Bilbo has a beard?!?!

Gimli'sBox

Gimli'sBox

Gondor
(I'm not sure if this has been talked about before but, I thought I'd bring it up.)

The other day my sister (Wraith Buster actually) was reading the Fellowship. She noticed this:

".....Gandalf was thinking of a spring, nealy eighty years before, when Bilbo had run out of Bag End without a handkerchief. His hair was perhaps whiter than it had been then, and his beard and eyebrows were perhaps longer, and....."

Okay. I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE, LOVE, LOVE The Lord of the Rings and I understand that you can't get EVERYTHING perfect but, "Not the beard!" It just burns usss to read that. Hobbits don't have beards!

(If you want to read the whole thing it is in the second chapter "The shadow of the past" right after Sam has his talk in The Green Dragon. When Gandalf is talking to Frodo the next morning.)
 
Gandalf is thinking about Bilbo and picturing Bilbo long ago, running after the dwarves, while the narrator of the book is describing Gandalf, and also describing those thoughts Gandalf is having of Bilbo.

It all happens in such a short space, that I remember being taken aback more than once and had to immediately re-read it to figure it out. It definitely is Gandalf with the eyebrows and beard--remember how those eyebrows were said to stick out beyond the brim of his hat in the description of Gandalf at the beginning of the Hobbit. (My Grandfather-in-law could have been his eyebrow double--wish I had a picture!![:)])
 
It just burns usss to read that. Hobbits don't have beards!
Click to expand...

Some hobbits do have beards, or at least traces of them. Tolkien writes in the prologue to The Lord of the Rings — "The Hobbits of that quarter, the Eastfarthing, were rather large and heavy-legged, and they wore dwarf-boots in muddy weather. But they were well known to be Stoors in a large part of their blood, as indeed was shown by the down that many grew on their chins. No Harfoot or Fallohide had any trace of a beard." (emphasis added)

So, Stoors evidently did have a wisp of a beard. [;)]
 
I guess it does seem to be talking about Gandalf more than Bilbo. I really thought there was a problem there. LOL.

And now that you do say it I remember that one group of Hobbits did have a beard. But Bilbo wouldn't. So in a sense the Hobbit I was referring to wouldn't have one but, that isn't to say that "Hobbits don't have beards". If you follow me.

Thanks everyone! It's good to have geeky friends!
 
I always wondered about Gollum. What do you think of him - did he have a beard?

But on the other hand, won't the Gaffer and Sandyman comment on it in the first chapter? That would probably occupy a prominent place in the anti-Buckland prejudices!
 
If I understand correctly Gollum was related to the Stoors who has the wisps of a beard? So it is really possible that he may have had a beard at one time. I wonder if PJ ever thought about that? But, probably after 500 years one wouldn't have much hair let alone a beard.
 
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