We get the first substantive indication that more than luck is involved on the very last page of the book when Gandalf says to Bilbo, “You don’t really suppose, do you, that all your adventures and escapes were managed by mere luck, just for your sole benefit?” So after all the references to luck and chance, Gandalf indicates that it was never mere luck. But what was it? Some kind of fate?

For many adult readers of The Hobbit, the amount of apparent good luck enjoyed by Bilbo Baggins and his companions on their adventure can be off-putting. One coincidence, okay. But lucky break after lucky break after lucky break? Come on! Tolkien doesn’t even try to conceal it. He actually draws attention to it. References to chance and luck and things happening in the nick of time abound throughout the story.

It begins in the first pages of chapter 1 when we are told that “By some curious chance” Gandalf arrived one morning. In chapter 2, when Bilbo and the dwarves encounter the trolls, Gandalf comes back “in the nick of time” to save them from being eaten. When they arrive in Rivendell, Elrond looks at the map on the one evening when the “moon-letters” would be visible, and those runes give the party information that is absolutely necessary to the success of their quest. Later, when Bilbo, Gandalf, and the dwarves are hiding in the mountain cave, Bilbo couldn’t go to sleep, and this enabled him to see the ponies disappearing into a crack in the wall. He shouted just in time to allow Gandalf to act. This would later prove to be necessary for the very survival of the party.

The most dramatic stroke of “luck” occurs when Bilbo is crawling around in pitch darkness and just happens to feel a cold metal ring lying on the ground. This stroke of “luck” would eventually end up having ramifications not only for Bilbo’s survival but also for the fate of the entire world. Luck also plays a part in the riddle contest between Bilbo and Gollum. A fish splashes in the water at the very moment Bilbo is trying to respond to a riddle to which the correct answer is “fish.” When Bilbo asks for more time to solve another riddle, he again is “saved by pure luck” because asking for more time helped him realize that “time” was the correct answer to the riddle in question.

When Bilbo, Gandalf, and the dwarves were trapped in the tops of the trees surrounded by wolves, it just so happened that the eagles were in the area and able to save them. Bilbo is the last to be saved and he is rescued just in the nick of time. Gandalf claims that he has managed to get everyone over the mountains “by good management and good luck.” We are soon informed that it is only by “accident” that they have found themselves in Beorn’s lands. That “accident” too will later turn out to have important ramifications for the adventure when Beorn comes to their assistance in the great battle and helps turn the tide. As Beorn sends them on their way, he tells them that beyond the edge of the forest they must depend on their luck and their courage. Before Gandalf leaves Bilbo and the dwarves, he tells them that “with a tremendous slice of luck” they may make it through the woods.

Incredible luck occurs several times as they pass through Mirkwood. When Bilbo and the dwarves get off the path and become separated in the dark, Dori stumbles across Bilbo “by sheer luck.” Later Bilbo luckily comes to his senses just in time to avoid being wrapped up in the web of a giant spider. Trying to locate the dwarves, Bilbo “by luck” chooses the direction in the dark that leads him to the dwarves just in time to save them from being eaten by the giant spiders. Luckily Bilbo had the ring which enabled him to more effectively fight the spiders.

Luck also plays a major role in the dwarves escape from the woodland elves. Luckily, there was a water gate that the elves used to send empty barrels up the river. Luckily, there was a feast and some strong drink that enabled Bilbo to obtain the guard’s keys, and this enabled him to free the dwarves from their cells. As Tolkien says, “Luck of an unusual kind was with Bilbo then.” Bilbo gets the last dwarf tucked away in a barrel moments before the elves return. By luck the barrels hit the shore when it is dark. Had it been daylight, the elves say they would have looked inside to see why they were so heavy. While listening to the raftsmen, Bilbo discovers that it was lucky that they had left the main trail through Mirkwood because that was no longer a safe way out of the forest. It turns out that the river they took by barrel was the one good way out at that time.

Another stroke of luck occurs as they are seeking for the door to the mountain because they just so happen to be there on the one day that the setting sun illuminates the keyhole to the door. Before Bilbo enters the dark tunnel, Tolkien tells us that Bilbo was “possessed of good luck far exceeding the usual allowance.” And then Bilbo himself tells Thorin, “Perhaps I have begun to trust my luck more than I used to in the old days.” As he descends into the mountain, Balin bids him “Good luck!” A bit later, when they realize that the dragon is going to be a difficult problem to solve if they are to regain their treasure and their home, they ask Bilbo what they should do. Bilbo responds, “That obviously depends entirely on some new turn of luck.”

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