Chapter One

In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Bilbo Baggins, of Bag End, enjoyed a simple life, a small garden and an extravagant home in the Westfarthing of the Shire. He lived alone, fond of the comforts of his hole, and fond too of its pantries, but he liked to entertain visitors and prided himself on being an exceptional host. It was late morning, and on this day Bilbo had no reason to expect company. He was sitting on a bench outside his front door, smoking a pipe of Old Toby and composing what he called poetry, when he noticed a stranger walking up Bagshot Row.

This was no ordinary stranger. From the height of him, this was one of the Big Folk, made even taller than necessary by the kind of pointed hat worn only, Bilbo realised, by wizards. He quickly shoved his notebook into his waistcoat pocket. The stranger continued up the hill, drawing closer until he reached the picket fence surrounding Bilbo's front lawn.

Bilbo stood up. "Good morning," he said. It would never do to appear anything but polite to a wizard.

"Do you wish me a good morning, or mean that it is a good morning whether I want it or not; or that you feel good on this morning; or that it is a morning to be good on?" the wizard asked.

Bilbo had no reply. For a moment he stood, open mouthed, feeling uncomfortably as though he had to say something, anything. "All of them at once," he said, and the two exchanged pleasantries.

Bilbo was only mildly discomforted until the stranger said, "I've been looking for someone to share in an adventure." At that point, there was nothing Bilbo could do except send the wizard on his way. As quickly as possible, the hobbit steered the conversation in the direction he wished.

"We don't want any adventures here, thank you. You might try over the Hill or across the Water," he suggested.

"Now you mean that you want to get rid of me." The wizard cut straight through Bilbo's attempt to head him off.

"Not at all," Bilbo said, trying his best not to sound rude. "I don't think I know your name," he added, sure that angering a wizard could come to no good end and desiring nothing more than to finish the encounter as soon as possible.

"You do know my name, though you don't remember that I belong to it. I am Gandalf."

Bilbo thought back to his childhood, and a memory floated into his mind of an old man, cloaked and wearing a pointed hat, with a staff much the same as the one this stranger carried. He remembered fireworks and tales told by firelight, and magic. Bilbo wasn't sure if he was less worried now, or more. The man in front of him seemed no older than the man in his childhood memory, and he set about trying to discern the truth of the matter.

For a few more minutes they talked, until Gandalf said, completely out of the blue, "I shall go so far as to send you to this adventure."

At this point, with no concern for behaving decently, Bilbo muttered a few polite nothings and bounced back inside his front door, which he shut quickly behind him.

Once safely inside his cosy hobbit hole, Bilbo put the entire unpleasant episode out of his mind. He sat at his desk, eating a second breakfast of eggs and bacon and concentrating on the poetry he had been working on, until it was time for lunch. At that point, he had entirely forgotten the morning's events. That afternoon he spent several hours in the garden tending to his vegetable patch, which every hobbit keeps growing all year round, then enjoyed fresh home grown carrots and potatoes with his dinner. He sat in front of the fire, smoking his pipe, completely content, until bedtime.

The following day, Bilbo remembered nothing of his encounter with the wizard. He spent the day in happy oblivion, not at all considering that Gandalf would actually send him on a real adventure. What would be the point? Hobbits as a rule are not fond of adventures, and the ones who are tend to be looked upon as something of an oddity. Farming, smoking pipe weed and drinking ale are much more suitable ways of passing the time, in the opinion of nearly all hobbits. Eating is a much more pleasant way to pass time in the opinion of every hobbit, and although adventures make for a fine tale, they also make their heroes late for dinner.

The very notion of a hobbit doing something unexpected and possibly dangerous was enough to make the hair on Bilbo's feet curl even tighter than it already was. He had not liked Gandalf's suggestion and, had he realised he had forgotten it, he would have been pleased at his lack of memory.

Bilbo had a very normal day. He went to the market in Bywater to sell carrots and buy broad beans then ate lunch in the Green Dragon inn with several acquaintances. He spent the afternoon working on the same poem as the day before and was close to finishing it when his stomach told him it was time for dinner. He was determined to complete the composition and put the kettle on, thinking he would settle for a cup of tea now and a chicken and mushroom pie later on in the evening.

Bilbo, like any hobbit, loved mushrooms. He never sold the mushrooms he had in the pantry, and often went off in search of new patches of wild ones. Tonight, he thought, he deserved a treat for completing his latest poem.

"Though it was day, to her surprise, they all went back to bed," he finally wrote, finishing the last verse with a flourish of his quill before cleaning the tip and stowing it safely away in a little drawer. He was on the way to the pantry, his mind on mushrooms, when the doorbell rang.