One of the most mystical and magical elements in Tolkien’s works is the element of fore-shadowing. Many of the characters across his books have the ability to see dreams or visions of the future, fromArwen’s sight in the woodsof her and Aragorn’s son, to Gladriel’s use of the magic mirror to give Frodo a warning of what will happen to Middle Earth if he fails the quest to destroy the One Ring.
Many of the prophecies appear in the form of words, whether they be difficult to decipher phrases, riddles, or songs. And Tolkien cleverly used the most famous song from The Hobbit to offer one such prediction of the fate of some of his key characters in The Hobbit. Since Peter Jackson’s film adaptations in 2014, the song ‘The Misty Mountains’ has become known by Tolkien fans worldwide. In the films, the scene is depicted as the 13 dwarves stood around the fireplace in Bilbo’s beautiful hobbit hole.
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In a deep, soulful rendition of the song, they tell of the tragedy that befell their home in Erebor, and how the dragon Smaug came and killed their people. As someone who has a particular love of his own home, and has been used to beingpushed out by his cousins the Sackville Bagginses, the dwarves words move him, and this is part of the reason that he agrees to accompany them the following morning on their quest, despiteThorin’s reluctance to have himin the first place.
However, the lyrics of the song are not just interesting because of the past that they tell, but because of the future that they predict too. Some fans of Tolkien’s books have noticed some striking parallels between the words in the melody, and the events that take place on the famed quest. For example, the line “We must away, ere break of day, to find our long forgotten gold” speaks of the dwarven love of rich things carved in dark caves under the mountains, but the line in the first verse of the book is actually “we must away, ere break of day, to seek the pale enchanted gold.” Use of the word ‘enchanted’ here could be a warning that this particular gold, that has been long hoarded by Smaug, has a particular kind of lust and allure attached to it, and could be a reference to the Dragon-sickness, that befell Thorin’s Grandfather Thror. This is the first indicator that not all will go well with the quest, and that Thorin will succumb, at least in part, to the same greed that destroyed his family, and summoned the dragon in the first place.
Another lyric that is in the books, but wasn’t included in the film rendition is “In places deep where dark things sleep.” There are two possible predictions of the quest within these lines. The first is that it tells of the dwarves being trapped in the goblin tunnels beneath the mountains, where these evil little creatures thrive in the dark.
The goblins are a nasty breed,valuing war and deadly machinesto torture their prisoners with, and the company has a narrow escape with the Goblin King himself. Luckily, they had earlier found the two elven blades of Gondolin,Glamdring and Orchrist, known to the goblins as Beater and Biter. With the help of these fearsome weapons, they manage to make their way out of the lair relatively unscathed.
The other possibility foretold within the premonition of the song’s lyrics could be that of Gollum living in his dark cave underground, and the finding of the One Ring by Bilbo Baggins. The hobbit too, becomes hopelessly lost in the pitch-black tunnels where Gollum resides, and is only able to escape being eaten by the twisted being by using his wits in a game of riddles, and by finding the ring that allows him to escape unnoticed with its powers of invisibility. Althoughthe ring instantly betrays Bilbo, and almost gets him killed, he manages to make it back to the dwarves, and they journey on straight into the path of more danger.
This leads to another two lines within ‘The Misty Mountains’ that talks about fire. Of course, this is a reference to Smaug burning the village of Dale, and killing the dwarves who were once Kili, Fili and Thorin’s kin. But it also prophesied another event in the companions quest: Gandalf’s pine cones. The line in the lyrics “The fire was red, it flaming spread; the trees like torches blazed with light” could be a prediction of the dwarves and the wizard beingchased into the trees by the wolvesoutside of the goblin tunnels, and Gandalf’s clever plan to set pine cones ablaze and use them as little grenades of sorts to throw down at the enemy. However, the trees that the dwarves are hiding in are also set alight, thus the ‘trees like torches blaze’, and means they have to berescued by the Giant Eagles.
And finally, the ominous “They fled their hall to dying fall” seems to know that Thorin will die in battle, alongside Fili and Kili, the last of the line of Durin. The song seems very aware of the folly of Thorin trying to retake Erebor, and many of the words show a repetition of the cyclicalmistakes of his forefathers. But the mountain is reclmained nonetheless, at a great cost, and the small victory adds up to a big impact on the years that are to follow, and the difficulty that Sauron has in rising to power 60 years later.
