Bilbo Baggins and the art of learning to walk

Bilbo Baggins had no intention whatsoever of going on an adventure. He lived comfortably in his hobbit-hole, enjoyed a well-stocked pantry, and considered adventures to be disagreeable events that disrupted mealtimes. And yet one morning a wizard named Gandalf appeared at his door and set in motion a story that would change forever the way he understood the world (J.R.R.Tolkien, The Hobbit).

The curious thing is that Bilbo would not discover his greatest treasure in the depths of the Lonely Mountain, but along the roads that led him there. Because in J. R. R. Tolkien’s imagination, the Road is never simply the distance separating one place from another. It is the space where a person discovers who they are and who they might become.

The first step: leaving the known behind

When Tolkien published The Hobbit in 1937, he offered his readers a story that seemed to follow a simple structure: a protagonist leaves home, crosses unknown territories, overcomes difficulties and finally returns. The original subtitle itself, There and Back Again, announces that circular journey.

But beneath that apparent simplicity lies a deep intuition: no truly important journey allows you to come back as exactly the same person.

At the outset, Bilbo represents our resistance to leaving the familiar. His house is not merely a comfortable dwelling; it is an entire universe of habits, securities and small certainties. Adventures belong to other people. He prefers to contemplate them from the tranquillity of his armchair.

That is why his departure is so significant. Bilbo does not set out on the Road because he has discovered some great heroic vocation — if anything, it is an uncomfortable small voice, the Took side within him. He leaves almost headlong, dragged along by events he barely understands. He is not prepared for the discomforts awaiting him. And yet he begins to walk.

In that decision lies perhaps the first lesson of his story: we do not always need to know the destination in order to dare to take the first step.

When the Road is no longer a tale

The first days soon show Bilbo that travelling the world is very different from listening to stories by the fire.

There is rain, hunger, exhaustion, uncomfortable nights and unexpected dangers. Tolkien’s roads are not simple lines drawn on a map. They have mud, stones, gradients, darkness and distances that seem endless.

This attention to the physical experience of travel is no accident. In 1911, Tolkien took part in a long walking expedition through the Swiss Alps. Decades later he recalled that adventure and acknowledged that it had inspired Bilbo’s journey from Rivendell into the Misty Mountains and his subsequent descent. The writer knew at first hand the weight of a pack, the uncertainty of mountain paths and the difficulty of walking for whole days at a stretch.

Anyone who has undertaken a long walk or a pilgrimage recognises this discovery easily. At first you imagine the landscape, the encounters, the satisfaction of reaching the goal. Then comes the reality of the body: tired feet, thirst, the weather, the need to find shelter. The Road then reminds us of something everyday life allows us to forget: we are vulnerable, and we need to learn to live with our limits.

Nobody truly walks alone

Although Bilbo leaves Bag End accompanied by Gandalf and thirteen dwarves, their presence seems to answer a practical necessity rather than any relationship of friendship. He himself wonders on numerous occasions what he is doing so far from home.

But the Road slowly alters relationships. Sharing dangers, food, decisions and moments of uncertainty creates bonds that would hardly have been born in other circumstances. The small hobbit, initially regarded as a burden, ends up becoming indispensable.

Tolkien also gives extraordinary importance to the stops along the way. Rivendell, the house of Beorn and other places of welcome show that travelling does not mean remaining continually in motion. Rest, a shared table, a conversation or the advice of someone who knows the territory form part of the journey as much as the paths covered.

This is one of the most human dimensions of the Road. The traveller needs hospitality, but also learns to receive it. He discovers that his autonomy has limits, and that sometimes carrying on depends on the generosity of a stranger.

Getting lost in order to find yourself

One of the most revealing episodes in The Hobbit occurs when Bilbo is separated from his companions in the depths of the Misty Mountains. There, far from the safety of the group, he meets Gollum and must rely on his own wits to survive.

Later, in Mirkwood, he will again face situations in which nobody can decide for him. His intervention against the spiders and his ability to free the dwarves show how much that hobbit who feared missing a meal has changed.

But Tolkien does not identify maturity solely with courage or with the ability to solve problems. The deepest change appears when Bilbo develops a moral judgement of his own.

During the conflict provoked by the treasure of the Lonely Mountain, he decides to hand over the Arkenstone in order to facilitate a negotiation and prevent a confrontation. He knows his decision may cost him Thorin’s friendship, but he ends by discovering that true greatness can consist in renouncing what others desire to possess. He is still Bilbo: small, fond of good food and deeply attached to his home. What has changed is the way he positions himself in the world.

Waybread for pilgrims: Lembas in Middle-Earth –and beyond

Returning is not going back

When Bilbo finally returns to Bag End, he finds an almost comic scene: his belongings are being auctioned because his neighbours believe him dead.
After crossing mountains, escaping dangerous creatures and facing a dragon, he must resolve a far more domestic problem: recovering his own furniture.

Tolkien thus introduces an extraordinary irony. The hero comes home, but the everyday world does not receive him as he expected. What is more, his reputation as a respectable hobbit has been seriously damaged.

Bilbo, however, no longer grants those opinions the importance they once had. He has discovered other landscapes, other ways of living and other ways of understanding the worth of people. His home remains dear to him, but it no longer represents the limits of his universe.

That is one of the great discoveries of any transformative journey. Returning does not simply consist in covering the same itinerary in the opposite direction. The point of departure may remain almost identical, while our way of seeing has changed completely.

The Road that never ends

Many years later, in The Lord of the Rings, we find an aged Bilbo whose relationship with roads is surprisingly different. That hobbit who had considered adventures a nuisance now feels the desire to leave once more.

During his birthday party he departs from the Shire and sets out on another journey, this time by his own decision. He no longer needs Gandalf and a company of dwarves to drag him out of Bag End. The change is revealing: Bilbo has stopped being someone who flees adventures and become someone who seeks new horizons. But his most important legacy is not only his own experience. It is also a way of understanding the Road that he passes on to Frodo.

As he warns him, it is “a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door” — step onto the road, and there is no telling where you might be swept off to. Frodo’s adventure will differ from Bilbo’s. His journey toward Mordor will carry a more painful weight and far deeper consequences. Yet both share one fundamental experience: leaving the safety of home transforms forever your relationship with the world.

Bilbo’s song about the road that goes ever on expresses precisely that continuity. There are paths that seem to extend beyond any individual destination, as though each traveller took part for a time in a story far larger than their own.

The traveller’s true treasure

At the beginning of The Hobbit, Bilbo Baggins believes that a happy life consists in remaining safe from unexpected events. By the end of his story, he understands that safety and fulfilment are not necessarily the same thing. He has known fear, fatigue, friendship, loss and uncertainty. He has also discovered the joy of encounter, the satisfaction of overcoming difficulties and the freedom of looking at the world without continually depending on the opinions of others.

Tolkien does not tell us that it is necessary to abandon home for good in order to find a more authentic life. He shows us that we can learn to love it differently once we have known the world.

The “hobbit path” to Clonmacnoise

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