Durin’s Day - Part III - What Bilbo Saw
Here is what JRR wrote about what Bilbo saw:
All day Bilbo sat gloomily in the grassy bay gazing at the stone, or out west through the narrow opening. He had a queer feeling that he was waiting for something. …
If he lifted his head he could see a glimpse of the distant forest. As the sun turned west there was a gleam of yellow upon its far roof, as if the light caught the last pale leaves. Soon he saw the orange ball of the sun sinking towards the level of his eyes. He went to the opening and there pale and faint was a thin new moon above the rim of Earth. At that very moment he heard a sharp crack behind him. There on the grey stone in the grass was an enormous thrush, nearly coal black, its pale yellow breast freckled dark spots. Crack! It had caught a snail and was knocking it on the stone. Crack! Crack!
Suddenly Bilbo understood. Forgetting all danger he stood on the ledge and hailed the dwarves…They all fell silent: the hobbit standing by the grey stone, and the dwarves with wagging beards watching impatiently. The sun sank lower and lower, and their hopes fell. It sank into a belt of reddened cloud and disappeared. The dwarves groaned, but still Bilbo stood almost without moving. The little moon was dipping to the horizon. Evening was coming on. Then suddenly when their hope was lowest a red ray of the sun escaped like a finger through a rent in the cloud. A gleam of light came straight through the opening into the bay and fell on the smooth rock-face. The old thrush, who had been watching from a high perch with beady eyes and head cocked on one side, gave a sudden trill. There was a loud attack. A flake of rock split from the wall and fell. A hole appeared suddenly about three feet from the ground…
Then Thorin stepped up and drew the key on its chain from round his neck. He put it to the hole. It fitted and it turned! Snap! The gleam went out, the sun sank, the moon was gone, and evening sprang into the sky.
Bilbo can see the setting sun when his field of view is restricted, as he is looking out from the back of the ‘little steep-walled bay’, but he can't see the moon until he goes to the entrance of the cleft. Thus the moon is either not in the same place along the horizon as the sun or else it is higher or lower in the sky. The text says that the sun when he sees it has dropped from zenith to 'the level of his eyes' - which are most of the way up a mountain - and the moon is 'above the rim of the earth', lower. If both are setting at once, with the moon closer to the horizon than the sun, then it would have to be waning moon, not a waxing one - it is a 'a thin new moon'. This signals that the natural order of events has been altered.
Next, the sun 'sank into a belt of reddened cloud and disappeared' while the moon was 'dipping to the horizon'. Nothing specifies where the belt of cloud is relative to either the moon or the horizon.
After '[t]he gleam went out, the sun sank, the moon was gone,' - which may mean that the moon had already set but Bilbo only now noticed - then 'evening sprang into the sky'. This rather hints that evening had been forcibly held back and only now did time snap into its normal flow.
These details are subtle but suggestive. Bilbo did not see the sun and the moon as they ordinarily behave, but rather with their visibility equal and their motions apparently disordered. He saw something impossible yet expressed no surprise.
Either JRR left out surprise for dramatic or esthetic reasons, or Bilbo was no longer very easily surprised. He may have found out more in Rivendell than is ever mentioned in The Hobbit.
There is a good chance that he had learned about Durin from the dwarves, and he quite likely knew of the Two Trees. He may have half-expected Durin’s Day to begin with a sign suggestive of the mingling of their lights, formerly a regular event in Valinor; for the Trees, unlike the Sun and the Moon, were equal in every respect.
That hobbits, especially hobbits who had been to Rivendell, may well have known tales of the Two Trees is shown by Frodo’s thought in TT:The Black Gate is Closed ‘It was an evil fate. But he had taken it on himself in his own sitting-room in the far-off spring of another year, so remote now that it was like a chapter in a story of the world's youth, when the Trees of Silver and Gold were still in bloom.’
All day Bilbo sat gloomily in the grassy bay gazing at the stone, or out west through the narrow opening. He had a queer feeling that he was waiting for something. …
If he lifted his head he could see a glimpse of the distant forest. As the sun turned west there was a gleam of yellow upon its far roof, as if the light caught the last pale leaves. Soon he saw the orange ball of the sun sinking towards the level of his eyes. He went to the opening and there pale and faint was a thin new moon above the rim of Earth. At that very moment he heard a sharp crack behind him. There on the grey stone in the grass was an enormous thrush, nearly coal black, its pale yellow breast freckled dark spots. Crack! It had caught a snail and was knocking it on the stone. Crack! Crack!
Suddenly Bilbo understood. Forgetting all danger he stood on the ledge and hailed the dwarves…They all fell silent: the hobbit standing by the grey stone, and the dwarves with wagging beards watching impatiently. The sun sank lower and lower, and their hopes fell. It sank into a belt of reddened cloud and disappeared. The dwarves groaned, but still Bilbo stood almost without moving. The little moon was dipping to the horizon. Evening was coming on. Then suddenly when their hope was lowest a red ray of the sun escaped like a finger through a rent in the cloud. A gleam of light came straight through the opening into the bay and fell on the smooth rock-face. The old thrush, who had been watching from a high perch with beady eyes and head cocked on one side, gave a sudden trill. There was a loud attack. A flake of rock split from the wall and fell. A hole appeared suddenly about three feet from the ground…
Then Thorin stepped up and drew the key on its chain from round his neck. He put it to the hole. It fitted and it turned! Snap! The gleam went out, the sun sank, the moon was gone, and evening sprang into the sky.
Bilbo can see the setting sun when his field of view is restricted, as he is looking out from the back of the ‘little steep-walled bay’, but he can't see the moon until he goes to the entrance of the cleft. Thus the moon is either not in the same place along the horizon as the sun or else it is higher or lower in the sky. The text says that the sun when he sees it has dropped from zenith to 'the level of his eyes' - which are most of the way up a mountain - and the moon is 'above the rim of the earth', lower. If both are setting at once, with the moon closer to the horizon than the sun, then it would have to be waning moon, not a waxing one - it is a 'a thin new moon'. This signals that the natural order of events has been altered.
Next, the sun 'sank into a belt of reddened cloud and disappeared' while the moon was 'dipping to the horizon'. Nothing specifies where the belt of cloud is relative to either the moon or the horizon.
After '[t]he gleam went out, the sun sank, the moon was gone,' - which may mean that the moon had already set but Bilbo only now noticed - then 'evening sprang into the sky'. This rather hints that evening had been forcibly held back and only now did time snap into its normal flow.
These details are subtle but suggestive. Bilbo did not see the sun and the moon as they ordinarily behave, but rather with their visibility equal and their motions apparently disordered. He saw something impossible yet expressed no surprise.
Either JRR left out surprise for dramatic or esthetic reasons, or Bilbo was no longer very easily surprised. He may have found out more in Rivendell than is ever mentioned in The Hobbit.
There is a good chance that he had learned about Durin from the dwarves, and he quite likely knew of the Two Trees. He may have half-expected Durin’s Day to begin with a sign suggestive of the mingling of their lights, formerly a regular event in Valinor; for the Trees, unlike the Sun and the Moon, were equal in every respect.
That hobbits, especially hobbits who had been to Rivendell, may well have known tales of the Two Trees is shown by Frodo’s thought in TT:The Black Gate is Closed ‘It was an evil fate. But he had taken it on himself in his own sitting-room in the far-off spring of another year, so remote now that it was like a chapter in a story of the world's youth, when the Trees of Silver and Gold were still in bloom.’