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together with some of the High-elven folk. It is said that
Celeborn went to dwell there after the departure of Galadriel;
but there is no record of the day when at last he sought the
Grey Havens, and with him went the last living memory of
the Elder Days in Middle-earth.
Chapter 1
A L O N G - E X P E C T E D P A R T Y
When Mr. Bilbo Baggins of Bag End announced that he
would shortly be celebrating his eleventy-first birthday with
a party of special magnificence, there was much talk and
excitement in Hobbiton.
Bilbo was very rich and very peculiar, and had been the
wonder of the Shire for sixty years, ever since his remarkable
disappearance and unexpected return. The riches he had
brought back from his travels had now become a local legend,
and it was popularly believed, whatever the old folk might
say, that the Hill at Bag End was full of tunnels stuffed with
treasure. And if that was not enough for fame, there was also
his prolonged vigour to marvel at. Time wore on, but it
seemed to have little effect on Mr. Baggins. At ninety he was
much the same as at fifty. At ninety-nine they began to call
him well-preserved; but unchanged would have been nearer the
mark. There were some that shook their heads and thought
this was too much of a good thing; it seemed unfair that
anyone should possess (apparently) perpetual youth as well
as (reputedly) inexhaustible wealth.
‘It will have to be paid for,’ they said. ‘It isn’t natural, and
trouble will come of it!’
But so far trouble had not come; and as Mr. Baggins was
generous with his money, most people were willing to for-
give him his oddities and his good fortune. He remained
on visiting terms with his relatives (except, of course, the
Sackville-Bagginses), and he had many devoted admirers
among the hobbits of poor and unimportant families. But he
had no close friends, until some of his younger cousins began
to grow up.
The eldest of these, and Bilbo’s favourite, was young Frodo
Baggins. When Bilbo was ninety-nine he adopted Frodo as
his heir, and brought him to live at Bag End; and the hopes of
the Sackville-Bagginses were finally dashed. Bilbo and Frodo
happened to have the same birthday, September 22nd. ‘You
had better come and live here, Frodo my lad,’ said Bilbo
one day; ‘and then we can celebrate our birthday-parties
comfortably together.’ At that time Frodo was still in his
tweens, as the hobbits called the irresponsible twenties
between childhood and coming of age at thirty-three.
Twelve more years passed. Each year the Bagginses had
given very lively combined birthday-parties at Bag End; but
now it was understood that something quite exceptional
was being planned for that autumn. Bilbo was going to be
eleventy-one, 111, a rather curious number, and a very re-
spectable age for a hobbit (the Old Took himself had only
reached 130); and Frodo was going to be thirty-three, 33, an
important number: the date of his ‘coming of age’.
Tongues began to wag in Hobbiton and Bywater; and
rumour of the coming event travelled all over the Shire. The
history and character of Mr. Bilbo Baggins became once
again the chief topic of conversation; and the older folk
suddenly found their reminiscences in welcome demand.
No one had a more attentive audience than old Ham
Gamgee, commonly known as the Gaffer. He held forth at
The Ivy Bush, a small inn on the Bywater road; and he spoke
with some authority, for he had tended the garden at Bag
End for forty years, and had helped old Holman in the same
job before that. Now that he was himself growing old and
stiff in the joints, the job was mainly carried on by his young-
est son, Sam Gamgee. Both father and son were on very
friendly terms with Bilbo and Frodo. They lived on the Hill
itself, in Number 3 Bagshot Row just below Bag End.
‘A very nice well-spoken gentlehobbit is Mr. Bilbo, as I’ve
always said,’ the Gaffer declared. With perfect truth: for Bilbo
was very polite to him, calling him ‘Master Hamfast’, and
Twelve more years passed. Each year the Bagginses had
given very lively combined birthday-parties at Bag End; but
now it was understood that something quite exceptional
was being planned for that autumn. Bilbo was going to be
eleventy-one, 111, a rather curious number, and a very re-
spectable age for a hobbit (the Old Took himself had only
reached 130); and Frodo was going to be thirty-three, 33, an
important number: the date of his ‘coming of age’.
Tongues began to wag in Hobbiton and Bywater; and
rumour of the coming event travelled all over the Shire. The
history and character of Mr. Bilbo Baggins became once
again the chief topic of conversation; and the older folk
suddenly found their reminiscences in welcome demand.
