![Baggins residence 'Bag End' with party sign](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f2/Baggins_residence_%27Bag_End%27_with_party_sign.jpg)
Bag End is the underground dwelling of the
Hobbit
Hobbits are a fictional race of people in the novels of J. R. R. Tolkien. About half average human height, Tolkien presented hobbits as a variety of humanity, or close relatives thereof. Occasionally known as halflings in Tolkien's writings, ...
s
Bilbo and
Frodo Baggins
Frodo Baggins is a fictional character in J. R. R. Tolkien's writings, and one of the protagonists in '' The Lord of the Rings''. Frodo is a hobbit of the Shire who inherits the One Ring from his cousin Bilbo Baggins, described familiarly ...
in
J. R. R. Tolkien
John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (, ; 3 January 1892 – 2 September 1973) was an English writer and philologist. He was the author of the high fantasy works ''The Hobbit'' and ''The Lord of the Rings''.
From 1925 to 1945, Tolkien was the Rawlins ...
's fantasy novels ''
The Hobbit
''The Hobbit, or There and Back Again'' is a children's fantasy novel by English author J. R. R. Tolkien. It was published in 1937 to wide critical acclaim, being nominated for the Carnegie Medal and awarded a prize from the ''N ...
'' and ''
The Lord of the Rings
''The Lord of the Rings'' is an epic high-fantasy novel by English author and scholar J. R. R. Tolkien. Set in Middle-earth, intended to be Earth at some time in the distant past, the story began as a sequel to Tolkien's 1937 children's b ...
''. From there, both Bilbo and Frodo set out on their adventures, and both return there, for a while. As such, Bag End represents the familiar, safe, comfortable place which is the antithesis of the dangerous places that they visit.
It forms one end of the main story arcs in the novels, and since the Hobbits return there, it also forms an end point in
the story circle in each case.
[
Tolkien described himself as a Hobbit in all but size. Scholars have noted that Bag End is a vision of Tolkien's ideal home, and in its detail an account of character.] Peter Jackson built an elaborate Hobbiton film set including a detailed Bag End built in New Zealand for his ''The Lord of the Rings'' film series.
Description
J. R. R. Tolkien
''The Hobbit
''The Hobbit, or There and Back Again'' is a children's fantasy novel by English author J. R. R. Tolkien. It was published in 1937 to wide critical acclaim, being nominated for the Carnegie Medal and awarded a prize from the ''N ...
'' begins with "among the most famous first lines in literature":
The protagonists of ''The Hobbit'' and ''The Lord of the Rings
''The Lord of the Rings'' is an epic high-fantasy novel by English author and scholar J. R. R. Tolkien. Set in Middle-earth, intended to be Earth at some time in the distant past, the story began as a sequel to Tolkien's 1937 children's b ...
'', Bilbo and Frodo Baggins
Frodo Baggins is a fictional character in J. R. R. Tolkien's writings, and one of the protagonists in '' The Lord of the Rings''. Frodo is a hobbit of the Shire who inherits the One Ring from his cousin Bilbo Baggins, described familiarly ...
, lived at Bag End, a luxurious ''smial'' or Hobbit-burrow, dug into The Hill on the north side of the town of Hobbiton in the Shire
The Shire is a region of J. R. R. Tolkien's fictional Middle-earth, described in ''The Lord of the Rings'' and other works. The Shire is an inland area settled exclusively by hobbits, the Shire-folk, largely sheltered from the goings-on in th ...
's Westfarthing. Tolkien made drawings of Bag End and Hobbiton. His watercolour
Watercolor (American English) or watercolour (British English; see spelling differences), also ''aquarelle'' (; from Italian diminutive of Latin ''aqua'' "water"), is a painting method”Watercolor may be as old as art itself, going back to t ...
''The Hill: Hobbiton-across-the Water'' shows the exterior and the surrounding countryside. Tolkien made several pencil and ink sketches for these subjects, only gradually settling on Bag End's final location and architecture.
