When Mr. Bilbo Baggins of Bag End announced that he would shortly be celebrating his eleventy-first birthday with a party of special magnificence, there was much talk and excitement in Hobbiton.

He walked briskly back to his hole, and stood for a moment listening with a smile.

A Long-Expected Party by J.R.R. Tolkien

The Talk did not die down in nine or even ninety-nine days. The second disappearance of Mr. Bilbo Baggins was discussed in Hobbiton, and indeed all over the Shire, for a year and a day.

The Shadow Of The Past by J.R.R. Tolkien

But in the meantime, the general opinion in the neighbourhood was that Bilbo, who had always been rather cracked, had at last gone quite mad, and had run off into the Blue. There he had undoubtedly and come to a tragic, but hardly an untimely, end. The blame was mostly laid on Gandalf.

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