“Clap! Snap! the black crack!Grip, grab! Pinch, nab!And down down to Goblin-town You go, my lad!Clash, crash! Crush, smash!Hammer and tongs! Knocker and gongs!Pound, pound, far underground! Ho, ho! my lad!Swish, smack! Whip crack!Batter and beat! Yammer and bleat!Work, work! Nor dare to shirk,While Goblins quaff, and Goblins laugh,Round and round far underground Below, my lad!”

“Your lullaby would waken a drunken goblin!”

“Ho! Ho! Ho! To the bottle I goTo heal my heart and drown my woeRain may fall, and wind may blowAnd many miles be still to goBut under a tall tree will I lieAnd let the clouds go sailing by”

“What shall we do, what shall we do! Escaping goblins to be caught by wolves is like out of the frying pan and into the fire!”

“He charged the ranks of the goblins of Mount Gram in the Battle of the Green Fields, and knocked their king Golfimbul's head clean off with a wooden club. It sailed a hundred yards through the air and went down a rabbit-hole, and in this way the battle was won and the game of Golf invented at the same moment.”

“If you have ever seen a dragon in a pinch, you will realize that this was only poetical exaggeration applied to any hobbit, even to Old Took's great-grand-uncle Bullroarer, who was so huge (for a hobbit) that he could ride a horse. He charged the ranks of the goblins of Mount Gram in the Battle of the Green Fields, and knocked their king Golfimbul's head clean off with a wooden club. It sailed a hundred yards through the air and went down a rabbit-hole, and in this way the battle was won and the game of Golf invented at the same moment.”

“Escaping goblins to be caught by wolves!” he said, and it became a proverb, though we now say ‘out of the frying-pan into the fire’ in the same sort of uncomfortable situations.”