Another of Tolkien's drawings, ''The Hall at Bag-End, Residence of B. Baggins Esquire'', depicts the interior, complete with 20th century fittings such as a wall clock
A clock or a timepiece is a device used to measure and indicate time. The clock is one of the oldest human inventions, meeting the need to measure intervals of time shorter than the natural units such as the day, the lunar month and the ...
and barometer
A barometer is a scientific instrument that is used to measure air pressure in a certain environment. Pressure tendency can forecast short term changes in the weather. Many measurements of air pressure are used within surface weather analysis ...
. Another clock is mentioned in chapter 2 of ''The Hobbit'', where the Wizard Gandalf
Gandalf is a protagonist in J. R. R. Tolkien's novels '' The Hobbit'' and ''The Lord of the Rings''. He is a wizard, one of the ''Istari'' order, and the leader of the Fellowship of the Ring. Tolkien took the name "Gandalf" from the Old Nor ...
tells Bilbo about a message from the Dwarf
Dwarf or dwarves may refer to:
Common uses
*Dwarf (folklore), a being from Germanic mythology and folklore
* Dwarf, a person or animal with dwarfism
Arts, entertainment, and media Fictional entities
* Dwarf (''Dungeons & Dragons''), a humanoid ...
Thorin Oakenshield
Thorin Oakenshield (Thorin II) is a fictional character in J. R. R. Tolkien's 1937 novel '' The Hobbit''. Thorin is the leader of the Company of Dwarves who aim to reclaim the Lonely Mountain from Smaug the dragon. He is the son of Thráin I ...
: "If you had dusted the mantelpiece you would have found this just under the clock,' said Gandalf, handing Bilbo a note (written, of course, on his own note-paper)." The barometer is mentioned in Tolkien's drafts of ''The Hobbit''.
Peter Jackson
Peter Jackson had an elaborate Hobbiton film set built on the Alexander sheep farm at Matamata
Matamata () is a town in Waikato, New Zealand. It is located near the base of the Kaimai Ranges, and is a thriving farming area known for Thoroughbred horse breeding and training pursuits. It is part of the Matamata-Piako District, which tak ...
in New Zealand for his ''The Lord of the Rings'' film series. It included a water-mill, the Green Dragon Inn, and several Hobbit-holes as well as Bag End in a small hill, with garden. Jackson said of the set, "It felt as if you could open the circular green door of Bag End and find Bilbo Baggins inside."
Chad Chisholm and colleagues, reviewing Jackson's 2012 film '' The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey'' for '' Mallorn'', write that Jackson humorously has the "rough and ready" Dwarves "bursting into Bilbo's neat little home and cleaning out his pantry", providing "a sort of constant comic relief to the dangers in the dark".
Analysis
Real-world origins
The scholar of literature and film Steven Woodward and the architectural historian Kostis Kourelis suggest that Tolkien may have based his Hobbit-holes on Iceland's turf houses, such as those at Keldur.
Character from architecture
Tolkien stated "I am in fact a Hobbit", and scholars agree that he was in many ways like his Hobbits, enjoying good food, gardening, smoking a pipe, and living in a familiar and comfortable home. "Bag End" was the real name of the Worcestershire
Worcestershire ( , ; written abbreviation: Worcs) is a county in the West Midlands of England. The area that is now Worcestershire was absorbed into the unified Kingdom of England in 927, at which time it was constituted as a county (see H ...
home of Tolkien's aunt Jane Neave in the village of Dormston.[ Andrew Morton wrot]
an account of his findings
for the Tolkien Library. Tolkien makes Bag End a place where, in the Tolkien scholar Thomas Honegger's words, "most readers feel severely tempted to put on their imaginary slippers and settle down to a piece of cake and some tea." Honegger argues that places have a critical role in ''The Lord of the Rings'', and the function of the safe Hobbit-hole is to establish the character of the "''hol-bytlan'' (hole-dwellers), in the first place stationary beings who have a deep-rooted aversion against travelling outside the Shire." For them, Honegger writes, "Travelling abroad belongs to the same class as adventures", quoting Bilbo's remark in ''The Hobbit'': "Nasty disturbing uncomfortable things! Make you late for dinner!"