No one had a more attentive audience than old Ham
Gamgee, commonly known as the Gaffer. He held forth at
The Ivy Bush, a small inn on the Bywater road; and he spoke
with some authority, for he had tended the garden at Bag
End for forty years, and had helped old Holman in the same
job before that. Now that he was himself growing old and
stiff in the joints, the job was mainly carried on by his young-
est son, Sam Gamgee. Both father and son were on very
friendly terms with Bilbo and Frodo. They lived on the Hill
itself, in Number 3 Bagshot Row just below Bag End.
‘A very nice well-spoken gentlehobbit is Mr. Bilbo, as I’ve
always said,’ the Gaffer declared. With perfect truth: for Bilbo
was very polite to him, calling him ‘Master Hamfast’, and
consulting him constantly upon the growing of vegetables –
in the matter of ‘roots’, especially potatoes, the Gaffer was
recognized as the leading authority by all in the neighbour-
hood (including himself ).
‘But what about this Frodo that lives with him?’ asked Old
Noakes of Bywater. ‘Baggins is his name, but he’s more than
half a Brandybuck, they say. It beats me why any Baggins
of Hobbiton should go looking for a wife away there in
Buckland, where folks are so queer.’
‘And no wonder they’re queer,’ put in Daddy Twofoot
(the Gaffer’s next-door neighbour), ‘if they live on the wrong
side of the Brandywine River, and right agin the Old Forest.
That’s a dark bad place, if half the tales be true.’
‘You’re right, Dad!’ said the Gaffer. ‘Not that the Brandy-
bucks of Buckland live in the Old Forest; but they’re a queer
breed, seemingly. They fool about with boats on that big
river – and that isn’t natural. Small wonder that trouble came
of it, I say. But be that as it may, Mr. Frodo is as nice a
young hobbit as you could wish to meet. Very much like
Mr. Bilbo, and in more than looks. After all his father was
a Baggins. A decent respectable hobbit was Mr. Drogo
Baggins; there was never much to tell of him, till he was
drownded.’
‘Drownded?’ said several voices. They had heard this and
other darker rumours before, of course; but hobbits have a
passion for family history, and they were ready to hear i
‘Well, so they say,’ said the Gaffer. ‘You see: Mr. Drogo,
he married poor Miss Primula Brandybuck. She was our Mr.
Bilbo’s first cousin on the mother’s side (her mother being
the youngest of the Old Took’s daughters); and Mr. Drogo
was his second cousin. So Mr. Frodo is his first and second
cousin, once removed either way, as the saying is, if you
follow me. And Mr. Drogo was staying at Brandy Hall with
his father-in-law, old Master Gorbadoc, as he often did
after his marriage (him being partial to his vittles, and old
Gorbadoc keeping a mighty generous table); and he went out
boating on the Brandywine River; and he and his wife were
drownded, and poor Mr. Frodo only a child and all.’
‘I’ve heard they went on the water after dinner in the
moonlight,’ said Old Noakes; ‘and it was Drogo’s weight as
sunk the boat.’
‘And I heard she pushed him in, and he pulled her in after
him,’ said Sandyman, the Hobbiton miller.
‘You shouldn’t listen to all you hear, Sandyman,’ said the
Gaffer, who did not much like the miller. ‘There isn’t no call
to go talking of pushing and pulling. Boats are quite tricky
enough for those that sit still without looking further for the
cause of trouble. Anyway: there was this Mr. Frodo left an
orphan and stranded, as you might say, among those queer
Bucklanders, being brought up anyhow in Brandy Hall. A
regular warren, by all accounts. Old Master Gorbadoc never
had fewer than a couple of hundred relations in the place.
Mr. Bilbo never did a kinder deed than when he brought the
lad back to live among decent folk.
‘But I reckon it was a nasty knock for those Sackville-
Bagginses. They thought they were going to get Bag End,
that time when he went off and was thought to be dead. And
then he comes back and orders them off; and he goes on
living and living, and never looking a day older, bless him!
And suddenly he produces an heir, and has all the papers
made out proper. The Sackville-Bagginses won’t never see
the inside of Bag End now, or it is to be hoped not.’
‘There’s a tidy bit of money tucked away up there, I hear
tell,’ said a stranger, a visitor on business from Michel
Delving in the Westfarthing. ‘All the top of your hill is full of
tunnels packed with chests of gold and silver, and jools, by
what I’ve heard.’
‘Then you’ve heard more than I can speak to,’ answered
the Gaffer. ‘I know nothing about jools. Mr. Bilbo is free with
his money, and there seems no lack of it; but I know of no
tunnel-making. I saw Mr. Bilbo when he came back, a matter
of sixty years ago, when I was a lad. I’d not long come
prentice to old Holman (him being my dad’s cousin), but he
had me up at Bag End helping him to keep folks from tram-
pling and trapessing all over the garden while the sale was
on. And in the middle of it all Mr. Bilbo comes up the Hill
with a pony and some mighty big bags and a couple of chests.
