Alarmingly, the Dark Lord has risen again and is searching for his Ring in the Shire. Gandalf visits the Shire periodically over the next 17 years, and upon his final visit reveals to Frodo that he has learned the true nature of Bilbo’s magical ring-it is the One Ring that was created by Sauron to dominate all life on Middle-earth. Gandalf also departs the Shire after warning Frodo to keep the ring secret, for the wizard begins to suspect its dark nature. The elderly hobbit is extremely reluctant to part with the ring, but Gandalf persuades him to leave it to Frodo, and Bilbo leaves his home at Bag End feeling relieved of a great burden. Bilbo executes his plan and gifts the majority of his belongings to Frodo, including Bilbo’s magical ring. Only Frodo and the wizard Gandalf are privy to Bilbo’s decision to disappear from the Shire at his “eleventy-first” birthday party for one final adventure. Bilbo’s fellow hobbits mostly think him quite mad, but do not mind his eccentricities because he generously shares his wealth (gained from his Lonely Mountain adventures) with Shire residents. The party also honors his favorite nephew and adopted heir, Frodo, who comes of age at 33 on the same day. The Fellowship of the Ring opens with Bilbo about to throw a great birthday party to celebrate his milestone in reaching the significant age of 111. He is unaware of the Ring’s true nature and the danger its possession put him in. Bilbo’s magic ring gifts its wearer invisibility, and Bilbo largely uses it to aid his friends during adventure and to escape prying relatives once he returns home to The Shire. Along the way, Bilbo happens upon a golden ring that a miserable creature called Gollum has been in possession of for numerous decades. The narrator also relates the key events of The Hobbit (the prequel to The Lord of the Rings) in the prologue, where a hobbit by the name of Bilbo Baggins is thrust into adventure as he joins a party of dwarves who journey to re-take the Lonely Mountain from the ancient dragon Smaug. Hobbits are unobtrusive yet curiously tough peoples who share a love for the pleasures of domestic life, including consuming good food and drink, smoking pipeweed, and enjoying the orderly nature of their simple homes and businesses in the land of The Shire. The prologue sets the stage by describing the habits and traditions of hobbits, a small, good-natured, and pastoral folk who become surprising key players in the fate of the One Ring-a weapon belonging to the Dark Lord Sauron that will allow him total domination over the Free Peoples of Middle-earth.
Tolkien’s epic tale The Lord of the Rings. The Fellowship of the Ring is the first of three volumes that make up J.R.R.
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