How old was Bilbo in the Hobbit?

[esrbl]

In this thread https://thetolkien.forum/threads/how-old-is-bilbo-in-the-lord-of-the-rings.7159/, it only discussed the timeline for the Lord of the Rings. I wanna know how old was Bilbo in the Hobbit?

 

[Deleted member 12094]

The answer can easily be found in Appendix B ("The Tale of Years") in LotR:

2890 Bilbo born in the Shire.
2941 Thorin Oakenshield and Gandalf visit Bilbo in the Shire.

... so that makes him 51 when his journey to the Lonely Mountain started.

 

[Olorgando]

*Nitpick alert* 😜

For Bilbo and Frodo we have, a rarity in the world of Middle-earth, the actual birthday date: 22 September, for both.
Bilbo and the Dwarves start off from Hobbiton "one fine morning just before May" in 2941 TA, so over four months before Bilbo's 51st birthday.

 

[Elthir]

Tree and her mother were born on the same date, in the film Happy Death Day.

Just sayin.

 

[Olorgando]

Wikipedia on the film:

"Happy Death Day is a 2017 American black comedy slasher film … [described by some critics] as "Groundhog Day meets Scream"."
Not quite in the High Fantasy genre, by the description (but maybe JRRT's description of the Nazgûl gave some horror film writers / directors / producers ideas? This could be juicy stuff for an outlandish conspiracy theory! 🤪 )

 

[Deleted member 12094]

Another way of realizing Bilbo's age at the time of the events of TH is in the very first lines of LotR:

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.​

 

[Olorgando]

… 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.​

A somewhat imprecise statement, in keeping with the "New Hobbit" feel of the beginning of "Fellowship".
Bilbo had left in late April 2941 TA (1341 SR), as I mentioned above. Almost near the end of TH, when Bilbo and Gandalf had reclaimed the hidden trolls' gold, there is this:

"So they put the gold in bags and slung them on the ponies, who were not at all pleased about it. After that their going was slower, for most of the time they walked. ... for now June had brought summer (2942 TA / 1342 SR), and the weather was bright and hot again."

Going by Barbara Strachey's "Journeys of Frodo", it took Strider and the four Hobbits from 30 September to 18 October to get from Bree to the trolls' abode. But they were avoiding the road and going through rough country (including the Midgewater Marshes) north of the road up to Weathertop, then south of it to the Last Bridge over the River Hoarwell (Mitheithel), then north of it again until the trolls' cave, and the meeting with Glorfindel after returning to the road shortly after. On the other hand Strider was in a hurry, and often drove the Hobbits to exhaustion, while Bilbo and Gandalf were certainly taking it easy. Bree to the trolls' cave seems to be 240 miles in a straight line, quite a bit more along the road with its northward and southward swings from the straight line. So say at least 14 days of 20 miles a day, perhaps more. Bree to Hobbiton is pretty much on a straight line, and another 80 miles. So another 4 days, or 18 days, maybe three weeks for Bilbo to reach Hobbiton from the trolls' cave.

Here is a point that experts in the Shire Calendar could help clarify. If I take "June had brought summer" as it is nowadays, at least for Astronomers, and marked in calendars (but not for meteorologists), summer would start on June 20 this year 2020. That would mean Bilbo arrived back in Hobbiton just after the first third of July, meaning he had been absent for over 14 months. Even by the meteorologists' definition it would have been the last third of June, almost 14 months.

How much of a "wonder of the Shire" Bilbo was at his disappearance in late April is debatable. His gardener at this time must have been Holman Greenhand, to whom Hamfast Gamgee the Gaffer, Sam's father, was apprenticed later (the future Gaffer was only 15 when Bilbo went on his adventure). His return with all sorts of riches (and utterly unbelievable stories - omitting the "small detail" of the (not Yet One) ring, almost certainly) was what made him "the wonder of the Shire" - beginning about 59 years before the Long-Expected Party. And it did not get better by the fact that he never got married, very unusual for a Hobbit, especially one well off. But the "loss of respectability" that he suffered as a result of his adventure may very well have scared off all potentially interested Hobbit ladies, even of the more adventurous Took and Brandybuck clans, to which he "belonged" to a quarter each through his mother and maternal grandmother, anyway.

 

[grendel]

Maybe I'm missing something... it says quite clearly in "The Shadow of the Past":

"So it went on, until his [Frodo's] forties were running out, and his fiftieth birthday was drawing near: fifty was a number that he felt was somehow significant (or ominous); it was at any rate at that age that adventure had suddenly befallen Bilbo."

I've always assumed that he was 50 when they set out for Eriador; and his birthday fell in fact when they escaped to Esgaroth ("Thag you very buch" etc.). That's when he would have turned 51.

 

[Deleted member 12094]

You are right, Grendel.

Bilbo himself said this at his farewell party:

It is also, if I may be allowed to refer to ancient history, the anniversary of my arrival by barrel at Esgaroth on the Long Lake; though the fact that it was my birthday slipped my memory on that occasion. I was only fifty-one then, and birthdays did not seem so important. The banquet was very splendid, however, though I had a bad cold at the time, I remember, and could only say ‘thag you very buch’.​

If we put the dots on the i's: he was 50, turning 51 that year...!

 

[Olorgando]

...
I've always assumed that he was 50 when they set out for Eriador; and his birthday fell in fact when they escaped to Esgaroth ("Thag you very buch" etc.). That's when he would have turned 51.

It seems I need to do something about my posts - like (occasionally) seriously shortening them (a seriously difficult proposition considering my nearly irrepressible hobby of flying off on tangents, and tangents of tangents etc.). But I can (I hope) plead the case that JRRT wrote more versions of "A Long-expected Party" than of any other chapter of any other of his stories.
🤫