff, nor any other such unfortunate word! He is a skin-changer. He changes his skin: sometimes he is a huge black bear, sometimes he is a great strong black-haired man with huge arms and a great beard. I cannot tell you much more, though that ought to be enough. Some say that he is a bear descended from the great and ancient bears of the mountains that lived 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 marvelous 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 top of the Carrock at night watching the moon sink 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.”

This gave the rest of us plenty to think of, and I found myself realizing why the dwarves were so often giving each other exasperated exchanges when Gandalf was speaking. For all he said in his speeches he really told us very little.

The ground began to slope upward, and after our long scramble downhill the day before I was, for a short while, glad of it. It made my calves ache less. But as the afternoon sun rose it also intensified, and soon we were taking short reprieves in what thin shade we could find among the open trees, and our bellies were quivering in hunger.

Then the ground sloped down again and this time it was our knees that were quivering. Mine quaked and threatened to give out more than once, and before long I was walking a little separated from the others, as they all flinched as though to offer their hands whenever I stumbled. I didn’t know if their hospitality was on account of my age or my gender, but either way I was very certain of my lack of need for it. At least for now. I had no idea how long my apparent—if questionable—health would last, but I suspected it wouldn’t be long. When I had awoken from my unexpected nap I’d had to take care to keep my hands with my palms pointed in; criss-crossing patterns had appeared there, nearly-healed scars from my real hands, in my real world. I’d told my friends I had fallen onto a neighbor’s open grill while practicing a series of flips. In truth my father had chased me into it.