I don’t doubt they were mostly full of treasure he had picked
up in foreign parts, where there be mountains of gold, they
say; but there wasn’t enough to fill tunnels. But my lad Sam
will know more about that. He’s in and out of Bag End.
Crazy about stories of the old days, he is, and he listens to
all Mr. Bilbo’s tales. Mr. Bilbo has learned him his letters –
meaning no harm, mark you, and I hope no harm will come
of it.
‘Elves and Dragons! I says to him. Cabbages and potatoes are
better for me and you. Don’t go getting mixed up in the business
of your betters, or you’ll land in trouble too big for you, I says to
him. And I might say it to others,’ he added with a look at
the stranger and the miller.
But the Gaffer did not convince his audience. The legend
of Bilbo’s wealth was now too firmly fixed in the minds of
the younger generation of hobbits.
‘Ah, but he has likely enough been adding to what he
brought at first,’ argued the miller, voicing common opinion.
‘He’s often away from home. And look at the outlandish folk
that visit him: dwarves coming at night, and that old wandering
conjuror, Gandalf, and all. You can say what you like, Gaffer,
but Bag End’s a queer place, and its folk are queerer.’
‘And you can say what you like, about what you know no
more of than you do of boating, Mr. Sandyman,’ retorted
the Gaffer, disliking the miller even more than usual. ‘If that’s
being queer, then we could do with a bit more queerness in
these parts. There’s some not far away that wouldn’t offer a
pint of beer to a friend, if they lived in a hole with golden
walls. But they do things proper at Bag End. Our Sam says
that everyone’s going to be invited to the party, and there’s
going to be presents, mark you, presents for all – this very
month as is.’
That very month was September, and as fine as you could
ask. A day or two later a rumour (probably started by the
knowledgeable Sam) was spread about that there were going
to be fireworks – fireworks, what is more, such as had not
been seen in the Shire for nigh on a century, not indeed since
the Old Took died.
Days passed and The Day drew nearer. An odd-looking
waggon laden with odd-looking packages rolled into Hobbi-
ton one evening and toiled up the Hill to Bag End. The
startled hobbits peered out of lamplit doors to gape at it. It
was driven by outlandish folk, singing strange songs: dwarves
with long beards and deep hoods. A few of them remained
at Bag End. At the end of the second week in September a
cart came in through Bywater from the direction of Brandy-
wine Bridge in broad daylight. An old man was driving it all
alone. He wore a tall pointed blue hat, a long grey cloak, and
a silver scarf. He had a long white beard and bushy eyebrows
that stuck out beyond the brim of his hat. Small hobbit-
children ran after the cart all through Hobbiton and right up
the hill. It had a cargo of fireworks, as they rightly guessed.
At Bilbo’s front door the old man began to unload: there
were great bundles of fireworks of all sorts and shapes, each
labelled with a large red G and the elf-rune, .
That was Gandalf ’s mark, of course, and the old man
was Gandalf the Wizard, whose fame in the Shire was due
mainly to his skill with fires, smokes, and lights. His real
business was far more difficult and dangerous, but the
Shire-folk knew nothing about it. To them he was just one
of the ‘attractions’ at the Party. Hence the excitement of
the hobbit-children. ‘G for Grand!’ they shouted, and the
old man smiled. They knew him by sight, though he only
appeared in Hobbiton occasionally and never stopped long;
but neither they nor any but the oldest of their elders had
seen one of his firework displays – they now belonged to a
legendary past.
When the old man, helped by Bilbo and some dwarves,
had finished unloading, Bilbo gave a few pennies away; but
a l o n g - e x p e c t e d p a r t y 33
not a single squib or cracker was forthcoming, to the dis-
appointment of the onlookers.
‘Run away now!’ said Gandalf. ‘You will get plenty when
the time comes.’ Then he disappeared inside with Bilbo, and
the door was shut. The young hobbits stared at the door in
vain for a while, and then made off, feeling that the day of
the party would never come.
Inside Bag End, Bilbo and Gandalf were sitting at the open
window of a small room looking out west on to the garden.
The late afternoon was bright and peaceful. The flowers
glowed red and golden: snap-dragons and sunflowers, and
nasturtians trailing all over the turf walls and peeping in at
the round windows.
‘How bright your garden looks!’ said Gandalf.
‘Yes,’ said Bilbo. ‘I am very fond indeed of it, and of all
the dear old Shire; but I think I need a holiday.’
