Farmer Maggot

The farmer of the Marish

Maggot farmed the rich land of Bamfurlong in the Marish, the low, wet country of the Eastfarthing along the Brandywine, where the Stoorish strain of the Shire-folk was strongest and the hobbits still wore dwarf-boots in muddy weather. He was a stout, broad, red-faced hobbit of great presence, a grower of the best mushrooms in the Shire and a man of standing in his district, with a large family and three enormous dogs named Grip, Fang and Wolf. Frodo, as a boy at Brandy Hall, had raided his mushroom-fields more than once, been caught, beaten, and shown the dogs; twenty years later he still went in fear of them, and had kept clear of Maggot's land ever since.

The Black Rider

On 25 September 3018 Frodo, Sam and Pippin, cutting across country to avoid the road, came down out of the Woody End into Maggot's fields. The farmer, far from pursuing an old grudge, brought them into his kitchen, where he told them that a Black Rider had come to his gate that very day, hissing at him for news of Baggins. Maggot had told it to get off his land and had set the dogs on it, and the dogs had run howling from the thing. He put the pieces together with a shrewdness that surprised Frodo: whatever Mr Baggins was carrying, it was something a good deal bigger than himself. After dark he loaded the three hobbits into his wagon, drove them under a covering of blankets down the lane to the Bucklebury Ferry, and when a cloaked rider loomed out of the fog ahead he faced it with a stick until it turned out to be Merry. His parting gift was a basket of mushrooms from Mrs Maggot, which Frodo valued more than the ride.

A friend of Bombadil

Maggot's importance in the story is greater than his brief appearance. He was one of the few Shire-hobbits who went into the Old Forest and beyond, and Tom Bombadil, who did not care for most folk, spoke of him with respect as a hobbit with wisdom in him and earth under his fingernails, one who kept his eyes open and did not bother with cleverness. Tom had news from him and, it seems, visited him. In the quiet way of the Marish, Maggot represents the sound, unsentimental wisdom of the Shire that made its people worth saving.

Presumably lived out his days at Bamfurlong; nothing further is recorded.