Joseph Wright Joseph Wright may refer to:
*Joseph Wright of Derby (1734–1797), English painter
*Joseph Wright (American painter) (1756–1793), American portraitist
*Joseph Wright (fl. 1837/1845), whose company, Messrs. Joseph Wright and Sons, became the Metro ...
's 1898-1905 ''English Dialect Dictionary
English usually refers to:
* English language
* English people
English may also refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England
** English national ide ...
'' has an entry for ''hobman'', one of many possible sources of the word ''hobbit'', which states that "Each elf-man or hobman had his habitation, to which he gave his name". The Tolkien scholar Michael Livingston comments that from this it is easy "to recall the man-like, elf-friend, hole-dwelling hobbit Mr. Baggins of Bag-End, hired by the not-too-dissimilar dwarves to commit thievery".
The scholar of literature Johanna Brooke writes in the ''Journal of Tolkien Research
The works of J. R. R. Tolkien have generated a body of research covering many aspects of his fantasy writings. These encompass ''The Lord of the Rings'' and ''The Silmarillion'', along with his legendarium that remained unpublished until after ...
'' that the character of Bilbo Baggins can be inferred from the architecture
Architecture is the art and technique of designing and building, as distinguished from the skills associated with construction. It is both the process and the product of sketching, conceiving, planning, designing, and constructing building ...
of Bag End, just as that of Hobbits in general can be deduced from their preference for living in holes. She suggests that Bag End is an Arts and Crafts building, fitting into the ideas of the designer William Morris
William Morris (24 March 1834 – 3 October 1896) was a British textile designer, poet, artist, novelist, architectural conservationist, printer, translator and socialist activist associated with the British Arts and Crafts Movement. He ...
and others in the period between 1880 and 1920. Features such as Bag End's panelled walls, tiles, and carpet could all, Brooke writes, have been manufactured by Morris & Co., while the prosperous Hobbit-hole clearly indicates that Bilbo is middle-class. Its position at the top of The Hill "demonstrates a physical and social elevation above other hole-owners", since as Tolkien wrote in the Prologue to ''The Lord of the Rings'', "suitable sites for these large and ramifying tunnels...were not everywhere to be found".
Brooke notes Tolkien's statement that "only the richest and poorest" in fact were able to continue the traditional Hobbit-practice of living in holes: the poor might have, as Tolkien said, "burrows of the most primitive kind... with only one window or none". Bag End is sharply contrasted with such a burrow, its best rooms being provided with "deep-set round windows". Brooke comments that Tolkien has shown this in ''The Hill: Hobbiton-across-the-Water'', where Bag End has several windows while the Hobbit-holes further down (of Bagshot Row) have fewer. Other signifiers of wealth and class include such Victorian era comforts as a dining-room, multiple pantries, and wardrobes. Such things could indicate, Brooke writes, that Bag End's owner is "indulgent, overly-luxurious, too comfortable, a tad vain even", though against this, the hanging-space for many hats and coats suggests that welcoming guests is important to him. Brooke quotes Morris's remark that "the working man cannot afford to live in anything that an architect could design; moderate-sized rabbit-warrens refor rich middle-class men", stating that with its mention of rabbit warrens, this "aptly suits Bag End".
The cartographer Karen Wynn Fonstad
Karen Lea Wynn Fonstad (April 18, 1945 – March 11, 2005) was an American cartographer and academic who designed several atlases of fictional worlds, including her 1981 ''The Atlas of Middle-earth'' about J. R. R. Tolkien's creations.
Early li ...
created a plan of Bag End, showing her vision of its comfortable layout with many cellars and pantries, complete with multiple fireplaces and chimneys, based on the clues given by Tolkien in ''The Hobbit'' and ''The Lord of the Rings''. Her plan makes Bag End some long and up to wide, cut into the Hill. Honegger writes that Fonstad's work has substantially contributed to giving Middle-earth
Middle-earth is the fictional setting of much of the English writer J. R. R. Tolkien's fantasy. The term is equivalent to the '' Miðgarðr'' of Norse mythology and ''Middangeard'' in Old English works, including ''Beowulf''. Middle-earth is ...
an "independent existence".
