clearing. Gandalf decides to use some of his wizard power and shoots fire at the wolves. The wolves catch on fire and start running wildly through the woods. As the wolves are trying to save themselves, the trees catch fire. Just as the fire is at it’s worst a group of large eagles save the day. The eagles fly down and pick up each one of the adventurers from the flaming trees. Once they have everyone, the eagles take the group and place them far away from the terrible wolves. Unknowingly they are now closer to the group’s next quarrel. After being saved by the eagles and resting for a few days, the party has come to Mirkwood Forest. Their first problem is that Gandalf is not going to travel with them through the forest. Tolkien says, “Then they knewthat Gandalf was going to leave them at the very edge of Mirkwood, and they were in despair.”(135). Gandalf finally makes the group go on without him. One night, while the party is traveling through the forest they go off the path and become lost in the woods, the groupbecomes separated and in deep trouble. The scattered dwarves and Bilbo Baggins fall asleep in the forest. During the night, the giant spiders discover the dwarves and Bilbo. All of the dwarves are bound and tied by these spiders. Bilbo awakens just in time to save himself from a killer spider. Bilbo finds his friends all tied up and hanging from a tree branch. He manages to climb the tree and “ . . . to haul up first one dwarf and then another and slash them free.”(Tolkien 161). The spiders are not at all pleased about losing their supper, so they go after the group of dwarves and Bilbo. As Tolkien describes, “Then the battle began. Again and again the spiders were beaten off, and many of them were killed.” (162). Throughout the fray with the spiders, Bilbo does most of the fighting and defending, for the dwarves are sick with spider poison and are very weak....
