Eagles Rescue the Company

The Eagles Rescue the Company is the decisive turning point in the flight from the Misty Mountains, transforming a desperate last stand into a sudden deliverance. As the goblins and Wargs close in around the burning trees, the Great Eagles of the Misty Mountains descend in the nick of time, plucking the trapped adventurers from certain death and bearing them to a high eyrie, where the wizard Gandalf negotiates further passage eastward. The rescue not only saves the company but also establishes a lasting bond between the dwarves and the eagle-lord, one that will echo in the Battle of Five Armies.

The Trap and the Desperate Moment

The company had taken refuge in the trees of a forest glade after escaping the goblin tunnels, only to find themselves surrounded by a pack of Wargs—the evil wolves of the Edge of the Wild. The Wargs, who had gathered for a planned raid with the goblins, set fire to the trees, and the flames began to lick the branches where the dwarves and Bilbo clung. Gandalf, perched in a tall pine, prepared to leap down among the goblin spears, a suicidal charge that would have ended him. The situation was hopeless: the fire was closing in, the goblins were dancing and singing below, and no escape seemed possible.

The Eagles' Intervention

At the very moment when Gandalf was about to spring, the Lord of the Eagles swept down from above, seized the wizard in his talons, and carried him away. The goblins howled in fury and surprise. Following their lord, the other eagles descended like huge black shadows, their beating wings smiting the goblins to the ground or driving them far away. They swooped to the tree-tops and seized the dwarves, who scrambled up as high as they dared. Poor little Bilbo was nearly left behind again; he only just managed to catch hold of Dori's legs as Dori was borne off last of all, and up they went together above the tumult and the burning, Bilbo swinging in the air with his arms nearly breaking. The eagles carried the entire company—Gandalf, all thirteen dwarves, and Bilbo—away from the blazing glade and the pursuing goblins.

The Flight and the Eyrie

The eagles flew in strong, sweeping circles, rising high into the sky. Bilbo, clinging to Dori's ankles, found the heights terrifying; he had never liked ladders or cliffs, and looking down between his dangling toes at the dark lands opening wide underneath him made his head swim. The flight ended just in time, before his arms gave way, and he fell onto the rough platform of an eagle's eyrie. There he lay without speaking, his thoughts a mixture of surprise at being saved and fear of falling off the narrow place. The Lord of the Eagles, who knew Gandalf from a previous service—the wizard had once healed him from an arrow-wound—spoke with the wizard and agreed to carry the company further east, setting them down well on their journey across the plains below. The eagles would not take them near human settlements, for fear of being shot at with yew bows, but they deposited the party on the great rock called the Carrock, where the dwarves and Bilbo were left to continue their quest.

Consequences and Lasting Significance

The rescue ended the adventures of the Misty Mountains and gave the company a fresh start, albeit without their ponies or most of their supplies. The eagles provided food—rabbits, hares, and a small sheep—and the dwarves cooked a meal on the shelf of rock. Bilbo, though weak, slept more soundly on the hard rock than he ever had on his feather-bed at home. The Lord of the Eagles later became the King of All Birds, wearing a golden crown, and his fifteen chieftains received golden collars made from gold the dwarves gave them. Bilbo never saw the eagles again except high and far off in the Battle of Five Armies, where they once more turned the tide of battle. The rescue thus cemented the eagles as recurring agents of salvation in the narrative, their intervention a pattern of last-minute deliverance that would repeat at the story's climax.