Only one outlet
The Tolkien scholar Tom Shippey
Thomas Alan Shippey (born 9 September 1943) is a British medievalist, a retired scholar of Middle and Old English literature as well as of modern fantasy and science fiction. He is considered one of the world's leading academic experts on the ...
writes that the name Bag End is a direct translation of the French '' cul-de-sac'' ("bottom of bag"), something that he calls "a silly phrase... a piece of "French-oriented snobbery", used in England to mean a dead end, a road with only one outlet; he notes that the French say ''impasse'' for the same thing. The journeys of Bilbo and Frodo have been interpreted as just such confined roads, as they both start and end in Bag End. According to Don D. Elgin, Tolkien's '' A Walking Song'', which appears repeatedly in differing forms in ''The Lord of the Rings'' as the quest progresses, is "a song about the roads that go ever on until they return to at last to the familiar things they have always known."[ Citing: ]
The most desirable residence
The journalist Matthew Dennison compares Lobelia Sackville-Baggins
The roles of women in ''The Lord of the Rings'' have often been assessed as insignificant, or important only in relation to male characters in a story about men for boys. Meanwhile, other commentators have noted the empowerment of the three ma ...
's desire to move into Bag End to the similarly-named aristocrat Vita Sackville-West
Victoria Mary, Lady Nicolson, CH (née Sackville-West; 9 March 1892 – 2 June 1962), usually known as Vita Sackville-West, was an English author and garden designer.
Sackville-West was a successful novelist, poet and journalist, as wel ...
's passionate attachment to her family home, Knole House
Knole () is a country house and former archbishop's palace owned by the National Trust. It is situated within Knole Park, a park located immediately to the south-east of Sevenoaks in west Kent. The house ranks in the top five of England's larg ...
, which she was unable to inherit. Shippey argues that the Bagginses and the Sackville-Bagginses are "connected opposites", since the opposite of a bourgeois is a burglar
Burglary, also called breaking and entering and sometimes housebreaking, is the act of entering a building or other areas without permission, with the intention of committing a criminal offence. Usually that offence is theft, robbery or murd ...
, a person who breaks into bourgeois houses, and in ''The Hobbit'' Bilbo is asked to become a burglar, to break into the lair of Smaug the dragon. He observes that the name Sackville-Baggins, for the snobbish branch of the Baggins family, is a philological
Philology () is the study of language in oral and written historical sources; it is the intersection of textual criticism, literary criticism, history, and linguistics (with especially strong ties to etymology). Philology is also defined as t ...
joke, as ''Sac ville'' can be translated as the French form of the humble "Bag Town", another attempt to reinforce the family's bourgeois status by "Frenchify ng their surname.
Contrasts with faraway places
The historian Joseph Loconte wrote that Tolkien had set up a contrast between Frodo's light and serene Bag End and the corrupted wizard Saruman's dark and industrially destructive Isengard
In J. R. R. Tolkien's fantasy writings, Isengard () is a large fortress in Nan Curunír, the Wizard's Vale, in the western part of Middle-earth. In the fantasy world, the name of the fortress is described as a translation of Angrenost, a word ...
. Loconte likens this to the contrast in Tolkien's fellow- Inkling C. S. Lewis
Clive Staples Lewis (29 November 1898 – 22 November 1963) was a British writer and Anglican lay theologian. He held academic positions in English literature at both Oxford University (Magdalen College, 1925–1954) and Cambridge Univers ...
's 1950 children's book ''The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
''The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe'' is a fantasy novel for children by C. S. Lewis, published by Geoffrey Bles in 1950. It is the first published and best known of seven novels in ''The Chronicles of Narnia'' (1950–1956). Among all the ...
'' between the delightful but humble home of Mr. and Mrs. Beaver, and the icy opulence of the palace of the White Witch
Jadis is the main antagonist of ''The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe'' (1950) and ''The Magician's Nephew'' (1955) in C. S. Lewis's series, ''The Chronicles of Narnia''. She is commonly referred to as the White Witch in ''The Lion, the Witch and ...
