#these comments also show how respectable and reliable the hobbiton hobbits find

[cantsayidont]

(Posting this separately rather than as a reblog of the item about Sam's inheritance struggles after LORD OF THE RINGS.)

We may speculate about what kind of dark allusions other hobbits might have made about Sam's return to Hobbiton following Frodo's suspicious disappearance (i.e., going over Sea with Bilbo, Gandalf, and the Eldar) at the end of LORD OF THE RINGS based on an earlier scene in "A Long-Expected Party" (the first chapter), in which Sam's father and other local hobbits are at the Ivy Bush inn on the Bywater Road, gossiping about Frodo's late parents:

‘But what about this Frodo that lives with him [Bilbo]?’ asked Old Noakes of Bywater. ‘Baggins is his name, but he’s more than half a Brandybuck, they say. It beats me why any Baggins of Hobbiton should go looking for a wife away there in Buckland, where folks are so queer.’ ‘And no wonder they’re queer,’ put in Daddy Twofoot (the Gaffer’s next-door neighbour), ‘if they live on the wrong side of the Brandywine River, and right agin the Old Forest. That’s a dark bad place, if half the tales be true.’ ‘You’re right, Dad!’ said the Gaffer. ‘Not that the Brandybucks of Buckland live in the Old Forest; but they’re a queer breed, seemingly. They fool about with boats on that big river – and that isn’t natural. Small wonder that trouble came of it, I say. But be that as it may, Mr. Frodo is as nice a young hobbit as you could wish to meet. Very much like Mr. Bilbo, and in more than looks. After all his father was a Baggins. A decent respectable hobbit was Mr. Drogo Baggins; there was never much to tell of him, till he was drownded.’ ‘Drownded?’ said several voices. They had heard this and other darker rumours before, of course; but hobbits have a passion for family history, and they were ready to hear it again. ‘Well, so they say,’ said the Gaffer. ‘You see: Mr. Drogo, he married poor Miss Primula Brandybuck. She was our Mr. Bilbo’s first cousin on the mother’s side (her mother being the youngest of the Old Took’s daughters); and Mr. Drogo was his second cousin. So Mr. Frodo is his first and second cousin, once removed either way, as the saying is, if you follow me. And Mr. Drogo was staying at Brandy Hall with his father-in-law, old Master Gorbadoc, as he often did after his marriage (him being partial to his vittles, and old Gorbadoc keeping a mighty generous table); and he went out boating on the Brandywine River; and he and his wife were drownded, and poor Mr. Frodo only a child and all.’ ‘I’ve heard they went on the water after dinner in the moonlight,’ said Old Noakes; ‘and it was Drogo’s weight as sunk the boat.’ ‘And I heard she pushed him in, and he pulled her in after him,’ said Sandyman, the Hobbiton miller. ‘You shouldn’t listen to all you hear, Sandyman,’ said the Gaffer, who did not much like the miller. ‘There isn’t no call to go talking of pushing and pulling. Boats are quite tricky enough for those that sit still without looking further for the cause of trouble. Anyway: there was this Mr. Frodo left an orphan and stranded, as you might say, among those queer Bucklanders, being brought up anyhow in Brandy Hall. A regular warren, by all accounts. Old Master Gorbadoc never had fewer than a couple of hundred relations in the place. Mr. Bilbo never did a kinder deed than when he brought the lad back to live among decent folk.’

So, while Sam was clearly very popular after the repair of the damage done by Saruman's ruffians — he went on to be elected mayor seven times — you can bet that even after the end of his seventh term, 55 years later, there were still old hobbits like these sitting around gossiping about whatever happened to Master Frodo, and what was all that queer and suspicious business about the Elves and the Sea?

The Prologue notes that "few Hobbits 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; the Sea became a word of fear among them, and a token of death." So, some hobbits probably regarded the assertion that Frodo went over Sea with grave suspicion even before getting into the question of whether they considered Merry and Pippin (or Sam) reliable witnesses, which is a whole other matter.

#books #lord of the rings #lotr #jrr tolkien #hobbits #gaffer gamgee #sam gamgee #frodo baggins #drogo baggins #the grey havens #when sam went over sea as described in the appendices #he went to the havens with his daughter elanor #presumably so there would be a witness to his departure #for when his kids ended up struggling through hobbit probate #these comments also show how respectable and reliable the hobbiton hobbits find #merry and his people in buckland #which is to say not very