Small wonder that trouble came of it, I say. They fool about with boats on that big river - and that isn’t natural. ‘Not that the Brandybucks of Buckland live in the Old Forest but they’re a queer breed, seemingly. That’s a dark bad place, if half the tales be true.’ ‘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. It beats me why any Baggins of Hobbiton should go looking for a wife away there in Buckland, where folks are so queer.’ ‘Baggins is his name, but he’s more than half a Brandybuck, they say. ‘But what about this Frodo that lives with him?’ asked Old Noakes of Bywater. 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 neighbourhood (including himself). Bilbo, as I’ve always said,’ the Gaffer declared. ‘A very nice well-spoken gentlehobbit is Mr. They lived on the Hill itself, in Number 3 Bagshot Row just below Bag End. Both father and son were on very friendly terms with Bilbo and Frodo. Now that he was himself growing old and stiff in the joints, the job was mainly carried on by his youngest son, Sam Gamgee. 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. No one had a more attentive audience than old Ham Gamgee, commonly known as the Gaffer. Bilbo Baggins became once again the chief topic of conversation and the older folk suddenly found their reminiscences in welcome demand. Tongues began to wag in Hobbiton and Bywater and rumour of the coming event travelled all over the Shire. Bilbo was going to be eleventy-one, 111, a rather curious number, and a very respectable 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’. 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. ‘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. Bilbo and Frodo happened to have the same birthday, September 22nd. 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. The eldest of these, and Bilbo’s favourite, was young Frodo Baggins. But he had no close friends, until some of his younger cousins began to grow up. 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. Baggins was generous with his money, most people were willing to forgive him his oddities and his good fortune. ‘It isn’t natural, and trouble will come of it!’īut so far trouble had not come and as Mr. ‘It will have to be paid for,’ they said. 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. At ninety-nine they began to call him well-preserved but unchanged would have been nearer the mark. At ninety he was much the same as at fifty. Time wore on, but it seemed to have little effect on Mr. And if that was not enough for fame, there was also his prolonged vigour to marvel at.
The lord of rings online grey mountains full#
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. 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.īilbo 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.