AN UNEXPECTED PARTY
In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort.
It had a perfectly round door like a porthole, painted green, with a shiny yellow brass knob in the exact middle. The door opened on to a tube-shaped hall like a tunnel: a very comfortable tunnel without smoke, with panelled walls, and floors tiled and carpeted, provided with polished chairs, and lots and lots of pegs for hats and coats—the hobbit was fond of visitors. The tunnel wound on and on, going fairly but not quite straight into the side of the hill—The Hill, as all the people for many miles round called it—and many little round doors opened out of it, first on one side and then on another. No going upstairs for the hobbit: bedrooms, bathrooms, cellars, pantries (lots of these), wardrobes (he had whole rooms devoted to clothes), kitchens, dining-rooms, all were on the same floor, and indeed on the same passage. The best rooms were all on the left-hand side (going in), for these were the only ones to have windows, deep-set round windows looking over his garden, and meadows beyond, sloping down to the river.
This hobbit was a very well-to-do hobbit, and his name was Baggins. The Bagginses had lived in the neighbourhood of The Hill for time out of mind, and people considered them very respectable, not only because most of them were rich, but also because they never had any adventures or did anything unexpected: you could tell what a Baggins would say on any question without the bother of asking him. This is a story of how a Baggins had an adventure, and found himself doing and saying things altogether unexpected. He may have lost the neighbours’ respect, but he gained—well, you will see whether he gained anything in the end.
The mother of our particular hobbit—what is a hobbit? I suppose hobbits need some description nowadays, since they have become rare and shy of the Big People, as they call us. They are (or were) a little people, about half our height, and smaller than the bearded dwarves. Hobbits have no beards. There is little or no magic about them, except the ordinary everyday sort which helps them to disappear quietly and quickly when large stupid folk like you and me come blundering along, making a noise like elephants which they can hear a mile off. They are inclined to be fat in the stomach; they dress in bright colours (chiefly green and yellow); wear no shoes, because their feet grow natural leathery soles and thick warm brown hair like the stuff on their heads (which is curly); have long clever brown fingers, good-natured faces, and laugh deep fruity laughs (especially after dinner, which they have twice a day when they can get it). Now you know enough to go on with. As I was saying, the mother of this hobbit—of Bilbo Baggins, that is—was the famous Belladonna Took, one of the three remarkable daughters of the Old Took, head of the hobbits who lived across The Water, the small river that ran at the foot of The Hill. It was often said (in other families) that long ago one of the Took ancestors must have taken a fairy wife. That was, of course, absurd, but certainly there was still something not entirely hobbitlike about them, and once in a while members of the Took-clan would go and have adventures. They discreetly disappeared, and the family hushed it up; but the fact remained that the Tooks were not as respectable as the Bagginses, though they were undoubtedly richer.
Not that Belladonna Took ever had any adventures after she became Mrs Bungo Baggins. Bungo, that was Bilbo’s father, built the most luxurious hobbit-hole for her (and partly with her money) that was to be found either under The Hill or over The Hill or across The Water, and there they remained to the end of their days. Still it is probable that Bilbo, her only son, although he looked and behaved exactly like a second edition of his solid and comfortable father, got something a bit queer in his make-up from the Took side, something that only waited for a chance to come out. The chance never arrived, until Bilbo Baggins was grown up, being about fifty years old or so, and living in the beautiful hobbit-hole built by his father, which I have just described for you, until he had in fact apparently settled down immovably.
By some curious chance one morning long ago in the quiet of the world, when there was less noise and more green, and the hobbits were still numerous and prosperous, and Bilbo Baggins was standing at his door after breakfast smoking an enormous long wooden pipe that reached nearly down to his woolly toes (neatly brushed)—Gandalf came by. Gandalf! If you had heard only a quarter of what I have heard about him, and I have only heard very little of all there is to hear, you would be prepared for any sort of remarkable tale. Tales and adventures sprouted up all over the place wherever he went, in the most extraordinary fashion. He had not been down that way under The Hill for ages and ages, not since his friend the Old Took died, in fact, and the hobbits had almost forgotten what he looked like. He had been away over The Hill and across The Water on businesses of his own since they were all small hobbit-boys and hobbit-girls.
All that the unsuspecting Bilbo saw that morning was an old man with a staff. He had a tall pointed blue hat, a long grey cloak, a silver scarf over which his long white beard hung down below his waist, and immense black boots.
