September 22

September 22 is the shared birthday of Bilbo Baggins and his adopted heir Frodo Baggins, a date that serves as the narrative and emotional anchor for the opening of The Lord of the Rings. In the Shire-reckoning, this day in the year 1401 marks Bilbo’s eleventy-first birthday—111, a number the hobbits consider curious and respectable—and Frodo’s thirty-third, the age of his coming of age. The coincidence of their birthdays had long been a family custom: Bilbo had brought Frodo to live at Bag End when the younger hobbit was still in his tweens, and they had celebrated combined birthday-parties together every year since. But the autumn of 1401 was understood to be something quite exceptional, and the rumour of the coming event travelled all over the Shire, making the history and character of Mr. Bilbo Baggins once again the chief topic of conversation.

The Party and the Disappearance

The day itself dawned fair and clear, as it had long ago for Bilbo’s great party. The festivities were held in a large field south of Bag End, with a specially large pavilion built around a tree, lanterns hung on its branches, and an enormous open-air kitchen erected in the north corner. Bilbo met the guests at the new white gate in person, giving away presents to all and sundry—a hobbit custom of giving presents on one’s own birthday. The presents were unusually good, including toys of real dwarf-make ordered a year before from the Mountain and from Dale. After the feast came the Speech, during which Bilbo, standing on a chair under the illuminated tree, announced that he was leaving immediately. He stepped down, slipped on the magic ring he had kept secret for so many years, and vanished with a blinding flash, never to be seen by any hobbit in Hobbiton again. The one hundred and forty-four guests were left flabbergasted, and the general opinion was that the joke was in very bad taste.

The Transfer of the Ring and the Burden

That same evening, after the party, Bilbo returned to Bag End and prepared to leave for good. In his study, he took out a large bulky envelope, slipped his golden ring and its fine chain into it, sealed it, and addressed it to Frodo. Gandalf, who had been waiting, insisted that Bilbo leave the ring behind. A tense confrontation followed, in which Bilbo’s voice grew sharp with suspicion and he called the ring “my Precious,” alarming Gandalf. At last Bilbo gave in, left the envelope on the mantelpiece, and departed with three dwarves into the night, singing softly about the Road going ever on. Frodo, who came in soon afterwards, found Gandalf sitting in the dark and was told that he was now the master of Bag End and that the envelope contained a golden ring. Gandalf warned him not to use it, to keep it secret, and to keep it safe.

The Aftermath and Frodo’s New Life

In the days following the party, Frodo found himself the centre of a commotion as false rumours spread that the whole household was being distributed free. The Sackville-Bagginses arrived, demanding to see the will, and Lobelia made off with several small but rather valuable articles. Frodo, exhausted, collapsed in a chair and declared the shop closed. That evening, Gandalf gave him a final warning about the ring, saying it was far more powerful and dangerous than he guessed, and that it would possess anyone of mortal race who kept it. He then departed, leaving Frodo alone with the burden. For the next twelve years, Frodo kept up the custom of giving Bilbo’s Birthday Party year after year, though he lived alone and grew increasingly restless, often wandering by himself under the starlight and feeling a growing regret that he had not gone with Bilbo. As his fiftieth birthday—September 22, 1418—drew near, he felt the number was somehow significant or ominous, and it was at that age that adventure had suddenly befallen Bilbo. The date thus marks not only the beginning of Bilbo’s departure but the moment when Frodo’s own journey becomes inevitable, as Gandalf’s return and the revelation of the Ring’s true nature follow soon after.