The Bee Reads LOTR Episode 2: A Birthday In The Shire
From the heart of the Shire, through the depths of Moria, to the ends of Middle-Earth, it's The Babylon Bee Reads The Lord Of The Rings! In this episode of The Babylon Bee Reads, Kyle and Dan dive into the book, beginning as most books do, in Chapter 1, with A Long Expected Party. There's a birthday party of special magnificence, a place worth fighting for, and a wizard puttering down the road with fireworks. There's something very wrong in Hobbiton though. Be sure to check out The Babylon Bee YouTube Channel for more podcasts, podcast shorts, animation, and more. To watch or listen to the full podcast, become a subscriber at https://babylonbee.com/plans. We answer your comments and questions in the subscriber portion. Episode 2: A Long-Expected Party Opening line: 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. The subtle magic of Middle-Earth: Bilbo is 111 years old. Frodo/Bilbo having same birthday. Theme of fate introduced. The depiction of the Shire -- a foil for the rest of the adventure's rising danger. The Shire gives us a place worth fighting for. Gandalf arrives -- we have an instigating event, a catalyst. (Kyle's G rune tattoo mentioned). Fireworks! Such simple pleasures. Foreshadowing of ill effects of Bilbo's ring and treasure -- and Bilbo's planned trick. This chapter never managed to hook my older boys, but I wonder if I tried again at their ages -- 12 and 10 -- they would become interested. It's a good hook. I suppose it helps if you've read The Hobbit. This may be the quintessential example of something where the previous book helps but is still absolutely unnecessary to read to understand. The foreboding ending is perfect: "Frodo saw him to the door. He gave a final wave of his hand, and walked off at a surprising pace; but Frodo thought the old wizard looked unusually bent, almost as if he was carrying a great weight. The evening was closing in, and his cloaked figure quickly vanished into the twilight. Frodo did not see him again for a long time."
From the heart of the Shire, through the depths of Moria, to the ends of Middle-earth.
It's the Babylon Bee.
Reads the Lord of the Rings.
With your hosts, Kyle Mann and Dan Coates.
Chapter 1.
A long-expected party.
When Mr. Bilbo Baggins of Bag End announced that he would shortly be celebrating his 111st birthday with a party of special magnificence, there was much talk and excitement in Hobbiton.
Thus begins the greatest fantasy novel of all time.
Yeah.
You know, when you look at opening lines of literature, you think of A Tale of Two Cities.
It was the best of times.
It was the worst of times.
I'm sure I can think of others, but oh, C.S. Lewis.
He has one of the best ever when it's like there was a boy named Eustace Scrub and he almost deserved it.
I think that's, I don't remember if that's, I don't remember which one that is.
I think it's Voyage of the Downtreader.
I could be wrong.
But I mean, this does not feel iconic.
It's not super memorable.
It's kind of like before we studied for this, what the first line of Lord of the Rings would be.
I wouldn't have been able to remember.
I actually remember the Hobbit one much better.
In a hole in the ground, they're living the Hobbit.
This one is less iconic, but I think it does everything that an opening line needs to do.
111st birthday.
So we were talking in the last episode about these foreign elements, these quirky elements, these alien things that make you feel like you're in this alien world.
111st birthday, what the heck is an 111st birthday?
The party of special magnificence.
We've set up this chapter.
We now have this event to look forward to.
What is this party of special magnificence?
And then he emphasizes that with, there was much talk and excitement in Hobbiton.
You've got your setting.
You've already got your character.
You got your character.
You got your setting.
It's quirky.
And yet it's familiar.
There's going to be a birthday.
You know what a birthday party is?
You don't know what an 111st birthday party is.
You don't know what Hobbiton is, but this whole town is now abuzz with this birthday party.
I guess if you've read The Hobbit, you bring a little extra context into this.
You know who Bilbo Baggins is.
Oh, he's old now.
He's this old, weird guy that lives in the hill that a long time ago went away on an adventure and all the townfolk are still talking about how weird he is.
He's this weird guy.
He's got all his treasure buried up there.
We know it.
He talks to Gandalf and Gandalf's weird.
I just love towards the end of this chapter, and we'll talk about it more, but all of them thinking that he's got this treasure and trying to find it in his house.
