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what does 'lain' mean in 'cut out of the living rock broad and lain' from The Hobbit?

Some context: The hobbit and the dwarfs are inside the Lonely mountain and this is how Tolkien describes the stairs made by the dwarfs:

They climbed long stairs, and turned and went down wide echoing ways, and turned again and climbed yet more stairs, and yet more stairs again. These were smooth, cut out of the living rock broad and lain;

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    I’m voting to close this question because it's about a misprint, not an actual usage.
    – Andy Bonner
    Commented Jul 11 at 15:31
  • "Lain" isn't in the original text I shall need to dig out my copy of The Hobbit since online it seems to be either "fair" or "lair". Fair is regular word, "lair" may be a misprint for fair, or could be some archaic word that Tolkein has found. But at any rate the word isn't "lain"
    – James K
    Commented Jul 11 at 18:33
  • Yes, it is "fair", in my rather old (but post LoTR retconned) edition.
    – James K
    Commented Jul 11 at 20:57

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These were smooth, cut out of the living rock broad and lain.

I suspect this to be a rare case of typographical mistake. The intended word is laid, the past participle of lay.

These were ... cut out ... and [laid].

Lain is the past participle of lie, which is intransitive, and hence cannot be in the passive:

These were ... cut out ... and lain.

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  • You are right. Thank you. Another source of The Hobbit text shows that the correct word is fair: These were smooth, cut out of the living rock broad and fair;
    – Antipups Z
    Commented Jul 11 at 8:47
  • To be "cut out of the living rock" means that the steps were hewn into the stone, not quarried elsewhere and laid (set in place).
    – TimR
    Commented Jul 11 at 9:59
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    @AntipupsZ - sounds like you got some kind of janky online OCR pirate text.
    – Michael Harvey
    Commented Jul 11 at 13:57
  • @AntipupsZ Another problem with either "lain" or "laid" is that we can talk about stonework being "laid" in place, but anything "cut out of the living rock" was not laid!
    – Andy Bonner
    Commented Jul 11 at 15:30

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