When I was a child, my dad read the Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings series to me. Close to the beginning of The Fellowship of the Ring, there is a birthday party for Mr. Bilbo Baggins, hobbit. He is celebrating his “eleventy-first” birthday, and who shares his birthday, but Mr. Frodo Baggins, coming of age at thirty-three years old. Not eighteen, twenty-one, or even twenty-five. Hobbits are not considered “of age” until they reach thirty-three, and the first decade and a half after that they are still considered very young. The average hobbit’s lifespan is one hundred years, so fifty is middle age – consequently that is the age of each Mr. Bilbo and Mr. Frodo as they set out on their different quests. Both characters’ aging was drastically slowed when they came to be in possession of a particular ring, but that is a musing for another day.
Reflections on Thirty-Nine
Reflections on Thirty-Nine
Reflections on Thirty-Nine
When I was a child, my dad read the Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings series to me. Close to the beginning of The Fellowship of the Ring, there is a birthday party for Mr. Bilbo Baggins, hobbit. He is celebrating his “eleventy-first” birthday, and who shares his birthday, but Mr. Frodo Baggins, coming of age at thirty-three years old. Not eighteen, twenty-one, or even twenty-five. Hobbits are not considered “of age” until they reach thirty-three, and the first decade and a half after that they are still considered very young. The average hobbit’s lifespan is one hundred years, so fifty is middle age – consequently that is the age of each Mr. Bilbo and Mr. Frodo as they set out on their different quests. Both characters’ aging was drastically slowed when they came to be in possession of a particular ring, but that is a musing for another day.