Bilbo Baggins

Bilbo Baggins is the protagonist and titular character of The Hobbit and a supporting character in The Lord of the Rings, two of the most well-known of J. R. R. Tolkien's fantasy writings.

In Tolkien's narrative conceit, in which all the writings of Middle-earth are translations from the fictitious volume of The Red Book of Westmarch, Bilbo is the author of The Hobbit and translator of various "works from the elvish", as mentioned in the end of The Return Of The King.

Appearances

The Hobbit

The Hobbit relates how Bilbo Baggins, in comfortable middle age at 50 years old, is hired in spite of himself as a "burglar" by the wizard Gandalf and 12 dwarves led by their king Thorin Oakenshield on a quest to reclaim the Lonely Mountain and its treasure from the dragon Smaug. The adventure takes Bilbo and the companions through the wilderness, to the elf haven of Rivendell, across the Misty Mountains and the black forest of Mirkwood, to Lake-town in the middle of Long Lake, and eventually to the Mountain itself. Here, after the dragon is killed and the Mountain reclaimed, the Battle of Five Armies takes place.

In his journey, Bilbo encounters other fantastic creatures, including trolls, elves, giant spiders, a man who can change shape into a bear, goblins, eagles, wolves and a slimy, murderous creature named Gollum. Underground, near Gollum's lair, Bilbo accidentally finds a magic ring of invisibility, which he uses to escape from Gollum.

While Bilbo initially comes across as a timid, easily-flustered bumbler, he grows wiser and more confident as the story progresses. In many gruesome situations, he is the one who saves the day. He rescues the dwarves from giant spiders with the magic ring and a short Elven-sword he acquired. He uses the ring to sneak around in hostile environments, as well as his wits to smuggle the dwarves out of the elves' prisons. He is able to hold his will in conversation with the wily Smaug. When tensions arise over ownership of the recovered treasure, he tries unsuccessfully to bring the opposing sides to compromise, using a stolen heirloom jewel as a leverage. This strains his relationship with Thorin, but the two are reconciled at Thorin's deathbed. At the end of the tale, Bilbo has become very wealthy due to his share of the dwarves' treasure; he also finds that he has traded respectability for experience and wisdom.

The Lord of the Rings

The Fellowship of the Ring, the first volume of The Lord of the Rings, begins with Bilbo's "eleventy-first" (111th) birthday (on 22 September), 60 years after the beginning of The Hobbit. The main protagonist of the novel is Frodo Baggins, Bilbo's kinsman.

In T.A. 2989 (S.R. 1389), Bilbo, a lifelong bachelor, adopted Frodo, the orphaned son of his first cousin Primula Brandybuck and his second cousin Drogo Baggins, and made him his heir. Though Frodo was actually "his first and second cousin once removed either way",^[1] the two regarded each other as uncle and nephew.

All this time Bilbo had kept his magic ring, with no idea of its significance, using it mostly to hide from his obnoxious cousins, the Sackville-Bagginses, when they came to visit. Gandalf's investigations revealed it to be the One Ring forged by the Dark Lord Sauron. The Ring had prolonged Bilbo's life beyond the normal hobbit span, and at 111 he still looked 50. While the Ring did not initially corrupt him as it had its previous owners, it was beginning to affect him; over the years, it had begun to prey on his mind when out of his sight, and he lost sleep and felt "stretched out and thin",^[2] as he said to Gandalf.

On the night of his 111th birthday party, Bilbo announces his intent to turn his home and estate over to Frodo, puts on the Ring and vanishes from sight. As Bilbo prepares finally to leave the house, he reacts with panic and suspicion when Gandalf tries to persuade him to leave the Ring with Frodo. Bilbo refuses to give up the Ring, referring to it as his "precious" – just as Gollum had in The Hobbit. Gandalf loses his temper with his old friend, talking some sense into him. Bilbo admits he would like to be rid of the Ring, and he leaves it behind, becoming the first person to do so voluntarily. He leaves the Shire that night, and is never seen in Hobbiton again.

His earlier adventure, his eccentric habits as a hobbit, and his sudden disappearance lead to the enduring figure of "Mad Baggins" in hobbit folklore, who disappears with a flash and a bang and returns with gold and jewels.

Freed of the Ring's power over his senses, Bilbo traveled to Rivendell, where for the next 17 years he lived a pleasant life of retirement: eating, sleeping, writing poetry, and working on his memoirs, There and Back Again, known to us as The Hobbit. He became a scholar of Elven lore, leaving behind the Translations from the Elvish, which forms the basis of what is known to us as The Silmarillion.

When Frodo and the other Hobbits stopped in Rivendell on their quest to destroy the Ring, Bilbo was still alive but now visibly aged, the years having caught up with him after he surrendered the Ring. Upon seeing the Ring again, he suddenly tried to take it from Frodo; he returned to his senses when a terrified Frodo backed away, and he broke down in tears, apologizing for bringing the burden of the Ring onto Frodo.

When the quest to destroy the Ring was fulfilled in The Return of the King, Bilbo accompanied Gandalf, Elrond, Galadriel, and Frodo to the Grey Havens, there to take ship for Tol Eressëa across the sea, on 29 September, T.A. 3021. He had already celebrated his 131st birthday by this time, surpassing the Old Took by one year and becoming the oldest living Hobbit ever in Middle-earth.

The Appendices

According to the Appendices of The Return of the King, Bilbo was born to Bungo Baggins and Belladonna Took on 22 September, T.A. 2890, or S.R. 1290. The Bagginses of Bag End were one of the oldest, wealthiest, and most respectable hobbit families in Hobbiton until the year 2941 (SR 1341), when Bilbo inexplicably disappeared on his adventure and was thought dead.

Poems/Songs written by Bilbo

• "A Walking Song"
• "All that is gold does not glitter"
• "The Man in the Moon Stayed Up Too Late"
• "The Road Goes Ever On"

Bilbo's Last Song

Tolkien's posthumously published poem "Bilbo's Last Song", illustrated by Pauline Baynes, describes Bilbo's contemplation of his forthcoming voyage to the Undying Lands. The illustrations evoke his last ride in the company of Elrond from Rivendell to the Grey Havens, as described in The Lord of the Rings.

Portrayals in adaptations

In the 1968 BBC Radio serialization of The Hobbit, Bilbo was played by Paul Daneman.

Nicol Williamson portrayed Bilbo with a light West Country accent in the 1974 performance released on Argo Records.^[3]

In the 1977 Rankin/Bass animated version of The Hobbit, Bilbo was voiced by Orson Bean. Bean also voiced both the aged Bilbo and Frodo in the same company's 1980 adaptation of The Return of the King.

In Ralph Bakshi's 1978 animated version of The Lord of the Rings, Bilbo was voiced by Norman Bird. Billy Barty was the model for Bilbo, as well as Frodo and Sam, in the live-action recordings Bakshi used for rotoscoping.

In the BBC's 1981 radio serialization of The Lord of the Rings, Bilbo is played by John Le Mesurier.

In Peter Jackson's films The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001) and The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003) Bilbo is played by Ian Holm, who had played Frodo in the BBC radio series 20 years earlier. For the upcoming film The Hobbit, also directed by Jackson, Bilbo will be portrayed by Martin Freeman.^[4]

Family tree

See also

• The Quest of Erebor

References

External links

• Bilbo Baggins at the Tolkien Gateway

• Bilbo Baggins at the Internet Movie Database
• For an alternate, fuller, version of Bilbo's family tree see Rodovid Engine.
• A brief character study of Bilbo Baggins