The Quest of Erebor
Gandalf's account of the dwarves' journey of the Third Age
Nature
The Quest of Erebor is the narrative in Unfinished Tales (Part Three, III) that gives the reason behind the quest told in The Hobbit: how Gandalf, fearing that the Dark Power would yet use the dragon, chose to bring the old Enemy of Erebor against him — and how he caused Thorin’s company to be gathered and the Hobbit Bilbo Baggins to be their fourteenth member. Though the tale deals with the first years of the Third Age’s Age of Dragons, the events belong wholly to the Third Age.
Contents
Gandalf recounts that the return of the shadow to Dol Guldur made him fear that Smaug the Dragon, master of the Lonely Mountain, would become a weapon of the Enemy; that with that in mind he sought out Thorin, met him by chance in Bree, and set the plan of the quest afoot; and that, judging a regular dwarf-warrior pointless, he resolved on the soft and pliable Hobbit for the “burglar” of the venture, in part for the mercies of adventure that might be missed by the strong. The essay carries the account to the departure of the company; the journey itself across the Misty Mountains and Mirkwood is the story of The Hobbit.
Composition
The text in Unfinished Tales is the shorter 1980 form of material Tolkien wrote in the voice of a reminiscence, afterwards expanded for the later histories of The Hobbit; Christopher Tolkien prints it with a note on the relationship of the two forms and their bearing on the Ring-story.