The Hobbit begins with Gandalf the Grey showing up (uninvited) in the Shire, “looking for someone to share in an adventure.” Bilbo, predictably, is horrified. (It’s striking to me that Bilbo had a Red Book, just like psychiatrist Carl Jung, whose accounts of his adventures into his own unconscious mind and inner world were just as fantastic and terrifying). There and Back Again was taken from Bilbo’s accounts from The Red Book of Westmarch, under the title The Hobbit. And finally, his return to the Shire with a treasure trove of wealth and experience. It describes Bilbo’s friendship with the wizard Gandalf and thirteen dwarves, his departure from the Shire, his encounters with goblins, elves, orcs, trolls, humans, woodland creatures, the wretched Gollum, and the terrifying dragon Smaug of Lonely Mountain.

So, here’s to the hero Bilbo Baggins (with Frodo getting an honorable mention).īilbo’s book about his adventures, There and Back Again, in essence summarizes Campbell’s hero’s journey: separation, initiation and return.

If Bilbo had not accepted his call to adventure, had not found The One Ring to Rule Them All and outwitted the creature Gollum to become its new owner, had not bequeathed the ring to Frodo, then the sequence of events and coincidences that led to Frodo being the hero in another larger adventure would never have happened. Mythologist Joseph Campbell (1949) writes about “The Call to Adventure” being the first step in the separation or departure stage of the hero’s journey. Until Gandalf the Grey, “that old, wandering conjuror”, approaches him with the offer of an adventure. He was Everyhobbit, living a comfortable and simple life in the Shire, doing things that hobbits do: spending lazy days reading in his cozy home in the ground, enjoying hearty meals (making sure never to miss second breakfast), and avoiding any disruptions to the normal order of things. He was the first adventurer, the reluctant hero. It was Bilbo who took in Frodo when Frodo’s parents died in a drowning accident. Then it occurred to me: surely he deserves more than a mere mention in the whole saga. But as I started writing about Frodo, I began to think about his uncle Bilbo Baggins of Bag End and felt I should probably mention him. I always thought my favorite hero’s journey was Frodo’s in Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, which was the story I intended to write about.

Journeys of frodo