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