In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort.
It had a perfectly round door like a porthole, painted cheerful green, with a shiny brass knob in the exact middle. The door opened into a tunnel-shaped hall like a tube: a very comfortable tunnel without smoke, with panelled walls, and floors tiled and carpeted, provided with polished chairs, and racks and shelves for hats and coats—the hobbit was fond of visitors. The tunnel wound on and on, going fairly but not quite straight into the side of a hill—The Hill, as the folk of Oakenshaw called it for miles around—and many little round doors opened out of it, first on one side and then on another. No going upstairs for the hobbit: bedrooms, bathrooms, cellars, pantries (lots of these), wardrobes (he had whole rooms devoted to clothes), kitchens, dining-rooms, all were on the same floor, and indeed on the same passage. The best rooms were all on the left-hand side going in, for these were the only ones to have windows, deep-set round windows overlooking his garden and the meadows beyond, sloping down to the river.
This hobbit was a very well-to-do hobbit, and his name was Bungo Boffin. The Boffins had lived in the neighbourhood of Oakenshaw for time out of mind, and people considered them very respectable, not only because most of them were rich, but also because they never had any adventures or did anything unexpected: you could tell what a Boffin would say on any question without the bother of asking him. This is a story of how a Boffin had an adventure, and found himself doing and saying things altogether unexpected. He may have lost the neighbours' respect, but he gained—well, you shall see whether he gained anything in the end.
The mother of this particular Boffin—of Bungo Boffin, that is—was the famous Mimosa Took, one of the three remarkable daughters of the Old Took of Great Smials in the land beyond the river. It was often said (in other families) that long ago one of the Took ancestors must have taken a fairy wife. That was, of course, absurd, but certainly there was something not entirely hobbit-like about them, and once in a while members of the Took-clan would go and have adventures. They discreetly disappeared, and the family hushed it up; but the fact remained that the Tooks were not as comfortable as the Boffins. Not that Bungo Boffin was anything like a Took in his nature—not at first, anyway. His mother Mimosa was quite old, well past seventy, when he was born, and he was her youngest child and only son; so he grew up to be as Boffin as anyone could wish, and was considered by the neighbours to be quite a safe sort of hobbit, just like his father, the respectable Rollo Boffin. He had no adventure in him—or so they thought.
He lived in his comfortable hole in The Hill for many years, and did very little except eat six meals a day (when he could manage it) and tend his garden. He had a fine vegetable patch at the back of his hole, where he grew the best potatoes in the district, and his tomatoes were famous as far away as Littlehampton across the river. His front garden was given over entirely to flowers, and to his prize-winning dahlias, which he entered every year in the Oakenshaw Horticultural Show. He had won first prize for seven years running, and the neighbours said it was a scandal—though they always voted for his dahlias anyway.
The village of Oakenshaw lay in a pleasant valley between low green hills, through which ran the clear, swift waters of the River Shale. It was not a large village—perhaps fifty holes on the hillsides, and another thirty wooden houses down by the water for those folk who preferred windows on both sides—but it was a prosperous one. The soil was rich and dark, the climate mild, and the hobbits who lived there wanted for nothing. They had a mill on the river that ground their corn, a bridge of old stone that had stood for longer than anyone could remember, and an inn called The Prancing Pony—a name they had borrowed from a famous inn in the Shire, far to the west, from which their ancestors had come long ago in the time of the Great Wanderings.
The hobbits of Oakenshaw did not trouble themselves much with the affairs of the outside world. They knew that there were Men across the river, and Dwarves in the mountains to the east, and Elves in the deep woods to the north—or so the old songs said—but they had never seen any of these creatures, and were not sure they wanted to. Occasionally a travelling dwarf would pass through on the road from the east, heading for the towns of Men, and would stop at The Prancing Pony for a night's lodging and a mug of ale. The hobbits would stare at him from behind their curtains, and whisper about his beard and his hood and his strange foreign ways; but they would never dream of speaking to him, or asking where he came from or where he was going. That would be an adventure, and adventures were things best left to the Tooks.
Now Bungo Boffin had reached the age of fifty, which is early middle-age for a hobbit of good family, and was settled in his ways. He had his garden, his books (he was fond of books, though he preferred those with pictures of faraway lands to those with words about them), his pipe and his tobacco, his cellar of good ale, his pantry full of preserves and pickles, and his comfortable armchair by the fire. He wanted for nothing, and expected nothing to change. He was, in short, the sort of hobbit who would never have a story worth telling.
But his mother had been a Took, and Tooks have a way of turning up when you least expect them, even after they are dead.
It happened in this way. One afternoon in early spring, when the first daffodils were nodding their yellow heads in Bungo's garden and the air had that soft, mild smell that comes only in April, Bungo was sitting on a bench outside his round green door, smoking a long pipe and watching the clouds drift over The Hill. He was thinking about his supper—he generally was thinking about his next meal—and had just decided that he would have cold chicken and pickles, followed by apple tart and cream, when a figure appeared on the path that led up to his door.
It was a tall figure, for a hobbit. In fact, it was not a hobbit at all. It was a wizard.
Bungo knew it was a wizard at once, for though he had never seen one before, he had seen pictures in his books, and this person matched them exactly. He was an old man with a long white beard and bushy eyebrows that stuck out beyond the brim of his tall, pointed blue hat. He wore a long grey cloak over a blue robe, and at his side hung a great sword in a scabbard of black leather. He leaned on a staff of gnarled wood as he climbed the path, and when he reached the gate he stopped and looked at Bungo with eyes that seemed to see right through him.
