Welcome to the Lord of the Rings lore cast,

the show that explores the background of Tolkien's amazing world from the very beginning. The more I read through this book again for this project that we've been doing,

this very close, extremely close reading of The Hobbit,

the more I am impressed at the pacing and the way that Tolkien reveals things about

characters in very obvious but then also very subtle ways. In today's episode, we get the first

two poems slash songs in the book, both done by the dwarves.

And I don't know if you're like me, but I remember my feelings about the poetry in the book.

From maybe not the very first time I read this back when I was in like fifth grade,

but definitely from other times when I would this back when I was in like fifth grade, but definitely

from other times when I would look back and read through a passage or reread the book

when I was much younger.

And I remember wanting to skip the poems.

I'm sure I did on my first reading.

I probably just jumped over them and I was like, oh, they sing a song about plates and knives,

okay.

And then I moved on with the story.

But these poems are here for a very important reason, and we're going to get to that

for each of these different songs.

Well, let's call them songs from this point on, because that's how they're presented in the books.

They're written as poetry, because Tolkien enjoyed writing poetry, but in the story, they're sung.

And they reveal some very interesting things about these dwarves that we have only just met

in their relationship with our host, Bilbo Baggins.

...