Hobbits in Valinor?

[Sardy]

This evening I started reading The Hobbit to my 5-year old son. His first reading, my own beyond count.

Early in An Unexpected Party, I came upon a passage that made me pause. While certainly, The Hobbit is a more whimsical tale, written by a more lighthearted Tolkien and set in a not fully realized Middle-earth, nevertheless, it is part of the cannon. If nothing else, it's inconsistencies with later work make for wonderful discussion and speculation. That said, here's the passage that is the subject of this thread:

"Gandalf, Gandalf! Good gracious me! Not the wandering wizard that gave Old Took a pair of magic diamond studs that fastened themselves and never came undone till ordered? Not the fellow who used to tell such wonderful tales at parties, about dragons and goblins and giants and the rescue of princesses and the unexpected luck of widows' sons? Not the man that used to make such particularly excellent fireworks! ... Not the Gandalf who was responsible for so many quiet lads and lasses going off into the Blue for mad adventures? Anything from climbing trees to visiting elves---or sailing ships, sailing to other shores!

Hobbits sailing ships to other shores? So many young Hobbit boys and girls off into the Blue?

When and why would Gandalf have had reason to send any Hobbits sailing to distant shores? To Valinor?

[Boromir88]

Well the only accounts of Hobbits going to Valinor that we are told about were Bilbo, Frodo, and later Sam. So, I don't think that Gandalf actually did send little Hobbit lads and lasses to 'blue shores.' There are a few explanations I think though:

1) Tolkien was constantly trying to get The Hobbit to fit in with the Lord of the Rings. For as we know The Hobbit started out as a bedtime story to his sons, and some things he just put in there to kind of 'spice up the kid's tale.' Therefor, we would be making too much of it.

2) I think another possibility is that was a fabrication going around created by the Hobbits about Gandalf. As we know the Hobbits really began to dislike Gandalf's company in the Shire and they would go to blame him for Bilbo's presumed 'madness.' Perhaps this was simply a lie the Hobbits started about what Gandalf did...you know one of those scary stories your parents tell you to make you frightened of something. I can just see hobbit parents telling their little ones 'Watch out if you're bad big, ol' whacked out, funny looking bearded guy is going to come and ship you away from your home! So be good!'

[CSteefel]

I don't get any notion of a trip to Valinor, but what is this "unexpected luck of widow's sons" refer to?

[Child of the 7th Age]

Interesting stuff, Sardy!

Actually, there is evidence that Tolkien was initially referring to Valinor. I have a second edition, 8th impression Hobbit from 1956. My passage looks even more intriguing than yours.....

Not the Gandalf who was responsible for so many quiet lads and lasses going off into the Blue for mad adventures, anything from climbing trees to stowing away aboard ships that sail to the Other Side?

The caps on "other side" aren't mine....it's the way the passage was originally written by Tolkien. The term "other side" could be any of a number of distant seaports in Middle-earth, not necessarily Valinor. But I honestly don't think "Other Side" could be anything but the blessed West. I am assuming that "Other Side" had caps in the first edition as well, though I don't know for sure, since I don't own one of those.

Here's my guess as to what happened.... When Tolkien sat and told stories to his sons and daughter, he could be just as wild as he wanted and didn't have to worry about harmonizing with the rest of the Legendarium. Initially, that is what he put on paper when he wrote down The Hobbit. But, in the course of all his revisions, he realized that hobbits stowing away for Valinor wouldn't work. What kind of loyal Maia would Gandalf be if he was really shipping Hobbits off to the West? Manwe would have had a fit! So somewhere along the way, the caps on "Other Side" went, although the caps on "Blue" remained. It's interesting that the changes regarding the Ring and Gollum were done sometime before the change was made to the "Other Side". I'd love to know exactly when the caps changed. But my guess is that the Professor was backing away from the informal stories he used with his own children and bringing the work more in line with the rest of the Legendarium.

Our only visible remains of those wandering hobbits are the references in the Took pedigree in the appendix of LotR to Isengar who was "said to have gone to sea in his youth" and Hildifons who "went off on a journey and never returned".

There is something else about your quote that intrigues me. We are talking "lads and lasses"--males and females. There aren't too many instances in LotR of girls going off on mad adventures, but here is one of them. Perhap this was put in for the sake of Priscilla? In any case, the lasses survived even after the other changes were made.

P.S. If a hobbit really did stow away, I would think that he/she would have been discovered on the journey outward. Then the Elven ship would have to turn around and come back to the Havens and let the unwanted passenger disembark. What a great rpg/fanfiction this would make!

[Estelyn Telcontar]

Fascinating observation, Sardy, and I envy you the opportunity to read the Hobbit aloud - it's magical when spoken!

This is indeed the stuff of which fan fictions and RPGs are made - I know BW himself once started writing the story of Isengar the Mariner. I have no written evidence to add to the discussion, but would agree that this is one aspect of having a story that began independently and later had to fit into a framework.