I mean, it's fantastic.
Great little callback that you don't really have to have read The Hobbit to know about.
I wanted to talk a little bit about the subtle magic of Middle-earth here.
We mentioned this in the last episode a bit, but how Hobbits just kind of have this quiet magic about them.
They don't cast spells, and yet they have this magic kind of woven into them.
Bilbo is 111 years old.
Yeah, and Proto and Bilbo have the same birthday.
So there's almost this theme of fate and the cycle of like this almost this chosen one in some way, although I think Tolkien would resist that specific language.
So they have the same birthday.
And then as we find out later, Frodo starts out his journey the same day that Bilbo started his journey in the Hobbit.
They both leave on their 50th birthday.
Yeah.
And there's this connection between the two.
So Frodo is Bilbo's favorite nephew.
And Frodo's parents died tragically.
So Bilbo adopted him.
That's kind of how Frodo and Bilbo are connected.
And they're kindred spirits.
So Frodo is hanging on Bilbo's every word about his stories and his tale that he tells.
And so they live together in this Hobbit hole at Bag End.
And they have the same birthday.
So every year they celebrate their birthday together.
And then this is like a special birthday.
This is Uber special because it's 11D1st.
He's 111 years old.
11d1.
Yeah.
Why wouldn't you have a crazy party?
Yeah.
So there's this theme of fate and destiny.
It's also Frodo's 33rd birthday, which if I'm remembering correctly, isn't that when he's considered an adult?
Yeah, I think they say the tweens for a hobbit is like between 20 or 30 or 30.
That's like 13 or something.
That's like, yeah.
It's like they're tweens.
So he's becoming a man, an adult hobbit, and Bilbo's having his 11d first.
So it's like a special party, special significance to that.
Frodo is such a millennial man.
Yeah, that's quirky and weird.
Just this idea that there's this race of little people living somewhere and then their whole 20s, it's just like they're all just carousing and having fun and like they're not responsible adults yet.
Whereas in our 20s, it's like that's that we got to get our life together and figure out how we're going to pay bills and stuff.
Well, really, but it really is.
That's what we do now.
Like kids turn 33 and they're like, well, I guess I better start looking for a second.
Yeah, I guess we're all turning into hobbits.
We're syncing up with the hobbits now.
Yeah.
It's like, oh, yeah, I got kicked off my parents' insurance.
I guess I better figure life out.
Life expectancy is up, so you might turn 111 someday.
Yeah.
But yeah, there's this theme of fate, you know?
Yeah.
That Bilbo and Frodo aren't, they weren't out looking for an adventure.
You know, they were going about their lives.
And Bilbo had this longing to see the mountains and longing to go on this adventure to see the elves back in the Hobbit.
And then again has that here and that's why he bails.
But so there is kind of this internal logging and like, yes, I will go do this.
But externally, there's these forces of fate that are kind of pulling them into these roles that they otherwise wouldn't have been interested in at all.
Yeah, it seemed like in The Hobbit, by the time Gandalf reaches Bilbo and The Hobbit, he's already 50 and he's set in his ways.
He's kind of like the kind of the middle age for them.
I don't want adventures.
We don't want any adventures here.
And then Frodo, he's been listening from Bilbo his whole childhood.
So he kind of has that kindling for adventure that Bilbo has given him.
So that's like maybe the key difference between them.
But even then, within that fate thing you're talking about, that they're both related to the old took and they both have that within them that they have this thirst for adventure that maybe we can bury it, you know, with like the responsibilities of life.
And oh, I got all these things I got to do.
It's almost like, you know, when you get older and you stop believing in Santa Claus or whatever, there's like this magic and this wonder that's inside us that we can like bury it.
That's kind of interesting too.
Yeah, I just want to farm.
Yeah, I got bills to pay and I got real stuff to worry about.
Yeah.
I think one of the main things that a long expected party accomplishes is Really, just describing the shire.
It gives us the depiction of the shire.
It gives us a place worth fighting for.
It gives us a foil to the rest of the story's adventure.
Tolkien writes in these cycles of rest and action, you know, action, rest, action, rest, action, rest.
It kind of like danger rises, there's a climax, there's a resolution, and then they find a place of rest.
So we're starting off.