‘You mean to go on with your plan then?’
‘I do. I made up my mind months ago, and I haven’t
changed it.’
‘Very well. It is no good saying any more. Stick to your
plan – your whole plan, mind – and I hope it will turn out
for the best, for you, and for all of us.’
‘I hope so. Anyway I mean to enjoy myself on Thursday,
and have my little joke.’
‘Who will laugh, I wonder?’ said Gandalf, shaking his head.
‘We shall see,’ said Bilbo.
The next day more carts rolled up the Hill, and still more
carts. There might have been some grumbling about ‘dealing
locally’, but that very week orders began to pour out of Bag
End for every kind of provision, commodity, or luxury that
could be obtained in Hobbiton or Bywater or anywhere in
the neighbourhood. People became enthusiastic; and they
began to tick off the days on the calendar; and they watched
eagerly for the postman, hoping for invitations.
Before long the invitations began pouring out, and the
Hobbiton post-office was blocked, and the Bywater post-
office was snowed under, and voluntary assistant postmen
were called for. There was a constant stream of them going
up the Hill, carrying hundreds of polite variations on Thank
you, I shall certainly come.
A notice appeared on the gate at Bag End: no admit-
tance except on party business. Even those who had,
or pretended to have Party Business were seldom allowed
inside. Bilbo was busy: writing invitations, ticking off
answers, packing up presents, and making some private
preparations of his own. From the time of Gandalf ’s arrival
he remained hidden from view.
One morning the hobbits woke to find the large field, south
of Bilbo’s front door, covered with ropes and poles for tents
and pavilions. A special entrance was cut into the bank
leading to the road, and wide steps and a large white gate
were built there. The three hobbit-families of Bagshot Row,
adjoining the field, were intensely interested and generally
envied. Old Gaffer Gamgee stopped even pretending to work
in his garden.
The tents began to go up. There was a specially large
pavilion, so big that the tree that grew in the field was right
inside it, and stood proudly near one end, at the head of
the chief table. Lanterns were hung on all its branches.
More promising still (to the hobbits’ mind): an enormous
open-air kitchen was erected in the north corner of the field.
A draught of cooks, from every inn and eating-house for
miles around, arrived to supplement the dwarves and other
odd folk that were quartered at Bag End. Excitement rose to
its height.
Then the weather clouded over. That was on Wednesday
the eve of the Party. Anxiety was intense. Then Thursday,
September the 22nd, actually dawned. The sun got up, the
clouds vanished, flags were unfurled and the fun began.
Bilbo Baggins called it a party, but it was really a variety
of entertainments rolled into one. Practically everybody living
near was invited. A very few were overlooked by accident
but as they turned up all the same, that did not matter. Many
people from other parts of the Shire were also asked; and
there were even a few from outside the borders. Bilbo met
the guests (and additions) at the new white gate in person.
He gave away presents to all and sundry – the latter were
those who went out again by a back way and came in again
by the gate. Hobbits give presents to other people on their
own birthdays. Not very expensive ones, as a rule, and not
so lavishly as on this occasion; but it was not a bad system.
Actually in Hobbiton and Bywater every day in the year was
somebody’s birthday, so that every hobbit in those parts had
a fair chance of at least one present at least once a week. But
they never got tired of them.
On this occasion the presents were unusually good. The
hobbit-children were so excited that for a while they almost
forgot about eating. There were toys the like of which they
had never seen before, all beautiful and some obviously magi-
cal. Many of them had indeed been ordered a year before,
and had come all the way from the Mountain and from Dale,
and were of real dwarf-make.
When every guest had been welcomed and was finally
inside the gate, there were songs, dances, music, games, and,
of course, food and drink. There were three official meals:
lunch, tea, and dinner (or supper). But lunch and tea were
marked chiefly by the fact that at those times all the guests
were sitting down and eating together. At other times there
were merely lots of people eating and drinking – continuously
from elevenses until six-thirty, when the fireworks started.
The fireworks were by Gandalf: they were not only brought
by him, but designed and made by him; and the special
effects, set pieces, and flights of rockets were let off by
him. But there was also a generous distribution of squibs,
crackers, backarappers, sparklers, torches, dwarf-candles, elf-
fountains, goblin-barkers and thunder-claps. They were all
superb. The art of Gandalf improved with age.
There were rockets like a flight of scintillating birds singing
with sweet voices. There were green trees with trunks of dark
>The art of Gandalf improved with age.
>There were rockets like a flight of scintillating birds singing
>with sweet voices. There were green trees with trunks of dark