. In Loconte's view, both authors "reintroduce into the popular imagination a Christian vision of hope in a world tortured by doubt and disillusionment".
Honegger points up a quite different contrast, between Bag End as depicted in Tolkien's drawing ''The Hall at Bag End'', "the homely yet narrowly limited space of a hobbit-hole with the similarly neat and defined landscape of the Shire in the background," with his ''The Forest of Lothlórien in Spring'', which shows "no particular place, but an airy glade in a forest filled with sunlight, evoking a feeling of sheltered openness." If the Shire is a "secluded ndremote '' petit bourgeois'' idyll", then, Honegger suggests, Lothlórien
In J. R. R. Tolkien's legendarium, Lothlórien or Lórien is the fairest realm of the Elves remaining in Middle-earth during the Third Age. It is ruled by Galadriel and Celeborn from their city of tree-houses at Caras Galadhon. The wood-elves ...
is a "transcendental ridealised idyll". Further, the comfortable Hobbit-holes of the Shire stand in contrast to the untamed nature of the Old Forest
In J. R. R. Tolkien’s fictional universe of Middle-earth, the Old Forest was a daunting and ancient woodland just beyond the eastern borders of the Shire. Its first and main appearance in print was in ''The Fellowship of the Ring'', especia ...
, the idyllic Rivendell
Rivendell ('' sjn, Imladris'') is a valley in J. R. R. Tolkien's fictional world of Middle-earth, representing both a homely place of sanctuary and a magical Elvish otherworld. It is an important location in '' The Hobbit'' and '' The Lord of ...
, and even to what had been the "promised land" of the Dwarves, Moria. The same applies, Honegger argues, to time: where Bag End and the Shire are in the present, the Old Forest, Rivendell, and Lothlórien represent journeys back into the past.
Strangeness
Bag End receives strange visitors – Gandalf and the Dwarves, making it seem a "queer place", in the character Ted Sandyman's words, "and its folk are queerer". Bilbo and Frodo come to be seen as strange also. Bilbo is "very rich and very peculiar", not least because he seems not to grow old, but also because he went on a journey outside the Shire, and returned changed. David LaFontaine writes in '' The Gay and Lesbian Review Worldwide'' that Bilbo is a "confirmed bachelor" who is never "linked romantically" with any woman, and who lives alone in the "luxurious, lovely environment", Bag End, "illustrating the hobbit's artistic sensibility". LaFontaine comments that Tolkien admires Bilbo's "unconventional lifestyle ... almost to the point of envy." To LaFontaine, Tolkien's account of Bilbo's "queerness" is to be interpreted as a portrait of a homosexual man.
Parody
The 1969 parody novel ''Bored of the Rings
''Bored of the Rings'' is a 1969 parody of J. R. R. Tolkien's ''The Lord of the Rings''. This short novel was written by Henry Beard and Douglas Kenney, who later founded '' National Lampoon''. It was published in 1969 by Signet for the ''Har ...
'', written by the '' National Lampoon'' founders Henry Beard
Henry Nichols Beard (born June 7, 1945) is an American humorist, one of the founders of the magazine ''National Lampoon (magazine), National Lampoon'' and the author of several best-selling books.
Life and career
Beard, a great-grandson of 14t ...
and Douglas Kenney
Douglas Clark Francis Kenney (December 10, 1946 – August 27, 1980) was an American comedy writer of magazine, novels, radio, TV and film who co-founded the magazine ''National Lampoon'' in 1970. Kenney edited the magazine and wrote much of its ...
, mocks Frodo's homecoming from his dangerous quest to Bag End with the words "he walked directly to his cozy fire and slumped in the chair. He began to muse upon the years of delicious boredom that lay ahead. Perhaps he would take up Scrabble
''Scrabble'' is a word game in which two to four players score points by placing tiles, each bearing a single letter, onto a game board divided into a 15×15 grid of squares. The tiles must form words that, in crossword fashion, read left t ...
".[
]
References
Sources
*
{{Middle-earth
Fictional houses
Shire (Middle-earth)