Bag End facts for kids
Bag End is the underground dwelling of the Hobbits Bilbo and Frodo Baggins in J. R. R. Tolkien's fantasy novels The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. From there, both Bilbo and Frodo set out on their adventures, and both return there, for a while. As such, Bag End represents the familiar, safe, comfortable place which is the antithesis of the dangerous places that they visit. It forms one end of the main story arcs in the novels, and since the Hobbits return there, it also forms an end point in the story circle in each case.
Tolkien described himself as a Hobbit in all but size. Scholars have noted that Bag End is a vision of Tolkien's ideal home, and effectively an expression of character. Peter Jackson built an elaborate Hobbiton film set including a detailed Bag End in New Zealand for his The Lord of the Rings film series.
Description
J. R. R. Tolkien
The Hobbit begins with "among the most famous first lines in literature":
In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort.
The protagonists of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, Bilbo and Frodo Baggins, lived at Bag End, a luxurious smial or Hobbit-burrow, dug into The Hill on the north side of the town of Hobbiton in the Shire's Westfarthing. Tolkien made drawings of Bag End and Hobbiton. His watercolour The Hill: Hobbiton-across-the Water shows the exterior and the surrounding countryside. Tolkien made several pencil and ink sketches for these subjects, only gradually settling on Bag End's final location and architecture.
Another of Tolkien's drawings, The Hall at Bag-End, Residence of B. Baggins Esquire, depicts the interior, complete with 20th century fittings such as a wall clock and barometer. Another clock is mentioned in chapter 2 of The Hobbit. The barometer is mentioned in Tolkien's drafts of The Hobbit.
Peter Jackson
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Peter Jackson had an elaborate Hobbiton film set built on the Alexander sheep farm at Matamata in New Zealand for his The Lord of the Rings film series. It included a water-mill, the Green Dragon Inn, and several Hobbit-holes as well as Bag End in a small hill, with garden. Jackson said of the set, "It felt as if you could open the circular green door of Bag End and find Bilbo Baggins inside."
Chad Chisholm and colleagues, reviewing Jackson's 2012 film The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey for Mallorn, write that Jackson humorously has the "rough and ready" Dwarves "bursting into Bilbo's neat little home and cleaning out his pantry", providing "a sort of constant comic relief to the dangers in the dark".
Parody
The 1969 parody novel Bored of the Rings, written by the National Lampoon founders Henry Beard and Douglas Kenney, mocks Frodo's homecoming from his dangerous quest to Bag End with the words "he walked directly to his cozy fire and slumped in the chair. He began to muse upon the years of delicious boredom that lay ahead. Perhaps he would take up Scrabble".
See also
In Spanish: Bolsón Cerrado para niños