And we start off with the rest.
And for him, I think that gives the action more power.
You know, if you watch an action movie that's just way over the top and it's like constant, you just get numbed to it.
That's what the Hobbit movies did for me.
It was just constant, like, what's happening now?
Who is this CGI guy that they're punching?
I don't know, you know, because it's just too much.
You mean you didn't like that three-hour battle in the last movie of The Hobbit where in the extended edition, it's just like battle, battle, battle, battle.
And in the book, I mean, the Battle of Five Armies is like a page and a half or something.
Yeah.
Bilbo's knocked out.
We can make a movie out of that.
Bilbo's knocked out for the entire thing.
You know, it's so for Tolkien, and I think the movies, the movies communicated this fairly well, that you had the sense of, ah, you know, we're in Rivendell now, or ah, we're in Lothlorian.
Like, there's, there's, there's peace and rest.
And I think that does give the action this, um, that gives the action more power that, you know, like, you know, there may be a rest coming and like it just gives you this time to breathe.
I hated Rivendell when I first read the books, I think.
Like, I don't know if I hated it, but it's, it's long.
It's 30 pages of them talking.
They have the council and they're talking and they're a lot of dialogue.
But I think after having read it as an older man, you know, now it's like.
Yeah.
You were kind of saying that about the sections of the book too, where it was like, oh, they meet some elves.
Oh, no, the elves are singing.
Oh, no.
You got to read like a page and a half of singing and you're just like, why is this in here?
But then as you get older, you're like, those are like some of your favorite parts.
I think you were saying.
And I agree with that.
It's like that those places of rest are like where you hook your, I guess, your identity into your stability.
And to us.
Home.
The type of poetry and song that he wrote maybe don't resonate super well today, but like he's he's saying something about the importance of art and the importance of community and song.
You know, song has a communal function, I think, in Tolkien, where they're sitting around telling stories and let's sit by the fire and sing.
So whatever the modern day equivalent is, you know, I don't know, watching a TV show or whatever.
Not that that's of the same cultural I was going like the old world, like sitting in an Irish pub and everyone like singing the same song.
I think objectively that's better.
I think objectively that's spiritually.
But like nowadays, it's like, well, we all watch The Mass Singer together.
Yeah, you want to talk about that?
Talk about that at the water cooler, I guess.
I think it's a pale imitation, but I do think there's a modern day analogy in that we, what is it that is worth fighting for?
What is it that is worth defending for us?
And maybe it's not Netflix, but that was just a thought.
It's not the Mass Singer.
I will fight for Breaking Bad.
I will fight for The Mandalorian.
Like, I don't know.
The Mandalorian, yeah.
Yeah, I don't know.
That's crazy how countercultural The Mandalorian is.
How did that get made?
This gunslinger walking around protecting his baby.
Oh, man.
Super masculine, super toxically masculine.
So, I mean, I guess let's talk a little bit about the Shire then.
What is the depiction of the Shire in A Long Expected Party?
Why do we as the reader now care about the Shire because of this?
We talked a little bit about some of the quirks before in that it's very it's very similar to England in the early 20th century.
It's very similar to like maybe rural America today, but yet has enough difference where you where you're very interested in this fantastic world.
So like they live in these holes.
Yeah, it seems like that's the traditional way.
I think in the prologue, it says something like that most of the hobbits traditionally lived in these hobbit holes.
They dig out, burrow out of the hole, and they have circular doors, not rectangular doors.
The doorknobs like right in the middle.
That's quirky too.
But then it starts saying that they're starting to adopt actual stand-up building style too.
That's frowned upon.
Or at least it's not the traditional way, it seems like.
So this is like a high-rise building being put in your neighborhood.
Yeah, someone's putting up the eyesore.
You're like, oh, man, just dig the hole.
Dig a role like the rest of us.
Yeah.
So there's wacky people.
There's the Sackville Bagginses that Bilbo's always kind of at odds with.
They're around and Bilbo's annoyed by his relatives, you know.
Yeah, that's just fantastic.
There's all these little things that you can just so relate to.
I'm trying to pull up my notes from my, that I made in my Kindle version.
You have characters like Sam living at the bottom of the hill.
He's the gardener.
Him and the old gaffer.
