Gems of Long Lake (new discoveries)

[Huinesoron]

I've just stumbled across one that tickled me immensely:

Originally Posted by The Hobbit - An Unexpected Party

"Gandalf, Gandalf! Good gracious me! Not the wandering wizard that gave Old Took a pair of magic diamond studs that fastened themselves and never came undone till ordered? Not the fellow who used to tell such wonderful tales at parties, about dragons and goblins and giants and the rescue of princesses and the unexpected luck of widows’ sons?"

My first thought on 'widows' sons' was Aragorn: at the time Bilbo is speaking, he's ten years old and living with his widowed mother in Imladris. The Lord of the Rings, in some part, is the story of a country widow's son who grows up to become a king - a classic fairytale of the sort that Bilbo is describing.

But then I discovered that Belladonna Took died eight years after her husband - making Bilbo himself a widow's son - and indeed, Gandalf calls him just that: "To think that I should have lived to be good-morninged by Belladonna Took’s son, as if I was selling buttons at the door!"

Was there ever a widow's son who had more luck (both good and bad) than Bilbo Baggins of Bag-End? He may not have rescued any princesses, but dragons and goblins and giants - oh my!

hS