The Lord of the Eagles and his followers have just dropped the group near the house of Beorn. Beorn is a magical creature that can transform into anything, but he mostly transforms into a bear or a human. Gandalf knows of him, but doesn't personally know him. He does know that Beorn is a generally happy guy, but when he is angry you don't want to be near him. He also doesn't like beggars, but if they wanted a place to stay they were going to have to beg. Gandalf and Bilbo go to Beorn's house and tell who they are and start telling their story. Every five minutes or so two dwarves come in the house. Gandalf gets Beorn interested in the story, so he doesn't tell the dwarves to go away.
After Beorn hears the rest of the story, he decides to let them stay and rest up at his place. They have many fabulous meals and sleep comfortably in beds that he prepared for them. After a couple days of needed rest, the group set with many provisions and some ponies Beorn let them to borrow. They traveled to Mirkwood and when they arrived Gandalf departed from them. Now Bilbo and the dwarves don't have the guidance of Gandalf, they have to make it to Smaug on their own.
This chapter kind of confused me. I was confused with the reason that Gandalf left. He said it wasn't his journey earlier in the book, but why did he go so far with them if it wasn't his journey to begin with? Maybe this will become clearer later in the book. It made me think about how Bilbo and the dwarves will get to Smaug without Gandalf's help. I think that Tolkien made Gandalf leave so he could develop Bilbo as a hero and a leader for the dwarves.
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