They kind of live adjacent to Bilbo and they take care of Bilbo's property.
So you get introduced to Sam and the old gaffer.
You have these scenes where they're all hanging out at the pub and they're drinking and telling stories and they're all trying to figure out where all Bilbo's treasure is.
Yeah.
I guess, you know, yeah, there's actually less world building in here than I remember and that a lot of that is done in the prologue.
A lot of it's in the prologue.
Because it is very quick in this book when Gandalf shows up.
And this is really our instigating event.
This is our catalyst.
This kicks off the rest of the adventures of the book.
Gandalf shows up with fireworks.
And this is another cool quirk of the Shire is that the most exciting thing that happens to them in decades is like this old man shows up with fireworks.
Like how wonderful is that?
We're so like desensitized to fun and exciting things.
I don't know if you ever like show your kids fireworks.
My kids love them.
I'm trying to think of more things that I would show them.
It's like, this is amazing.
And it's like, yeah, well, we got video games.
So, you know, it's just, I know we just sound like a couple of old guys ranting now, but I see that same characteristic in myself where I'm less impressed by things that should impress me.
Like, give me a sense of wonder.
Like when you were a kid, when they set up the Christmas tree or put up the lights on the house, that was just like a marvelous, wonderful, there's something special and magical about this.
You know, whatever your background is, if you had that, that experience of like seeing all the lights go up in town, you kind of have that sense of wonder and like, well, what's going on?
What is this?
So I think fireworks were like that.
Christmas lights were like that for me.
I've got my two-year-old now.
We set up the Christmas tree.
What did she say to, well, first she's tried to get like the Christmas tree a hug.
But another part of it, she's like, this Christmas tree makes me happy.
And we just got like a little pipe cleaner, you know, branches looking four foot.
Charlie Brown.
It's little Charlie Brown.
It's leaning over the star.
You know, it's off center, you know, but she's like, this tree makes me happy.
And I'm like, oh, that's great.
I wish I could be like that about everything about everything.
Yeah.
Something very Chestertonian about that.
Yeah.
Oh, the other thing that's that was unique about the Shire that they talk about here is that they give presents on their birthday instead of get presents.
And that's another fun thing that just Tolkien just takes these ordinary things and adds that sense of wonder to them that just makes you look at them in a new way.
So you're constantly getting gifts if you live in the shire.
Yeah.
Because you're always once a week, you probably have a friend that has a birthday party and you get a gift.
I wonder if there was a grouch.
It was like, he's regifting.
That's a regift.
I thought he said something about that in here, like things that get passed around.
Did he say something?
There was something about the Mathemat House where if things get passed around so much and people just don't even really know what they're used for.
It's just like, oh, well, I don't, I don't have a use for this.
Let's put it in the basically the museum of things they can't figure out what the use is of it.
That's fantastic.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So Ganito shows up.
He's got fireworks.
Yeah.
They have the elf rune G on them, which is tattooed on my wrist.
I don't know if we can.
It's like upside down, so you'll have to get that.
But that's the G rune.
Now, I got this tattoo that nobody has ever recognized.
That's your street.
That's your street cred right there.
But that's what I wanted.
You know, if you did, you could get something like obvious, like, oh, I know what that is.
That's whatever, the one ring or whatever.
But you didn't put like the not all who wander are lost on your back.
I'm thinking about her.
I have a couple of Lord of the Rings tattoo ideas.
Me and my wife are going to get matching where she gets not all who wander.
I'm going to get all that is gold does not glitter and she'll get not all who wander are lost.
I want to get the I want to get some of Sam's song possibly when he's in when he's in Mordor where he says is that where he's looking up at the stars?
Yeah, part of that.
Yeah.
And then he says, I will not say the day is done nor bid the stars farewell.
Oh my gosh, man.
We'll talk about that when we get there, but you just have like these life mottos that come from Lord of the Rings.
It's just like, if I could just remember this lesson behind these words.
Yeah, just yeah.
Or scroll up a bit to the previous episode notes.
I think I have that amazing quote from Return of the King.
Oh, where Sam sees the light peek out from the clouds when they're in Mordor and he's depressed and says, and he realizes that there was light and high beauty forever beyond the reach of the shadow.
