In a 1955 letter to W. H. Auden, Tolkien recollects that he began work on The Hobbit one day early in the 1930s, when he was marking School Certificate papers. He found a blank page. Suddenly inspired, he wrote the words, "In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit."
The Third Age was the Age of Arda that lasted for 3021 years, from the first defeat of Sauron by the forces of the Last Alliance and the deaths of Elendil and Gil-galad, to the departure of Gandalf, Galadriel, Elrond, Bilbo, and Frodo to the Undying Lands after Sauron's final downfall during the War of the Ring.
Smaug is a fearsome dragon who invaded the Dwarf kingdom of Erebor 150 years prior to the events described in the novel. He is depicted by Tolkien as an intelligent being capable of speech, easily pleased by flattery and fascinated by Bilbo's description of himself in riddles.
When the trolls are arguing over whether/how to kill Bilbo and the dwarves, Gandalf chimes in (out-of-sight), sounding like one of the other trolls. He does this repeatedly, because he knows that if he can keep them arguing, the sun will come up and they will turn to stone from whence they came.
SHARE THIS PAGE!