“Good morning!” said Bilbo, and he meant it. The sun was shining, and the grass was very green. But Gandalf looked at him from under long bushy eyebrows that stuck out further than the brim of his shady hat.
“What do you mean?” he said. “Do you wish me a good morning, or mean that it is a good morning whether I want it or not; or that you feel good this morning; or that it is a morning to be good on?”
“All of them at once,” said Bilbo. “And a very fine morning for a pipe of tobacco out of doors, into the bargain. If you have a pipe about you, sit down and have a fill of mine! There’s no hurry, we have all the day before us!” Then Bilbo sat down on a seat by his door, crossed his legs, and blew out a beautiful grey ring of smoke that sailed up into the air without breaking and floated away over The Hill.
“Very pretty!” said Gandalf. “But I have no time to blow smoke-rings this morning. I am looking for someone to share in an adventure that I am arranging, and it’s very difficult to find anyone.”
“I should think so—in these parts! We are plain quiet folk and have no use for adventures. Nasty disturbing uncomfortable things! Make you late for dinner! I can’t think what anybody sees in them,” said our Mr Baggins, and stuck one thumb behind his braces, and blew out another even bigger smoke-ring. Then he took out his morning letters, and began to read, pretending to take no more notice of the old man. He had decided that he was not quite his sort, and wanted him to go away. But the old man did not move. He stood leaning on his stick and gazing at the hobbit without saying anything, till Bilbo got quite uncomfortable and even a little cross.
“Good morning!” he said at last. “We don’t want any adventures here, thank you! You might try over The Hill or across The Water.” By this he meant that the conversation was at an end.
“What a lot of things you do use Good morning for!” said Gandalf. “Now you mean that you want to get rid of me, and that it won’t be good till I move off.”
“Not at all, not at all, my dear sir! Let me see, I don’t think I know your name?”
“Yes, yes, my dear sir—and I do know your name, Mr Bilbo Baggins. And you do know my name, though you don’t remember that I belong to it. I am Gandalf, and Gandalf means me! To think that I should have lived to be good-morninged by Belladonna Took’s son, as if I was selling buttons at the door!”
“Gandalf, Gandalf! Good gracious me! Not the wandering wizard that gave Old Took a pair of magic diamond studs that fastened themselves and never came undone till ordered? Not the fellow who used to tell such wonderful tales at parties, about dragons and goblins and giants and the rescue of princesses and the unexpected luck of widows’ sons? Not the man that used to make such particularly excellent fireworks! I remember those! Old Took used to have them on Midsummer’s Eve. Splendid! They used to go up like great lilies and snapdragons and laburnums of fire and hang in the twilight all evening!” You will notice already that Mr Baggins was not quite so prosy as he liked to believe, also that he was very fond of flowers. “Dear me!” he went on. “Not the Gandalf who was responsible for so many quiet lads and lasses going off into the Blue for mad adventures? Anything from climbing trees to visiting elves—or sailing in ships, sailing to other shores! Bless me, life used to be quite inter—I mean, you used to upset things badly in these parts once upon a time. I beg your pardon, but I had no idea you were still in business.”
FAQs
Should you watch The Hobbit or Lord of the Rings first? ›
And a Chronological Order
Switch the two trilogies so all The Hobbit movies go first, and, if you wanted to include The Rings of Power, pop that on before anything else. Your viewing order would look like this: Lord of the Rings The Rings of Power (2022) The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012)
J.R.R Tolkien became famous for these Middle-Earth fantasy novels. The Hobbit is a stand-alone book, while Lord of the Rings was published as an epic trilogy. After studying languages, myth, and folktales in college and serving in WWI, Tolkien developed The Hobbit from bedtime stories he told his children.
Are The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings connected? ›Peter Jackson's The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey is a prequel to his Lord of the Rings trilogy, which most people rushing to The Hobbit will have already seen. In the new film there are many nods or foreshadowing to adventures or characters seen in LOTR, and connections to be made.
Is The Hobbit a prequel to LOTR? ›A prequel to The Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit Trilogy is set 60 years before Frodo embarks on his epic journey, and Peter Jackson's use of stunning New Zealand landscapes will make the tale all the more enchanting.
What is the correct way to watch The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings? ›- The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power (2022)
- The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012)
- The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug (2013)
- The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies (2014)
- The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)
The Lord of the Rings picks up 60 years later with Bilbo's birthday party in 3001, but then there's a time skip of 17 years between Bilbo leaving the Shire and Frodo beginning his quest, meaning the bulk of The Lord of the Rings is set in 3018, some 77 years after The Hobbit.