And to me, it's just like, oh man.
Good is eternal and that evil can only try to twist or corrupt and that evil is fading.
Evil is temporary and fading and fleeting and it's not it can never it can never overtake the star.
There's a great Spurgeon sermon where he talks about like if all the combined forces of man were to attack God's throne, it would be like ants running into like the throne of a king or something.
Like he's just like, what are you doing?
And to me, that's like the shadows just like doing all this stuff.
And there's this eternity out there.
Not to get too far off track, but that's like that Lewis quote where like if you're a madman and you're scribbling in your cell, he can't ever block out the stars.
He thinks he's going to blot out the stars.
He's just writing the word darkness over and over and over.
You can't ever, you can't ever make things dark.
Yeah.
So I probably butchered that.
No, no, yeah.
That's all right.
So, okay, we're in the shire and we got someone to fight for.
Gandalf shows up and he's got these fireworks.
We're kind of talking about the wonder.
Yeah, the wonder of fireworks.
Just simple pleasures.
I love the hobbits.
I just got to say it again that they're just simple people, simple food.
We will implore you all throughout this series.
Be like the hobbits.
Be the hobbits.
Be the hobbits.
If we were all hobbits, life would be life would be better.
I mean, then they have this birthday party, and that's the highlight of their like, yeah, like this crazy old rich guy is having a party.
Like, let's go to this.
Yeah.
And that's just fantastic.
I love the humor.
We haven't talked much about this yet, but Tolkien has a great, dry, British sense of humor.
And throughout the, I've highlighted all these passages where the Hobbits are just so excited about food.
And it's just so they're all, well, we'll get to the event where he puts the ring on and disappears, but they're all flowerbed.
Can I say, they're all this will be our first flowerbed.
They're all ticked off about Bilbo disappearing.
Like, that's very rude and blah, blah, blah.
And then they're like, we're going to need some more.
We're going to need some more food and wine to make up for that.
That just makes me so happy.
I love the Proudfoots, Proud Feet.
They have this rich tradition of being called the Proud Feet.
And he's very upset that they call it.
He called them the Proudfoot.
I think the way Tolkien phrases it, he says with his feet up on the table.
So it's like there's all these.
I think Jackson did that in the movie, too.
There was the feet up.
And then he stamps his feet when Bilbo disappears.
He like pounds his huge feet on the ground.
There's the classic line, I don't know half of you half as well as I should like.
And I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve.
I still haven't quite worked that classic.
It's a compliment.
Is it?
Yeah.
I thought he was trashing him.
No, he says, Okay, because the first part of the quote, right?
I would like, okay, so I don't know half of you.
So I don't know half of you.
Half as well as I should like.
So I really want to like you guys.
I want to know.
I want to know you, but I don't know.
I only don't know half of you half as well as I want to.
Sure.
And I like less than half of you.
Okay.
So a small number of you that I like half as well as you deserve.
So there's only a few of you that I appreciate the way you should be appreciated.
So I think it's kind of a backhanded compliment where he's saying, I don't like very many of you, but you really deserve better than that.
But then the crowd doesn't receive it as a compliment.
They're like, what?
But it's funny because he's got this like, he's got the crowd eating out of the palm of his hand.
He's like, to health, to life, to whatever.
And they're like, yeah, okay, beer, more beer.
And then he just says this like random, and they're like, what are you talking about, dude?
I just love how quirky Bilbo is that he doesn't care.
Yeah, Bilbo kind of embodies that, like, I am who I am.
And yeah, he's just confident in himself.
He's not trying to be a crowd pleaser.
He's just like, I'm going to invite the whole town and I'm going to cheese him off.
Like, I'm going to mess with him.
And then he says, Together we score 144.
Your numbers were chosen to fit this total.
One gross, if I'm using the expression.
No cheers.
Yeah.
So the whole crowd be like calling gross.
Yeah, it's like calling like, you guys are like a 48 pack of beer.
This is great.
I picked you guys so you would be like a dozen eggs.
And they're all upset with him.
So it's like, I was only invited to fill your number of your stupid joke.
And that's basically all he was doing.
One gross indeed.
Vulgar expression.
Yeah.
Okay.
So then we have Bilbo putting on the ring.
