"Is there no way round [Mirkwood]?"

[geoffrey]

For this thread, please let's utterly ignore everything having to do with Tolkien other than The Hobbit. Nothing else exists. The book floats in a timeless void.

Near the end of The Hobbit's seventh chapter, "Queer Lodgings", Bilbo at the Forest Gate asked Gandalf if the company couldn't go around (rather than through) Mirkwood. Gandalf replied, "There is, if you care to go two hundred miles or so out of your way north, and twice that south."

How can that be understood?

A. Perhaps it's 200 miles in a straight line from the Forest Gate to the northern edge of Mirkwood?
B. Or perhaps it's 200 miles walking from the Forest Gate along Mirkwood's western edge to its northwestern corner?
C. Or perhaps it's 200 miles if you add B (above) with the walking distance along Mirkwood's edge from its northeastern corner to where the Forest River exits the forest?
D. Or perhaps something else?

[Finarvyn]

I think it's C, from your list. At least, that's the way I think I read it.

[Deleted]

Looking at the map I have, I'm with Fin.

[machfront]

What little I know…same. Agree with Fin.

[Zenopus]

My impression was always that he was listing the two different options for going around the forest. To paraphrase:

"It would be 200 extra miles to the Lonely Mountain if you went around Mirkwood to the north, and 400 extra miles if you went around Mirkwood to the south."

The southern option is much longer, which makes sense as the forest path and Lonely Mountain are towards the north end of the forest.

[Falconer]

I don’t know if this is any help.

It doesn’t really seem likely that Mirkwood ends literally at the bottom of the map, so even based on The Hobbit alone Gandalf is low-balling his estimate of the southern route. But if he just means the initial detour of literally going to the edge, then it seems more reasonable.

So my preliminary guess would be “B”.

But I would want to look at various other actual travel times in the book — eg., Beorn’s House to Forest Gate; Forest Gate to Elvenking’s Halls, Long Lake to Lonely Mountain — to have something concrete to go by.