Is Gandalf in Rings of Power? ›On the official Rings of Power podcast, they reminded listeners that there are five known wizards in Tolkien's canon, including Gandalf, Saruman, Radagast, and the mysterious Blue Wizards, Alatar and Pallandro. "We know wizards can be good and bad," Payne said.
Does The Hobbit have Frodo? ›Frodo is the central character in J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings books (and in Jackson's Oscar-winning trilogy), but doesn't appear in Tolkien's first book, The Hobbit, set in Middle Earth.
What is the correct order of The Hobbit movies? ›The Hobbit is a series of three epic high fantasy adventure films directed by Peter Jackson. The films are subtitled An Unexpected Journey (2012), The Desolation of Smaug (2013), and The Battle of the Five Armies (2014).
Is Frodo Bilbo's son? ›Well, Bilbo and Frodo are actually cousins. To be specific, Frodo's mother Primula Brandybuck-Baggins was Bilbo's first cousin on his mother's side while Frodo's father Drogo Baggins was his second cousin on his father's side. This would make Frodo his first and second cousin, once removed on both sides.
How old was Aragorn during The Hobbit? ›
But things with Aragorn get a bit trickier, seeing as he's a Man, not an elf. Without getting into too many details (because, in Tolkien's world, there are details for the details), Aragorn was exactly 10 years old during the events of The Hobbit.
How old is Frodo in Lord of the Rings? ›Frodo was born in 1368. When he sets off from the Shire on his journey, he is 50 years old. Samwise Gamgee was born in 1380, making him 12 years younger than Frodo.
Why was The Hobbit not as good? ›Story points and scenes feel stretched.
It feels like too many sequences go on for too long, or take their sweet time. This problem is one you could see coming a mile away. With the Lord of the Rings (LOTR) movies, each Tolkien novel became one film. That's a lot of material to squeeze into a movie.
Frodo is a hobbit of the Shire who inherits the One Ring from his cousin Bilbo Baggins, described familiarly as "uncle", and undertakes the quest to destroy it in the fires of Mount Doom in Mordor. He is mentioned in Tolkien's posthumously published works, The Silmarillion and Unfinished Tales.
Is Gandalf the same in Hobbit? ›Ian McKellen has played Gandalf, the wise wizard in Peter Jackson's Tolkien films, since The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring began filming in 1999.
Is The Movie The Hobbit on Netflix? ›Watch all you want.
Is Rings of Power before The Hobbit? ›The Rings of Power takes place before what you've seen in The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, but not like 10 years back like you might see in lots of other prequel stories. The Rings of Power takes place thousands of years before the events of The Hobbit, during a period of time referred to as the Second Age.
Is The Hobbit or Lord of the Rings on Netflix? ›At long last, one of the greatest adaptations in modern cinema is headed to Netflix. Peter Jackson's epic The Lord Of The Rings trilogy is coming to the streaming service in February. The Fellowship Of The Ring, The Two Towers and The Return Of The King all land on Netflix on Wednesday, February 1st.
How long do humans live in Lord of the Rings? ›One for regular men close to 80 years, one for Nmenoreans and their descendants at about 200 years and finally one for the Nmenoreans of royal blood close to 400 years.
How old is Gandalf in The Hobbit? ›The closest approximation of Gandalf's physical age is 24,000 years old according to Gandalf himself. Yet various dates of key events in other Tolkien texts show that Gandalf has actually only walked in his physical form for just over two thousand years.
How old is Legolas in Lord of the Rings? ›
In the "official movie guide" for The Lord of the Rings, a birthdate for Legolas is set to 87 of the Third Age. This would make him 2931 years old at the time of the War of the Ring. This date for Legolas' birth was made up by the movie writers.
Who got the 3 Elven rings? ›The Inverse Analysis — In Tolkien's legendarium, the Three Elven Rings of Power are eventually given to Galadriel, Gil-galad (Benjamin Walker), and Círdan the Shipwright.
Will Frodo be in The Rings of Power? ›You'll find no Frodo, no Gandalf, and no Fellowship. You also won't find that most devilish piece of jewelry, the One Ring... at least, not yet. The Rings of Power doesn't re-adapt The Lord of the Rings.