And I, again, love this about Hobbits that he's got this basically nuclear super weapon.
Yeah.
And he uses it to tell a practical joke, like to just pull off a practical joke on everybody.
He just messes with everybody.
I'm just going to screw with you guys with this nuke I have in my pocket.
Like I have the most powerful thing in Middle-earth and I'm just going to mess with you guys.
It was generally agreed that the joke was in very bad taste and more food and drink were needed to cure the guests of shock and annoyance.
Part of this too that I really liked right before that, if I'm not backing up.
That's funny.
Like, nobody wants to hear this big long story from him.
And Bilbo still tells the story.
He's like, This is also the anniversary when I arrived by barrel at Esgeroth on the Long Lake.
And the fact that it was my birthday slipped my memory on that occasion.
I was only 51 then, and birthdays did not seem important.
The banquet was very splendid, however, and I had a bad cold at the time, and blah, blah, you know, so he's going on and on and on.
Everyone's just sitting there, like, when's this guy going to shut up?
Like, so I just love that part about that part about Bilbo that he's just like, he's very Treg-like, if I might say, like, the audience doesn't know Treg, but our friend Treg, that reminds me of him quite a bit.
Just telling the long story on him.
He's like, I'm just going to be who I am, and you're either going to like it or not like it.
And I'm still going to tell my story.
Yeah.
Treg, if you're watching this, we love you.
Rory Brandybuck is upset.
And he says, silly old fool, Bilbo, but why worry?
He hasn't taken the vitals with him.
He's like, oh, there's all this food here.
No, this guy's still got food.
It's all good.
The Sackville Baggins's depart in wrath.
So I kind of mentioned the Sackville Baggins, but what was the deal with them that when he left on his journey, didn't he accuse them of like walking off with some spoons when he came back and his house is like being sold off?
Did that happen in The Hobbit?
I think it happened in The Hobbit where.
I know he mentions it here.
I didn't realize it was a callback to the hobbit.
He's gone for like a year on his journey.
When he comes back, they're selling off all his stuff.
And he has to like run in there.
No, no, no.
The auctioneer is like at his house, like banging the gavel, getting rid of all his stuff.
And I think it's at that moment that one of the Sackville Bagginses walks off with some of his spoons.
And so for like the last, how many years is it from like 51 to 111 for like 60 years?
He's been stewing that the Sackville Bagginses have his spoons.
This is fantastic.
Yeah.
And again, you see these little local concerns of ordinary people.
Like he's much more concerned about his spoons than he has this ring that contains like the soul or power essence of the dark lord Sauron.
You know, he's much more concerned about the spoons, of course.
Can we do like a quick rundown of the gifts that he gives after?
Yeah, so let's summarize.
So we have the Shire, just this little green patch, quaint little place.
I don't know if we want to throw the map up of Metal Earth, but it's up in the northwest of Metal Earth.
And this is kind of, it's kind of been untouched by the outside world, whether that's because of some subtle magic of Hobbits or whatever.
And but these events from the outside of the Shire are starting to encroach on the Shire.
So in The Hobbit, if you've never read The Hobbit or whatever, Bilbo had found the one ring of power, which belonged to Sauron, the Dark Lord.
He kind of poured his soul, his malevolence, his essence into it.
And it was cut off his finger by this sword.
Yeah.
Right here, if you're on video.
Well, the other version of the sword.
The shards of Narsal.
I knocked something over.
By Narciel.
This is the reforged version, Anduril.
And so this ring passed out of time and mind for thousands of years.
And by chance or by fate, I would say, Bilbo found this ring in The Hobbit through those events.
And he's brought it back and it's just been sitting in his house.
So he's got like the thing that can bring back the Dark Lord.
And it's just sitting in his chest or whatever.
It's hanging out in his pocket.
And it's body.
He's got it on him.
He plays with it from time to time.
He uses it for practical jokes.
So they throw this birthday party.
Bilbo says, I'm never seeing you guys again.
Throws the ring on, disappears.
Gandalf hurriedly creates a flash of light to make it seem like it was just a trick that he did or something.
And then Bilbo starts putting his things in order to leave.
So Bilbo actually leaves.
