Bilbo Baggins

Bilbo Baggins was the main character in The Hobbit, and along with his kinsman Frodo Baggins, was one of the two most famous hobbits of J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth world. Of all the creatures that ever wielded the One Ring, he was the first ever to give it up voluntarily.

Biography

Bilbo was a Hobbit from the Shire. He was born in T.A. 2890 as the only child of Bungo Baggins and Belladonna Took. Bilbo lived in the smial Bag End, which had been built by his father, in the village Hobbiton in the Shire.

Through much of the beginning of his life, he lived a quiet life. Indeed, Tolkien initially portrays him as timid and businesslike, but he draws upon deep resources of courage and fortune to emerge a splendid hero.

In the year T.A. 2941, as told in The Hobbit, Bilbo went on an adventure with a group of thirteen dwarves and the wizard Gandalf to the Lonely Mountain. During the adventure, Bilbo found a magic ring that made its wearer invisible, which proved very helpful in his further adventures. He also received the sword Sting and a mail-shirt. After his adventure, Bilbo returned to the Shire, and lived an uneventful life for the next decades, writing down his adventures which he considered calling There and Back Again. Bilbo never married, but adopted his relative Frodo Baggins as his heir, who came to live with him at Bag End.

At the beginning of The Lord of the Rings, Bilbo celebrated his 111th birthday in T.A. 3001, after which he left the Shire to travel once more. He left his home Bag End and the One Ring to Frodo. With him he took his sword Sting and his mithril-shirt, both of which he later gave to Frodo before the Fellowship set out from Rivendell. At the end of the Third Age, aged 131, Bilbo left with Frodo and the Elven Ring-bearers for the Undying Lands.

Trivia

• Bilbo's adventures were also recounted in the song "The Ballad of Bilbo Baggins", by Star Trek actor Leonard Nimoy.