Is Saruman A Elf? ›He was not actually a Man, or even an Elf (as Men often suspected), but a Maia clothed in flesh — an Istar (see Origins above). As such, he was immortal and extremely powerful, yet had limits on how far these powers could be used. His two most salient powers were his knowledge and his voice.
How old is Frodo when he dies? ›| Frodo Baggins | |
|---|---|
| Language | Westron and Sindarin |
| Birth | 22 September, T.A. 2968 |
| Sailed west | 29 September, T.A. 3021 (aged 53) Grey Havens |
| Notable for | Bearing the One Ring to the land of Mordor, and bringing it to the Cracks of Doom |
He had already celebrated his 131st birthday, becoming the oldest Hobbit in the history of Middle-earth. As a mortal, he died in the West. While sailing west, Bilbo composed a last poem looking back on Middle-earth in farewell.
What race is Frodo? ›Frodo Baggins, fictional character, a hobbit (one of a race of mythical beings who are characterized as small in stature, good-natured, and inordinately fond of creature comforts) and the hero of the three-part novel The Lord of the Rings (1954–55) by J.R.R. Tolkien.
Why are there 3 movies for The Hobbit? ›The difference in deciding to make third films was that for The Lord of the Rings, the studio had requested the expansion to a trilogy, whereas for The Hobbit, Peter Jackson had requested the expansion to a trilogy.
Should I watch Rings of Power before Lord of the Rings? ›Joking aside, no, it's clear that you don't need to have seen the Lord of the Rings movies (or read the books) to watch The Rings of Power.
What should I watch first in The Hobbit? ›- Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (2001) ...
- The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012) ...
- The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug (2013) ...
- The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies (2014) ...
- The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002)
Who did Frodo marry? ›
Frodo never married because he understood that he could not remain in Middle-earth. As he said to Sam at the Grey Havens, “I set out to save the Shire, and it has been saved, but not for me.
Do Bilbo and Frodo live forever? ›They cannot abide forever, and though they cannot return to mortal earth, they can and will 'die' – of free will and leave the world. What is this? “Frodo was sent or allowed to pass over Sea to heal him – if that could be done before he died.
Why did Frodo leave in the end? ›Why did Frodo leave for the Undying Lands at the end of the Lord of the Rings trilogy? Ultimately, it was the injuries that the ring-bearer Frodo (Elijah Wood) endured over the course of the films which pushed him to leave Middle-earth.
Is Legolas older than Gandalf? ›Gandalf's age is impossible to determine, but he's likely existed for at least 10,000 years, making him much older than Legolas.
Who is the oldest hobbit in Lord of the Rings? ›Gerontius Took reached the impressive age of 130, which made him the oldest Hobbit until his grandson Bilbo Baggins celebrated his 131st Birthday.
How old is Aragorn when he dies? ›Aragorn led the forces of the Reunited Kingdom on military campaigns against some Easterlings and Haradrim, re-establishing rule over much territory that Gondor had lost in previous centuries. He died at the age of 210, after 122 years as king.
Is Gimli the last dwarf? ›Myth: Gimli is the last dwarf.
Though Gimli has no children, he is not the last Dwarf of Middle-earth. After the fall of Sauron, his people continued to thrive in the Lonely Mountain. Gimli made his home in Rohan, in the Glittering Caves of Aglarond, and many of his kinsfolk came with him.
He calls Frodo 'Mr. Frodo' not merely for the sake of class distinction, but out of pure respect. He dares not leave Frodo's side in any event, not for fear of condemnation from his master, but because of his genuine love and dedication to him.
How long was Frodo's journey from start to finish? ›Over his entire journey from Bag End to Mt Doom, Frodo travels approximately 1,800 miles in 185 days. That's an eminently achievable average of 9.73 miles each day. However, he does spend a great deal of time recuperating in both Rivendell and Lorien — and that drags that average down.
How long were Bilbo and Frodo apart? ›Assuming Peter honored the dates established by the novels, there was a 17 year gap in Fellowship between Bilbo and Frodo leaving the Shire.
How many years before The Hobbit is the Rings of Power set? ›
The Rings of Power is set in the lesser-known period of Middle-earth's history: the Second Age, around a thousand years before the events of The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit.
How long did Bilbo's journey take? ›Bilbo joins Thorin's company in The Hobbit to journey to the Lonely Mountain and leaves the Shire on April 27, 2941. The adventure to the Lonely Mountain and the return journey to the Shire takes Bilbo 421 days (almost 14 months) as he arrives home on June 22, 2942.