Okay, thoughts on Bungo Baggins…

He’s stated to be respectable and staid, well-to-do, rather a proper sort of Hobbit, and very well thought of. He’s described as ‘solid and comfortable’ – and Bilbo is supposed to be the spitting image of him.

I think Bungo was rather well-read. Bilbo is always quoting him, all those little axioms of his! ‘Third time pays for all’, etc. He also built Bag End! Guy wasn’t a slouch when it came to caring for his loved ones.

I think Bungo might also have had a pinch of the love of adventure that his son eventually acted upon so spectacularly. He did marry the famous and remarkable Belladonna, and she wouldn’t have married just anybody! I imagine that people simply didn’t understand their relationship very well, looking from the outside in. Belladonna brought adventure into Bungo’s safe, sedentary life; and Bungo gave Belladonna a safe harbour, a stability, a person that always meant home.

So, growing up, I think Bilbo would have adored his mother’s stories. I can imagine little Bilbo sitting upon his mother’s knee as she told him her tales, gazing up at her with shining eyes, while Bungo read in his armchair or sat smoking his pipe. Bungo would surreptitiously watch both those lively faces, full of joy and wonder and the love of faraway places, and feel a secret little leap in his stomach. Such remarkable Hobbits, his wife and his son. Though the whole of the Northfarthing called Bilbo the spit of Bungo, they couldn’t see this, couldn’t see that the lad really was his mother’s son. 

When the tale was done, little Bilbo would exclaim, “I will go there one day! I will!”

And although Bungo would shake his head and say, ‘never venture east, my boy!’, he probably did so with a little twinkle in his eye.