Freitag, 22. Juni 2018

Wednesday, 22 June 2942 T.A.: Grubb, Grubb, Burrowes

On this day, in 22 June 2942 T. A., Bilbo Baggins finally returned from his 14 months voyage to Bag-end: a rich hobbit, but at the verge of losing his home, for he had been declared dead in the meantime and Messrs Grubb, Grubb and Burrowes were auctioning his property away. Sic transit gloria hobbiti. 

The voyage back from Rivendell had taken him as much as the voyage out, and this would no doubt have needed a drastic reduction of the timeline, had the 1960 revision of "The Hobbit" ever reached this state. Very likely, 22 June could not have been retained as the day of returning: The stay in Beorn's Hall had already been excessively long, anyway. 

It is not evident what Gandalf did to remove the protective spells on the troll-hoard on the way home, if they were indeed more than symbolic. At any rate, Gandalf's prediction that Bilbo 'may find you have more needs than you expect' had come true. 

It is interesting to note that in the original 1937 Hobbit, when the dates given were still Gregorian, Bilbo returned home at the summer solstice, though it is not referred to as Midsummer's Day like in Elrond's house a year before, in 2941 T.A. This connexion was lost, of course, when Tolkien decided to accept all given dates as Shire Reckoning (S. R.), and 22 June became just a normal day like any other.

The moon, by the way, was waxing gibbous, but no one that day bothered to record it.

This is the final entry of the Hobbit timeline as established from canonical data and reasonable conjecture. The full timeline, synchronised with the lunar phases of 2017 and 2018 A. D., is available on this blog and on paper in the volume, "The Moon in 'The Hobbit' - Extended Edition".