Law and Institutions
in the Shire
 

Now, I doubt that it has escaped anyone that the Shire had exactly such a practice, in the — to our way of looking at things curiously backward — hobbitish way of celebrating birthdays. Tolkien's letters in fact include (Carpenter, 1981, letter #214) a brilliantly lucid multi-page discussion of this custom, which he rightly notes "... opens yet more anthropological matters implicit in such terms as kinship, family, clan, and so on."

In brief, hobbits customarily gave presents away to others on their own birthdays, "as a recognition of services and friendship shown," and typically also held birthday parties at which all those attending received presents, The scale of the giving varied with the wealth and rank of the giver. Bilbo Baggins, for example, gave fabulously large parties and gifts, paid for with the proceeds of his journey to the Lonely Mountain. Other heads of wealthy families, though, such as the Tooks and Brandybucks, also appear to have given large parties and expensive gifts.

Such extensive gift-giving in fact played a vital role in the economies of societies at a certain scale of organization. These societies were those which exploited several different groups of resources, indistinct but geographically neighboring environments. A chief organized production by his efforts to accumulate resources for a feast, and distribution by his giving away food and other wealth at the feast. Tolkien hints at a lingering effect of this kind in his remark about the usefulness of many of Bilbo's gifts (Tolkien, 1965, p.65), especially to the poorer hobbits in the area. This economic pattern in fact existed long before anything resembling a market economy or the profit motive was thought of.

As a scholar of Northern European languages and literatures, Tolkien was certainly familiar with the kind of outlook that such a social order creates. Scandinavian kings, for example, were long praised as "ring-givers" for their habit of generously rewarding their followers. Even once a society has passed over the threshold of state formation, its upper classes may be expected to display their generosity at least on periodic ceremonial occasions or to selected people or families.