"Good afternoon," said the wizard, in a deep, rumbling voice that sounded like stones rolling down a mountainside.
Bungo blinked. "Good afternoon?" he said, a little uncertainly. "Is it? I had not thought about it. But I daresay you are right. Would you like a cup of tea? Or something stronger? It is nearly tea-time, you know, and I always have a cup about now."
The wizard smiled, and his smile was like a crack in a mountain. "Tea would be very pleasant, Master Boffin. Or perhaps a little of something stronger, if it is not too much trouble. I have come a long way."
"Not at all, not at all!" said Bungo, jumping up and wondering why he felt so nervous. "Come in, come in! Make yourself at home. I was just thinking about supper, but tea comes first, always. That's what my old dad used to say: tea first, then supper, and breakfast after that if you can manage it. Ha ha!"
He laughed, but the wizard did not laugh. He only followed Bungo through the green door and into the tunnel, stooping slightly to fit under the ceiling, which had seemed quite high to Bungo until this moment. They passed through the hall and into the kitchen, where Bungo bustled about putting the kettle on and cutting slices of seed-cake.
"Now then," said Bungo, when they were settled in his parlour with cups of tea and plates of cake, and a small glass of something amber-coloured for the wizard (Bungo stuck to tea, feeling that he needed a clear head). "You know my name, it seems, but I do not know yours. Might I ask who I have the honour of addressing?"
"You might," said the wizard, "and you have. I am Gandalf. And Gandalf means—well, you will find out what it means, in time."
Bungo nearly dropped his teacup. "Gandalf! Not the Gandalf who told such wonderful tales at the parties of the Old Took, when I was a lad? Not the Gandalf who used to set off fireworks on Midsummer's Eve that would light up the whole valley? Why, I have not heard of you in years! I thought you had gone south, or east, or somewhere."
"So I have," said Gandalf. "I have been south and east, and north and west, and over the edge of the maps into places where the ink runs out. But I have come back, as you see. And I have come to see you, Bungo Boffin, son of Rollo."
"Me?" said Bungo, looking quite startled. "But why me? I am just a simple hobbit who likes his garden and his dinners. I don't know anything about adventures, if that's what you're after. I never had an adventure, and I don't want one, thank you very much. You'd best try the Tooks, over in Great Smials. They're the ones for adventures."
Gandalf laughed, and it was not a gentle laugh. It was a laugh like the crackling of a great fire. "The Tooks! Yes, I know the Tooks. I knew your mother Mimosa, when she was young. A fine hobbit she was, with more spirit than most. But it is not Tooks I am looking for, Bungo Boffin. It is a Boffin. A Boffin with Took blood in his veins, perhaps. A Boffin who is comfortable and respectable and would never dream of leaving home—until one day he does."
Bungo shifted uncomfortably in his armchair. "I don't know what you mean. I'm not going anywhere. I have my dahlias to think about. The Horticultural Show is in August, you know, and I intend to win for the eighth year running. I can't be traipsing off on some adventure when there's weeding to be done and watering to be attended to."
"The dahlias will wait," said Gandalf. "They will wait, and they will still be here when you return—if you return. But there are things in the world beyond this valley that will not wait. There are shadows gathering in the east, Bungo Boffin. Old evils are stirring, and ancient treasures lie forgotten in the dark. It is time for someone to go and see what is happening."
"Then let someone else go!" cried Bungo. "Let the Tooks go! Let the Men go! Let the Dwarves go—they're always going about on business, from what I hear. Why should a hobbit from Oakenshaw have to go anywhere?"
"Because," said Gandalf, and his eyes seemed to flash beneath his bushy brows, "because you are exactly the sort of hobbit who should go. You are comfortable, and content, and have no desire for adventure. That is why you will see things clearly. That is why you will not be fooled by glitter and gold. That is why you will come back—if you come back—and tell the tale properly. Adventures are not all dragon-fire and heroics, Master Boffin. Sometimes they are about a hobbit who just wants to go home, and finds that the only way home is through the fire."
Bungo did not know what to say to this. He sat in his armchair and stared at the wizard, and the wizard stared back, and the tea grew cold in his cup.
Presently Gandalf stood up. He was so tall that his hat brushed the ceiling, and Bungo had to crane his neck to see his face. "I must go now," he said. "I have other matters to attend to. But I will be back, Master Boffin. I will be back, and I will not be alone. There will be a knocking on your green door, one evening soon, and you will have a choice to make. Think about what I have said."
And without another word, he strode out of the parlour, down the tunnel, and out through the green door, leaving Bungo sitting in his armchair with his mouth open and his tea untouched.
For a long time Bungo did not move. He sat and stared at the empty chair where the wizard had been, and his mind was full of strange thoughts. He thought about the east, and about shadows gathering, and about ancient treasures lying forgotten in the dark. He thought about his mother, Mimosa Took, and the stories she used to tell him when he was small—stories of elves and dragons and distant lands where the trees had silver leaves and the rivers ran with gold. He had not thought of those stories in years. He had put them away, like old clothes that no longer fit, and forgotten them. But now they came back to him, and he felt a strange stirring in his heart that he could not explain.
Then he shook himself. "Nonsense!" he said aloud. "Pure nonsense! I am a Boffin of Oakenshaw, and I do not go on adventures. I have my dahlias to tend and my suppers to eat. The wizard can find someone else for his foolishness."
And he got up, fetched himself a fresh pot of tea and a large slice of cold chicken pie, and sat down to eat his supper. But the pie did not taste as good as usual, and the tea was somehow lacking in comfort. He found himself looking out of the window at the darkening sky, and wondering what lay beyond the hills that he could see from his door.