As to the girls, it's quite possible that they were mentioned for Priscilla's sake; I have no idea how old she was when they were inserted, or whether they were there from the beginning, when the three sons were Tolkien's main audience. I've always suspected that the mention of the Old Took's three adventurous daughters, including Belladonna, Bilbo's mother, was for her sake. Now where could they have gone on their adventures with Gandalf?

[Findegil]

It is easy to have the chrnology of this change if you have the "The Annotated hobbit":

1937: "Not the Gandalf who was responsible for so many quiet lads and lasses going off into the Blue for mad adventures, anything from climbing trees to stowing away aboard the ships that sail to the Other Side? ..."

1966-Longmans/Unwin: "Not the Gandalf who was responsible for so many quiet lads and lasses going off into the Blue for mad adventures? Anything from climbing trees to visiting elves - or sailing in ships, sailing to other shores! ..."

The reading in 1966-Ballentimes agress with that in 1966-Longmans/Unwin but mistakenly has a period , or full stop, instead of a question mark.

So the "lasses" were there from the start (as were the three remarkable, not adventures, daughters of Old Took, by the way).

In point of view the change is unnecessary as are so many of the 1966 Editions. They were mainly introduced to get the right to have new copyright on the book.

What we have to take into acount is the situation and the speaker. Bilbo tells Gandalf about his reputation. Gandalf ancouraged the interest of young Hobbits in the world out side the shire. That is a fact given by Gandalf himself in "The Quest of Erebor". Therefore it was quiet likley that he was held responsible for the "going into the wilde" that some young Took's did. Bilbo in neither passaged siad that Gandalf accompained these adventerous. "stowing away aboard the ships that sail to the Other Side" means therefore no more than a Hobbit going to Mithlond and stealing aboard a elvish ship as a blind passengar. But seeing the fact that even an adventures and educated Hobbit like Peregrin Took did nknow about Mithlond, it seems clear that Bilbo is spreading a roumor here like you could hear it in The Ivy Bush in Bywater. The soil for that romour are the only three facts that the Hobbits did know about Mithlond:
- There are Havens in the west of the Shire.
- These are Elvish Havens.
- The Elves sail ever and an one to the West.

Plus the rumour that some Hobbits have gone shiping.

So what Bilbo is reflecting in his speach with Gandalf is not a fact about Middle-earth but a Hobbit made fairy-tale.

Respectfully
Findegil

[Elladan and Elrohir]

This is slightly off-topic, but it just occurred to me. One of the wild adventures Bilbo mentions is "visiting elves". Yet we know from "The Quest of Erebor" that Master Baggins himself visited elves prior to Gandalf's visit (in fact, he was off celebrating the Elvish New Year the first time G came to call on him!). Obviously, that work was written decades later, but is Tolkien intentionally making Bilbo hypocritical?

And, on the subject: I don't know that we can say the "sailing" was just something that the hobbits made up. At any rate, Bilbo, at another point in the conversation, is a reliable witness: he poetically describes Gandalf's fireworks, and is affirmed by the Grey Wizard. And, of course, you have the case of Isengar Took, already mentioned earlier in the thread. I think Hobbits did go to sea in some fashion.

[Sardy]

Let's assume, just for a moment, that at some point in time Hobbit lads and/or lasses did indeed stow away on a ship bound for Valinor, and that Gandalf was somehow directly or indirectly (or even accidentally) responsible...

Pure speculation, but what might the circumstances have been? The results of such an adventure (and "offense" to the elves)? And perhaps most interestingly, what might Gandalf's motivations for such spectacle have been? (We certainly know that the Grey Wanderer is prone to unusual, even seemingly preposterous, actions, usually due to faith or great farsightedness...)

[FeRaL sHaDoW]

gandalfs hobbit slave trading plot is spoiled.

[Sardy]

Either that, or Valinor is in actuality the barony of Vulgaria... Or the City of Lost Children!

[Sardy]

I should thank The Might for providing this quote, in another context, in this thread: http://forum.barrowdowns.com/showthr...493#post504493

For the Elves of the High Kindred had not yet forsaken Middle-earth, and they dwelt still at that time at the Grey Havens away to the west, and in other places within reach of the Shire. Three Elf-towers of immemorial age were still to be seen on the Tower Hills beyond the western marches. They shone far off in the moonlight. The tallest was furthest away, standing alone upon a green mound. The Hobbits of the Westfarthing said that one could see the Sea from the lop of that tower; but no Hobbit had ever been known to climb it. Indeed, FEW HOBBITS [my caps] had ever seen or sailed upon the Sea, and fewer still had ever returned to report it. Most Hobbits regarded even rivers and small boats with deep misgivings, and not many of them could swim. And as the days of the Shire lengthened they spoke less and less with the Elves, and grew afraid of them, and distrustful of those that had dealings with them; and the Sea became a word of fear among them, and a token of death, and they turned their faces away from the hills in the west.

