A Fascinating Blend: The Familiar and the Fantastic in The Hobbit and The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, Part 2

For Tolkien and Lewis, and for many of their characters, home is closely associated with food. Meals in The Hobbit and The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe are often moments of celebration, community, repose, and refreshment just as they are in the primary world. When Lucy Pevansie takes tea with Tumnus, all her favorite foods are on the menu: boiled eggs, sardines on toast, and sugared cake (116). Lucy feels happy and satisfied with the meal as she relaxes in Tumnus' cozy cave with its pictures and books and its glowing hearth.

Not all things, however, are as familiar as they seem. The post-tea conversation, for instance, takes a fantastic turn as Tumnus launches into a description of Narnia's residents and their activities: the Dryads and Nymphs who dance at midnight; the Red Dwarfs who seeks their treasures; Silenus and Bacchus who visit occasionally; and the white stag who grants wishes when he is caught (117). All of these tales are commonplace to Tumnus but quite unusual, even bizarre, to Lucy, who must also adjust to the unsettling fact that her teatime host is an umbrella-carrying faun.

Bilbo may have felt a similar unsettling sensation during his first meal at Beorn's house. The supper itself is nourishing and refreshing to Bilbo, Gandalf, and the Dwarves, all of whom are exceptionally hungry after their many adventures. The food Beorn offers, however, might seem a bit odd. Beorn, who does not eat meat, likely serves them his usual fare of cream, honey, nuts, dried fruit, cakes, and mead (115, 131). Although none of these foods is particularly peculiar, Bilbo would be accustomed to something a bit more “substantial,” at least in his mind, bacon and eggs, perhaps, or a nice ham.

Even stranger than the food, though, is the way in which the meal is presented. Beorn's servants are efficient in setting the tables and providing every comfort to the tired guests, but those servants are none other than four white ponies and several gray dogs who are quite adept at walking on their hind legs (124). Bilbo's host, too, is unlike anyone he has ever met before. Gandalf has already explained that Beorn is a skin-changer who transforms into a great black bear, and Bilbo, while fascinated by Beorn's supper table tales, cannot help but be a little nervous in the presence of the extraordinary man at the head of the table.