On the Birthdays of Hobbits

In the opening pages of Lord of the Rings (LotR), Tolkien recounts the story of the "Long Expected Party."  In it he makes the point that Hobbits give gifts on their birthdays. In fact, they seldom go more than a week without receiving a gift from someone whom they know. This detail has always intrigued me. And tonight, I'm intrigued anew.

In the next chapter, we're told the story of Gollum––who he is, how he came to possess (or be possessed by) the Ring. We learn that Smeagol's people were very like Hobbits, short in stature, etc. But more than this, they were also made of sterner stuff, much like Hobbits. Gandalf muses that Gollum's ability to resist the pull of the Ring would surprise those even wiser than himself. Even before the Ring, his interest is under roots and under hills, and the Ring couldn't coax Gollum into power. Gollum only looked down (a reference to Augustine's looking in on ourselves, perhaps?). He cannot look up, and the Ring, if it was ever to get out of the caves, must leave him. 

But I suspect that Tolkien is hinting at something in the way that he tells Gollum's story in the second chapter. Hidden in one of Gollum and Bilbo's many similarities is a significant contrast: the birthday. Gollum acquires the Ring on his birthday––his birthday present, so went the lie he told himself. Smeagol (that is Gollum) told Deagol, his friend who actually found the Ring, to give it to him "because it's my birthday."  Deagol refused, so Smeagol killed him. Smeagol wanted a gift on his birthday. And in the end, he got one. 

But Hobbits give gifts on their birthday. Since I spend a lot of my time thinking about what kind of culture was formed by the OT Law, what struck me tonight is the culture that is created by giving gifts on one's birthday. This little piece of culture does something to Hobbits. Like a crooked sapling  pulled by the constant force of a wire, it grows them straighter. It forms them. And in the end, they are hardened, upright, and strong. At least in the fantasy world of The Shire, giving gifts allows Bilbo to do what no living creature before him was able to do: to give the Ring away. Of course, it took some coaxing by Gandalf, but in Bilbo's own words, he threw the Long Expected Party––giving gifts to everyone in the Shire on his birthday––so that it would be easier to part with the Ring.

I venture that celebrating others is one of those things that might form a person into selflessness. Celebrating others pulls on us constantly, forming and hardening us upright and strong. In the end I suspect that it might make it possible to relinquish the thing(s) that is most precious to us. A lesson we in the West desperately need to learn.

Hobbits give gifts on their birthday. I'm going to make it a point to celebrate others, too.