There's a little struggle with Bilbo and Gandalf where Gandalf wants him to leave the ring and Bilbo keeps wanting to take the ring and finally he agrees I'll leave the ring.
Gandalf has started to suspect at this point that this ring may be one of the rings of power.
I don't know how much he knows at this point.
This was one thing I was always a little unclear on.
It seems like he had suspicions.
He knows it's a ring of power.
He knows it's a ring of power and he knows that it's made Bilbo lie in the past.
So he knows there's something bad about this ring.
Because I think that might be in the foreword or the prologue to on the finding of the ring.
Yeah.
Where it's kind of, I think in the first edition of The Hobbit, the story of how he gets the ring from Golem is a little bit different than the final version.
And how they kind of rework that in here is like, oh, well, Bilbo originally kind of fibbed about it.
And so he knows there's something off about him having this ring.
And to kind of set to world build a little bit for you guys, if you've never read Lord of the Rings before, it's not like a Dungeons and Dragons world where there's a magic ring at every shopkeep in every village where you can just buy magic crap.
Yeah.
I'm going to go to the magic salesman.
It's like to get a mag a ring of power is very rare.
So Gandalf is like very concerned, like how the heck did this show up here?
And I think Gandalf kind of, who's on the level of an archangel, really, has his finger on the pulse of like the strings of fate that are being woven or whatever.
I'm mixing my metaphors here, but he knows like it's very strange that this ordinary guy in this little who cares about it shire has found the ring of power.
Yeah.
And so he's starting to suspect there's something bigger going on here in the wheel of fate or whatever you want to call it.
There's something kind of cool about Gandalf being this arch wizard or this archangel.
And he's just like puttering through the shire with a bunch of fireworks.
Yeah.
And I think he knows what's important.
Like, this is what's important.
Like he comes to earth and he's like, he comes to middle earth and he's like fireworks and beer and pipe tobacco.
Like this is amazing.
You know.
There's good things in the world and even the Gandalf realizes it.
Before we get to the gifts, we've got the important scene where Gandalf refuses the ring from Bilbo.
I think that's significant.
Bilbo says, I will not give you the ring.
And he says, then you will see Gandalf the Grey uncloaked.
And he seems to grow and a shadow fills the room.
And he's like, they did a pretty good job in the movie.
Peter Jackson did an excellent job on that scene.
Yeah, for sure.
And it says, then he seemed to dwindle again to a gray old man, bent and troubled.
We see the effect of the ring on Bilbo, which is going to be a big theme through the books.
But Bilbo is very troubled to give this thing up.
But once he gives it away, this burden passes.
He's 171, and he hasn't really aged since he got the ring.
So everyone's like, dude, that guy's freaking weird.
Why does he still look like he's 50?
Yeah, it's preserved him.
He looks well preserved.
I think that Tolkien says that he's thin and stretched like butter scraped over too much bread.
The song, you know, we have to mention the song, the road goes ever on and on, down from the door where it began.
Now far ahead the road has gone, and I must follow if I can.
Pursuing it with eager feet until it joins some larger way, where many paths and errands meet.
And wither then, I cannot say.
I think a key theme for the book, these roads and paths and fate, and this journey.
He's starting a new journey at that point.
He said goodbye to the ring and he's laid aside that burden.
And now he's got a new life.
The hobbits get up in the morning.
There's a bunch of them are hung over.
It says people came to clean everything up, and it says the bags and gloves and handkerchiefs and the uneaten food.
A very small item.
Yeah, there's not much food left.
So, yeah, let's get to the gifts.
This is, I'm going to talk about the humor of Tolkien a bit, and we need to break to subscriber soon.
But the humor of Tolkien, this is great.
So, Gandalf or so, sorry, Bilbo has left gifts, like an inheritance, kind of for people as he has basically Bilbo decides to go.
He's going to go live with the elves in Rivendell.
That's like his retirement.
Forget this.
I'm out.
He was a shire.
He's going to Rivendell.
And he leaves behind gifts for the various relatives and such.
Yeah, we both really appreciated this humor of Tolkien.
So, like, so keeping with Hobbit tradition on your birthday, you give gifts to other people, not you don't get gifts.
So, he's got like for Adelaard Took for his very own and in all caps from Bilbo on an umbrella.
