Name: The Fellowship of the Ring |Book1||Chapter 1| [A long expected party]
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The Lord of the Rings [Music] by J.R.R Tolkien

Book one The Fellowship of the Ring Chapter one A Long Expected Party

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 forgive  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  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'. 

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 youngest 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 neighbourhood (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 Brandybucks 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  

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 it again. 

'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 trampling 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  

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The Fellowship of the Ring |Book1||Chapter 1| [A long expected party]

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