Third Time Pays For All: The Courtship of Bungo Baggins (with a side of Hobbiton's History)

 GIMLI: I do not really suppose that even now you are telling us all you know.

GANDALF: Of course not.

                            - The Quest for Erebor (variant text)

This is going to be about Bilbo's parents, but let's first talk about Hobbiton.

Hobbiton is, on the face, a rather silly name - literally just 'Hobbit-town'.  It might make more sense if it had been the only hobbit settlement... but it's not even the largest!   It is also unlikely the name that they would have given it.  So, what is going on here?

We know that a group of hobbits from Bree were granted the lands known as "the Shire" by King Argeleb II of Arthedain - with "Shire" likely an administrative name used in the kingdoms of the north, becoming "the" Shire when Fornost fell.  Marcho and Blanco crossed the old Bridge of Stonebows in 1601 TA and began settlement; the Stoors didn't follow until about three decades later.  One could argue that Michel Delving, the later nominal capital of the Shire, was the first settlement established - but the largest now does not necessarily mean the first, as history attests.  Instead, Hobbiton would seem more likely; one of the few facts about it is that it is one of the oldest settlements; it lies almost in the geographical center of the land, right off the East-West Road.  Note that it sits within a unique cluster of villages; Bywater just down the road, and Overhill on the other side of the Hill.  It's a fair assumption that this formed the original settlement of the Shire by hobbits.

In this case, the first town would have been called by Men as "the hobbits' town", despite whatever the hobbits called it; eventually the name stuck.  What was the name given by the hobbits?  One can give a guess based upon the nearby descriptive village names - and that Frodo used the name as an alias - Underhill.  Of course, by Bilbo's time, the core of the village had shifted to both banks of the Shire-water.

Let's now talk about the 'significant families' of the Shire; the Brandybucks and Tooks, certainly, and likely the Bolgers as well; the latter, with their 'family lands' based around the Bridgefields, would have been the front lines of the Shire's eastern borders at its most significant crossing.  But there's also the Baggins family.  For a people that were all solid and respectable, the Baggins family stood out from the rest.  Was there something notable about the family?  Considering that their 'home' is usually given as Hobbiton, one could assume that they are descendants of the earliest settlers - possibly even Marcho or Blanco themselves.

We now turn to Bilbo's father himself - Bungo.  

We don't know much about him.  He was the eldest son of one of the most respected families in the Shire, but not particularly well-off; he married Belladonna Took, one of the daughters of the famous Old Took himself, and used part of her money to build Bag End, one of the finest homes in the Shire.  Gandalf does mention that he (and Belladonna) both died at ages much earlier than most hobbits, leaving Bilbo alone; and Bilbo himself was said to be his spitting image.  There's one more interesting fact, thought - Bilbo three times quotes his father's sayings in The Hobbit!  Unlike a lot of Shire hobbits, whose folk wisdom tends to be more of the sedate variety, his sayings are interesting: 

"Third time pays for all", "Every worm has his weak spot", and "While there's life there's hope".

All three point to hidden depths.  There's one other indirect reference to Bilbo's parents in The Quest for Erebor as well.  In the main text, Gandalf mentions being impressed with Bilbo 'as a child, and a young hobbit' and had not quite come of age when he last came to the Shire - which would have been when the Old Took died.  I had speculated before that Bilbo, who had lived through the Fell Winter at the age of 21, might have impressed Gandalf with his courage at a young age when the Shire was beset; of course, his parents were also still alive at this point.  In an earlier version of the text, Gandalf explicitly states that he had 'known him once very well, almost up to his coming age, better than he knew me.'

Where would he have seen Bilbo on a regular basis?  We know that Gandalf regularly came to the Old Took's midsummer parties; as Bungo had married into the family, he likely would have come on a regular basis, bringing his son.  However...

... this long and winding road finally leads to my supposition here.  Bilbo's father, in fact, had at one time been an adventurer himself.  Not out of a love for adventure itself, mind you, but because of his love for Belladonna.  Like a recurring theme in Tolkien, Bungo could have been a member of a poor but respectable family that fell in love with the daughter of someone rich and powerful; her father indicates that he would have to prove his love in order to marry her.  Gandalf himself may have had a hand in 'suggesting' something for him; he returns, having proven himself in some way; marries the love of his life, and builds Bag End.  With the birth of his son, he devotes himself to being 'respectable' (but still never missing the midsummer celebrations) and any hobbitish disapproval of his adventuresome ways fading with time as he lives up to the 'dependability' of his family's name.  With the Fell Winter and the floods that followed, he and his wife may have put aside their domesticity and helped their fellow hobbits, to the detriment of their health and leading to their early deaths.  Bilbo may have been told tales by his father about his own adventures (whether or not he revealed they were about him!) and didn't seem to mind him asking Gandalf eager questions.  So, his questing might have run in the family - from both sides!

What type of quest did Bungo have?  That speculation runs around on a lack of detail; one could guess that he might have traveled southwards.  Tharbad still existed as a slowly dying city from ancient times before the Fell Winter; maybe he tricked some bandits, or took out a minor fearsome monster haunting the area, or retrieved something of deep symbolic value.

Certainly he would have been proud of his son and how his own adventure changed the entire world.