Adelar had carried off many unlabeled ones.
I love like what a freaking jackass Bilbo is.
This little guy's like, keeps stealing his umbrellas, and he's like, A gift for you.
Here's an umbrella.
Umbrella.
Yeah.
Here's for Dora Baggins, in memory of a long, all caps, long correspondence with love from Bilbo on a large waste paper basket.
Dora was Drogo's sister, which I think is Bilbo's dad.
Yeah.
If I'm remembering right, he's the eldest surviving female relative of Bilbo and Frodo.
She was 99 and had written reams of good advice for more than half a century.
So he's like, here's where all your advice went.
So he gives her the very trash can that he had thrown all of her letters.
In memory of a long correspondence for Milo Burroughs, hoping it will be useful from BB on a gold pen and ink bottle.
Milo never answered letters.
He's like, this guy must not have a pen.
Here's a pen, buddy.
You know, this is like the very positive, aggressive gifts, like from your mom or grandma or something.
You know, since you never respond to text messages, here's a new iPhone, you know, or something.
Or like for your wife, you're like, hey, you need to, you need to get in shape.
Here's an exercise.
Yeah, it's giving someone an exercise machine.
That's what it is.
That's what it is, really.
Yeah.
Here's a gym membership.
Enjoy.
The best one is the Lobelia.
Is it Lobelia?
Oh, yeah.
That's the very end.
Sackville Baggins.
Yeah.
So there's two more and then Lobelia.
But Lobelia Sackville Baggins as a present in all caps on a case of silver spoons.
Bilbo believed that she had acquired a good many of his spoons while he was away on his former journey.
Lobelia knew that quite well.
When she arrived later in the day, she took the point at once, but she also took the spoons.
It's like she's offended, but she's like, well, these are good spoons.
I'm still taking these.
Oh, that's fantastic.
So good.
All right.
Well, we're going to go to our subscriber portion and we're going to kind of finish out the chapter.
We've covered all the main important points for you, freeloaders, so don't worry about that too much.
But we're going to get to some of the foreshadowing elements where Tolkien has kind of planted the seed of like, there's something else going on here.
This isn't just all fun and game.
So let's get to that.
For next week, read chapter two, which is Shadows of the Past, I think.
And I believe this is one of the first chapters that Tolkien wrote, if I remember right.
Yeah, I think in the foreword, he says that that was one of the most or that was one of the original ones that he wrote down long ago before the writing of the story.
It's just a great, great scene.
So we're going to get context.
Next week to follow along, read Shadows of the Past for next week.
So do we have mailbag in the subscriber portion?
We can go through some more of the comments.
I think Patrick had pulled most of them.
Sending your comments and questions to our email.
Are we doing the podcast email?
The podcast of Babylon B. Podcast at BabylonB.com.
And also on the premium post, when we post that, comment, ask your question.
We want you guys to be part of this.
Your thoughts, your things that jump out at you.
Yeah.
This is like piping in at Bible study.
So piping in at Bible study.
This is what Ephesians 4:12 means to me.
No.
No?
Don't be that guy, but you know, just send us your questions.
Here we go.
Subscriber portion.
See you later, Freeloaders.
Talk to you next week.
Coming up next for Babylon B subscribers.
I wanted to talk a little bit about the closing line and this sense of this kind of ominous foreshadowing at the end of the chapter, which I think is brilliant that Tolkien does here.
Yeah, we basically started this podcast just to justify the sword buying.
But I think it's primarily because of the movies.
And I'm wondering how ubiquitous Lord of the Rings would be without the films.
You were asking a question, you already knew the answer.
No, you set me up and I didn't knock it down.
And you're like, I'll do it.
I'll just answer.
Kyle and Dan would like to thank Seth and Dan Dylan for buying us cool swords and paying the bills.
Adam Ford for creating our jobs.
Ethan Nicole for creative direction.
And all the writers at the Babylon Bee.
Matthew McDavid for guiding studio operations.
Patrick Green for show production.
Catlin Penny for Laugh Tracks.
The Babylon Bee subscribers who make what we do possible.
And you, the listener.
Until next time, this is Austin Robertson.
The voice of the Babylon Bee reads The Lord of the Rings.
Reminding you, all we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.