There are lots of magical and fantastical scenes in Peter Jackson’s film adaptations of The Hobbit, from the Giant Eagles carrying the company through a beautifully dusky sky, to watching the 13 dwarves float down the rapids in barrels. But arguably one of the most visually interesting moments in the entire trilogy is when Bilbo and his friends find themselves straying from the path in Mirkwood, which gets them into all sorts of sticky situations.
During this scene, the trees of Mirkwood appear in almost psychedelic colors, the dwarves begin walking in circles, and it becomes very quickly obvious that all is not well. The air is stifling, and the foul waters of the wood emit a kind of intoxicating fume that makes the dwarves begin to see strange and uncanny things as they wander deeper and deeper into the thicket, and away from the path that they are trying to find. In the movies, Bilbo has the sensation of going mad when he looks backward and see’s himself walking both behind and in front of him. When he looks down at his feet, they appear to be moving backward, and he seems almost permanently suspended at a 45-degree angle as he walks, rather than being upright. These scenes, although very effective and creative, are slightly different interpretations than the illusions that occur in Tolkien’s original story.
In the books, it is not themselves that the hobbit and dwarves see walking lost through the forest, but a group of elves, feasting and merry-making around a ridiculously long table full of the finest foods, and the richest wine, and a warm fire. At this point, the dwarves have been in the woods for several days, and have run out of all the fresh water and food provisions that Beorn provided them in his lovely cottage on the borders of the woodland. They are deadly hungry, and as nothing in the forest is fit for consumption, they are fresh out of options, other than to go towards the gathered elves and beg for food and drink.
However, ‘no sooner had the first dwarf stepped into the clearing than all the light went out as if by magic.’ They try this a few times, as the light of the fire re-appears a few feet away, and ‘they found that they could not resist the desire to go nearer, and try once more to get help. This time the result was disastrous.’ By their third effort, when the lights go out and leave them in pitch black, they lose each other completely, and are left disorientated and confused.
In the morning, they are able to regroup and find their way back to each other by the dim light of day that only just manages to breach the foliage of the dense trees above them. A few fans have settled upon a theory that the elves in these visions and illusions that the dwarves see are not actually there at all, and that they are simply optical tricks spun by the evil spiders who live in the forest, as a way to lure unsuspecting prey into their webs.
The theory suggests that the spiders use the interesting marks and patterns on their thorax to create the illusions of lights in the trees, and this combined with the poisonous gases in Mirkwood makes the dwarves believe that they are seeing people around a warm fire. The spiders then remove the light, discombobulating their victims and separating them, which then makes it easier to pick them off one by one, stick them with paralyzer and hang them upside down in the trees to eat later.
Unfortunately, as cool and intriguing as this concept is, it has been discounted by other fans, who point out that one of the elves seen at the dinner table is ‘a woodland king with a crown of leaves upon his golden hair.’ This is clearly Thranduil, who the dwarves later meet when they are rescued from the forest, only to be put in the underground dungeons. There, the king demands “why did you and your folk three times try to attack my people at our merrymaking?”. It is explained that ‘The feasting people were Wood-elves of course. These are not wicked folk. If they have a fault, it is a deep distrust of strangers.’ Therefore, it is clear that the feasts were real, rather than spider illusions, and that they fled out of self-preservation, rather than out of a want to harm or hinder the dwarves.
But, as anyone who has seen the films will know, this is only the start of the difficult relationship between Thorin and Thranduil, which only gets wore after Thorin falls to the Dragon-sickness and refuses to give the elven king a share of the treasure. This is a feud between races that has gone on long before these two began, and continues for many years, until Gimli and Legolas meet as members of the fellowship of the ring, form an unlikely friendship, and remain true to one another to the rest of their days.