CUL DE SAC in “Franglais” IMPASSE in French DEAD END in EnglishIf one wishes to study the design and view the interior of an ideal Hobbit smial, one could do no better than examine the home of the famous Bilbo and Frodo Baggins at Bag End. Considered the finest Hobbit hole in the ancient village of Hobbiton, it is a rather magnificent, but perfectly traditional, Hobbit smial.
The epitome of the country gentlehobbit’s home, it is well-designed, warm, cosy, and extremely comfortable, but without any grand pretensions. The no-nonsense nature of this family smial is emphasized by its name: Bag End.
There is an element of social satire here because Bag End is another of Tolkien’s Hobbitish linguistic jokes. Bag End is a literal translation of the French cul de sac: a term employed by snobbish British estate agents in the early twentieth century who felt the English dead end road was too common. The French cul de sac was considered more cultured, even though it is a term little used by the French, who commonly call such a road an impasse.
BAG END
CUL DE SAC in “Franglais”
IMPASSE in French
DEAD END in English
Tolkien’s Baggins family of Bag End are authentically Hobbitish and would have no truck with this kind of Frenchified silliness. However, this is exactly why the obnoxious, social-climbing side of the Baggins family took on the double-barrelled name of Sackville-Baggins. The facts that they came from Sackville in Southfarthing and insist on using this Frenchified double-name tell us everything we need to know about this branch of the family. Absurdly, the pretentious Sackville-Baggins accurately rendered would have been the ridiculous and down-market name of Bagtown-Baggins.
SACKVILLE literally translates as Bagtown
SACKVILLE-BAGGINS literally translates as “Bagtown-Baggins”*
All in all, Tolkien’s perspective on Bag End is a gentle satire of English middle-class “home and garden” society. As a rule, Tolkien despised the pretension and snobbery that looked down condescendingly on all things English. He preferred plain English in language, in food, in culture. The Hobbit home of Bilbo Baggins at Bag End is the epitome of everything that is honestly and plainly English.
Through the Hobbits at Bag End, Tolkien extols the Englishman’s love of simple home comforts. They are seen as both ideal and absurd: a view that is part delight, part mockery. All in all, it only seems surprising he didn’t write a parody aphorism along the lines of: “the Hobbit’s hole is his castle.”
DESIGN OF THE BAG END SMIAL
All Hobbit holes or smials follow a single fundamental plan. Although Bag End is more extensive than most, it does not depart from the basic design tenets of a typical smial. A central tunnel or smial is dug into a hillside. On either side of this corridor, rooms are excavated.
The central tunnel is usually dug parallel to the slope of the hill, entering it at one point and emerging via a back door at the other end. Rooms excavated on one side of the corridor will have round windows with garden views; rooms on the other side, naturally enough, will have none.
There are no stairs in Hobbit homes: the rooms are all on one level, and they are similar to those of Human country squires~although there is a rather heavier emphasis on large pantries, kitchens, and cellars for food and drink; and on wardrobes, chests, drawers, and closets for clothes.
Hobbits are fine and skilful craftsmen, so their homes are well made, from the polished brass knob on the round porthole front door to the polished brass knob in the round porthole back door. The tube-like central corridor and all the rooms are finely crafted with wood-panelled walls and beautifully tiled and carpeted floors. The rooms are all cosy and well ventilated, well lit and heated with substantial fireplaces. They are filled with exquisite hand-made furniture, all of which is neatly polished, painted, and fully upholstered for maximum comfort.
HERITAGE OF BAG END~THE HOUSE THAT BUNGO BUILT
Bag End was built by Bilbo Baggins’s father, Bungo Baggins. Oddly enough, this simple revelation leaves the reader open to a barrage of Tolkien’s dreadful Hobbitish puns pivoting on the word Bungo. Bag End was Bungo’s house; however, in original Hobbitish (in which masculine names end in a) his name was Bunga. Therefore Bag End was Bunga’s House, which was a bungalow, or a “low one-storey house,” which is a fairly accurate description of a Hobbit smial like Bag End.
BAG END
Bunga’s House Bungalow
Low One-Storey House
Bunga’s Smial Bag End
Furthermore, Bungo’s House is also Bungo’s Hole, and the common English term bunghole, as a place into which things are carelessly thrown, comes from the term bung meaning “to shut up with a cork or stopper.” This is evocative of the Hobbitish habit of filling their holes up with clutter, bunging things in and never throwing them away. Also, the bung hole in the end of a wine or beer barrel suggests the round door at the entrance of the Hobbit house.
BAG END
Bungo’s Hole Bunghole
Nor does it quite end there. From the sixteenth century to the early twentieth century the English slang term bung had a similar meaning to the word Bagg in Baggins: that is, a “purse or pocket.” Therefore, Mr. Bungo Baggins of Bag End could almost be reduced to a simplistic Mr. Bag Bag of Bag End.
BUNGO BAGGINS
Bung(o) Bung Purse Money Bag
Bagg Bagg(ins)
By the nineteenth century Bung had become a verb: to bung meant to throw away. From this came the slang bungo, which meant “to disappear”, especially in connection with money: literally bung-go, meaning “purse-gone.”
BUNGO
Bung-Go Disappear Purse-Gone Bag-Gone Baggins-Gone
It appears that Bilbo Baggins inherited not only Bag End bungalow from his father Bungo, but also the Baggins’s tendency to bungo (disappear). Bungo (and his wife) both went bungo after a boating accident, never to return. Bilbo Baggins went bungo twice: once after his “Unexpected Party” at the beginning of The Hobbit; and again after his “Long Expected Party” at the beginning of The Lord of the Rings. *
