The Return of the Shadow. Christopher Tolkien

27).

3 The change of ‘fifty-fifth’ to ‘seventy-second’ was made at the same time as the 16 years during which Bingo lived at Bag End after his parents’ departure were changed to 33 (note 6). These changes were made before the chapter was finished, since later in it, in Bingo’s farewell speech, the revised figures are present from the first writing. When at the outset he wrote ‘fifty-fifth birthday’ and ‘16 years’ my father was presumably intending to get rid of the idea, appearing in rewriting of the second version (see p. 27), that the number of 144 guests was chosen for an inner reason, since on Bingo’s 55th birthday his father Bilbo would have been 127 (having left the Shire 16 years before at the age of 111, when Bingo was 39).

4 Primula was first written Amalda. In the first version (p. 16) Amalda was the name of Mrs Sackville-Baggins. In the fourth version of ‘A long-expected party’, when Bilbo had returned to his bachelor state, Primula Brandybuck, no longer his wife, remained Bingo’s mother.

5 My father first wrote here: ‘the Brandybucks of Wood Eaton on the other side of the shire, on the edge of Buckwood – a dubious region.’ He first changed (certainly at the time of writing) the name of the Brandybuck stronghold from Wood Eaton (a village in the Cherwell valley near Oxford) to Bury Underwood (where ‘Bury’ is the very common English place-name element derived from Old English byrig, the dative of burg ‘fortified place, town’); then he introduced the name of the river, replaced Bury Underwood by Buckland, and replaced Buckwood by the Old Forest.

6 This change was made at the same time as ‘55’ to ‘72’ for Bingo’s years at the time of the birthday party; see note 3.

7 This is the first appearance of Gaffer Gamgee, living in Bagshot Row (first mentioned in the second version, p. 21).

8 As mentioned in note 3, the later figure of 72 for 55 as Bingo’s age on this birthday, and 33 for 16 as the number of years in which he lived on alone at Bag End after Bilbo’s departure, which appear as emendations in the early part of the text, are in the later part of the chapter present from the first writing.

9 One would expect ‘sixty’ (111 less 51): see pp. 31, 252.

      Note on Hobbit-names

      It will be seen that delight in the names and relations of the hobbit-families of the Shire from which the ramifying genealogies would spring was present from the start. In no respect did my father chop and change more copiously. Already we have met, apart from Bilbo and Bungo Baggins and Belladonna Took who appeared in The Hobbit:

       Baggins: Angelica; Inigo; Semolina

       Bolger: Caramella (replacing Caramella Took)

       Bracegirdle: Hugo

       Brandybuck: Amalda > Primula; Marmaduke; Orlando > Prospero; Rory

       Burrowes: Folco; Orlando (replacing Orlando Grubb)

       Chubb: Cosimo

       Grubb: Gorboduc > Orlando; Iago

       Grubb-Took: Inigo

       Proudfoot: Sancho

       Sackville-Baggins: Amalda > Lonicera or Griselda > Grimalda > Lobelia; Sago > Cosmo > Otho

       Took: Caramella; Melba > Arabella > Amanda; Mungo

       Took-Took: Obo > Rollo

      (iv)

       The Fourth Version

Two further changes, embodying an important shift, were made to the manuscript of the third version. They were carefully made, in red ink, but concomitant changes later in the text were not made. In the first sentence of the chapter (p. 28) ‘Bingo, son of Bilbo’ was altered to ‘Bingo Bolger-Baggins’; and in the third sentence ‘Bingo’s father’ was altered to ‘Bingo’s uncle (and guardian), Bilbo Baggins.’

      We come now therefore to a further stage, where the ‘long-expected party’ is still Bingo’s, not Bilbo’s, but Bingo is his nephew, not his son, and Bilbo’s marriage (as was inevitable, I think) has been rejected.

The fourth version is a typescript, made by my father. It was emended very heavily later on, but these changes belong to the second phase of the writing of The Fellowship of the Ring, and here I ignore them. The alterations to the third version just referred to were now incorporated into the text (which therefore now begins: ‘When Bingo Bolger-Baggins of the well-known Baggins family prepared to celebrate his seventy-second birthday …’), but otherwise it proceeds as an exact copy of the third version as far as ‘he was on visiting terms with all his neighbours and relatives (except, of course, the Sackville-Bagginses)’ (p. 29). Here it diverges.

      But folk did not bother him much. He was frequently out. And if he was in, you never knew who you would find with him: hobbits of quite poor families, or folk from distant villages, dwarves, and even sometimes elves.

He did two more things that caused tongues to wag. At the age of ninety-nine he adopted his nephew – or to be accurate (Bilbo scattered the titles nephew and niece about rather recklessly) his first cousin once removed, Bingo Bolger, a lad of twenty-seven. They had heard very little about him, and that not too good (they said). As a matter of fact Bingo was the son of Primula Brandybuck (and Rollo Bolger, who was quite unimportant); and she was the daughter of Mirabella Took (and Gorboduc Brandybuck, who was rather important); and she was one of three remarkable daughters of the Old Took, for long the head of the hobbits who lived across The Water. And so the Tooks come in again – always a disturbing element, especially when mixed with Brandybuck. For Primula was a Brandybuck of Buckland, across the Brandywine River, on the other side of the Shire and at the edge of the Old Forest – a dubious region. Folk in Hobbiton did not know much about it, or about the Brandybucks either; though some had heard it said that they were rich, and would have been richer, if they had not been reckless. What had happened to Primula and her husband was not known for certain in Hobbiton. There was rumour of a boating accident on the Brandywine River – the sort of thing that Brandybucks would go in for. Some said that Rollo Bolger had died young of overeating; others said that it was his weight that had sunk the boat.

      Anyway, Bilbo Baggins adopted Master Bolger, announced that he would make him his heir, changed his name to Bolger-Baggins, and still further offended the Sackville-Bagginses. Then shortly before his hundred-and-eleventh birthday Bilbo disappeared finally and was never seen in Hobbiton again. His relatives and neighbours lost the chance of a funeral, and they had a good deal to say. But it made