But the same quote (see my highlights) is certainly just as applicable to this discussion. A few questions, in light of our recent speculation, come immediately to mind:

It's said that the sea could be seen from the tallest tower's top, yet no Hobbit had ever climbed it. This seems like the same sort've rumour and innuendo as Gandalf has (seemingly) spread though the Shire and filled dear Bilbo's head with in The Hobbit excerpts quoted above. I am forced to wonder what the old wizard's motivations for such rumour-mongering might have been...

Moving on, it's now re-affirmed that Hobbits (albeit few) have indeed set sail into the Blue! (At Gandalf's prompting?, one must wonder...). Frightenly however, "fewer still had ever returned to report it." Where are those Hobbits now? Cast overboard by angry elves? Sitting on a beach in Valinor drinking ale from coconuts? In a Maiar prison camp?

[Findegil]

Are we assuming that the only use Cirdans fok made of ships was to sail into the West? Isn't that a bit short minded?

At least on sailing trip is told that aimed not into the West - the rescue ship for Arvedui. I am sure that from Mithlond Elves sailed each and every day to return in the evening for the simple reason of fishing. If we assume that a few adventours Hobbits arrived a Mithlond and heired to one of that fishing ships there is no need to wonder were they got to in the end. If they did not return into the shire, they would die of old age in Mithlond - that all.

There is no need to speculate over any secret trip of a Hobbit to Valinor. For the closed and conservativ society of the Shire the disapearance of a Hobbit and the rumour that he had gone in the direction of Mithlond would be enough for such tales as we get from Bilbo.

Respectfully
Findegil

[Sardy]

Originally Posted by Findegil

There is no need to speculate over any secret trip of a Hobbit to Valinor.

Sure there is! Because speculating is fun, it's a fascinating topic, and the clues are all there...

[Rumil]

Could the hobbbit mariners have boarded ships at Tharbad? This seems an easier explanation than stowing away on elvish ships. As for 'the other side' surely whatever destination the ships reached would have been viewed as 'the other side' by the hobbit stowaways?

[Folwren]

Supposing that Hobbits actually did stow away in ships, about what time/year did they do it, do you suppose? Was it before Bilbo's time, or was it while Bilbo was yet a child?

-- Folwren

[davem]

Well, in the 1960 re-write the passage becomes "& even trying to sail in ships'. Bilbo's voice sank almost to a whisper 'To sail, sail away to the Other Shore." So, the later view was that they tried to sail in ships - which implies that they may have attempted to stow away but always got caught....

[Folwren]

Huh. That's possible. But what time would it have been?

[Rumil]

Hi all,

the Hobbit mariner Isengar is mentioned in the family trees in the Appendices. Isengar Took was in fact one of Bilbo's many uncles, his entry goes-

Isengar 1262-1360 (said to have 'gone to sea' in his youth)

Now this is in Shire Reckoning so equates to 2862-2960 TA. One revealing entry in the 'Tale of the Years' is 2912, the year after the Fell Winter, when there were great floods in Minhiriath and Enedwaith and Tharbad was ruined and deserted. Therefore, if Isengar did sail from Tharbad, it was probably sometime between 2882 and 2911. Having survived his adventure, Isengar was still alive during the events of The Hobbit, and no doubt viewed his nephew in rather a different light after this!

Another potential mariner was Hildifons Took, one of Isengar's older brothers who was born in 1244 and 'went on a journey but never returned'. I wonder if Isengar originally went journeying to look for his missing brother?

[Knight of Gondor]

The Hobbit has such a different feel and flavor, as opposed to Lord of the Rings. Yet I like them both in their own different ways. The Hobbit is kind of like the warm bread before the main course.

If you're reading it aloud, I hope you know there's no other way to do it but with a British-accented narrator voice?

One thing that jumps to my mind when I read the final version you quoted, in the RotK Appendices, there is mention of the Shire sending hobbit-archers to the King's aid. (Pre-LotR events, I believe.) Some of the more educated opinions from annotated editions still point towards frolics off to the Grey Havens and beyond, though Valinor does not seem to me a place one "frolics" to.

[Damrod]

The "Other Side" quote seems pretty evocative of the Uttermost West, but I have a feeling that is why it was changed in the later editions. In the narrative of FotR Bilbo was described as having run off into the Blue as well. I really doubt in Tolkien's mind random hobbits could stow away to Valinor, but it is still fun to speculate.

[William Cloud Hicklin]

Ah, but in the Third Age the world was round and there were 'new lands like to the old lands'- analogs of the Americas. We know that Dunedainic (presumably Gondorian) mariners succeeded in 'setting a girdle about the earth,' Magellan- like. A Hobbit conceivably could have wound up on one of these trans-Belegaer Mannish ships, without any reference at all to Valinor (since the Straight Road was closed to all but Elvish vessels).