Lord of the Rings: The Animated Musical

If you were a child in the late 19^th through early 20^th century in England, the Long-Expected Party would be an ideal celebration. For character references, consider the interests of the orphans in The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett for the early part of the period, and the Pevensie children in The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis for the later part of the period. The main difference between The Lord of the Rings and these other books is that Tolkien intended his work to be for adults but appropriate for children, perhaps allowing his older readers to reminisce about a happy childhood. Ever-youthful Bilbo may stand in for an energetic grandfather or uncle who was quick to tell jokes and generous with his gift giving. The party scene references fun and noisy things that hobbits and children like, including party toys, fireworks, and even an early railroad. This eclectic collection reminds historically minded readers that the Shire was inspired by late Victorian and Edwardian society while introducing a younger audience to their first anachronistic fantasy world.

Crackers & Toy Trumpets

As an American, I had no idea what this variation of crackers was until I researched the topic. Small fireworks were called firecrackers from 1580, but I was looking for a British product that came out in 1832 as a “bonbon cracker” or “bon-bon cracker” and was called “cracker” by 1844. The name is onomatopoeia, as the party favors make a loud cracking sound when open. The invention of these sometimes delightful, sometimes annoying toys is credited to Thomas “Tom” Smith of London, an up-and-coming confectioner with a common name. However, the timeline of the invention is hazy. While Etymonline reports 1832 as an earliest date, as the book Gale Middleton: A Story of the Present Day, Volume 2 by Horace Smith includes the phrase, art historian Christine Lalumia wrote for the BBC that the invention stems from 1847 after an 1840 trip to Paris inspired Smith to bake bon-bons. Smith’s memorial on Find a Grave also lists 1847, making a fifteen year discrepancy between dates. It seems most likely that an unknown person invented the cracker, but Smith popularized the cracker through successful marketing.

A pair of hobbit hands holds a green cracker with hobbitish runes spelling out 'DALE' on the wrapper

Today, crackers are most popular around Christmas time and are often called “Christmas crackers”. They no longer contain a perishable treat as they did during the mid-Victorian era but instead hold a cheap toy. The crackers given by Bilbo at his Long-Expected Party were evidently musical themed, as the naughty hobbit-children blew their toy trumpets during his speech until Bilbo took one away and blew back to silence the crowd. The earliest toy trumpets dated to the 18^th century, as the piece “Berchtoldsgaden Musick” or “Toy Symphony” was composed around the 1760s to 1780s. Significant debate around the composition argued that it was composed by Franz Joseph Haydn, his younger brother Michael Haydn, their friend Leopold Mozart, minor composer Johann Rainprechter, or Benedictine monk Edmund Angerer. At any rate, the first toy trumpets functioned similarly to real trumpets in miniature, while later patents showed trumpets with closed off bells to force sound through the valves or were glorified kazoos. Bilbo would give presents of the highest quality, so the older design was present at the party.

Fireworks

Middle-earth is a fantasy version of the ancient past, and hobbits are entertained by similarly ancient fireworks. Americans tend to associate fireworks with patriotic holidays, especially Independence Day, while British prefer a good Bonfire Night or Guy Fawkes Night, but the practice is hundreds of years older. People of ancient China are generally credited for creating the earliest fireworks during the Han dynasty, or between 202 BC and 220 AD. They combined charcoal, sulfur, and saltpeter to create huo yao, literally “fire-drug” or gunpowder, placed the powder in a bamboo tube and tossed the tube into a fire to create an explosion. Later, during the late 9^th or early 10^th century, they created flamethrowers to launch these bamboo tubes at their enemies.

While Chinese inventors discovered fireworks, Japanese inventors turned the practice into high art. Fireworks in Japan date from the Edo period, or between 1603 and 1868, as professional fireworks creators called Hanabishi designed the distinctive shapes that we still see today. Favorite Japanese designs include spherical peonies and chrysanthemums. Originally, these designs were only available in red and orange, but with the use of Western gunpowder, they now can create greens, yellows, blues, and purples.

A few Ring and Peony shaped fireworks explode in the dark sky

During this time, Europeans arrived in the East eager to trade for anything they could and steal anything they could not. Fireworks were on the list of must-haves for royals. Henry VII of Lancaster likely debuted public fireworks displays in England with his wedding to Elizabeth of York in 1486. Their granddaughter, Elizabeth I, loved fireworks so much that she hired a “Fire Master of England” to create shows, while her heir James II knighted his fire master. The favorite display at the time was a papier-mâché dragon filled with fireworks, likely the inspiration for the dragon firework at the Long-Expected Party. By 1749, composer George Frideric Handel (with alternative spellings including Georg, Frederick, Friedrich, Friederich, and Händel) was commissioned by George II to write Music for the Royal Fireworks as part of an event commemorating the end of the War of the Austrian Succession. Just like modern public events, a traffic jam caused major bridge backups and rain prevented the fireworks from going off. Politician and author Horace Walpole noted that there were “but two persons killed” during the fiasco, which makes me concerned for all the other events.

A group of hobbits wear party outfits and gaze up at the sky in astonishment

While fireworks were beloved in post-medieval Europe, their arrival to the continent came with a side of our old friend racism. A longstanding myth in the West stated that Chinese and Japanese gunpowder was only used for entertainment, not violence, but this was emphatically not true. Chemist-historian and Chinese culture expert Joseph Needham believed this idea was invented during Chinoiserie, or a trend during the late 17^th through 18^th century when Western Europeans connected with Chinese culture for the first time due to global trade. The style overlapped with Rococo designs derived in France but carried with it “a patronizing undertone”, emphasizing that Europeans and their aggressive, empire building cultures were superior to the seemingly antiquated lifestyles of East Asians.

A flaming dragon hovers behind the crowd of hobbits who hide behind each other or faint on the ground.

Moving past the early colonial era, America’s love of fireworks came directly from Founding Father and second U.S. President John Adams in a letter to his wife, Founding Mother and First Lady Abigail Smith Adams. He believed “Bonfires and Illuminations” were the best way to celebrate the pending Declaration of Independence, as he apparently preferred a fancy Latin term “illuminations” rather than the everyday Germanic term “fireworks” even if he used German capitalization practices. The only other synonym, pyrotechnic, would not appear until 1825.

Adams could not have imagined the amount of ruckus fireworks would cause for future Americans. Well-meaning social reformers who wish to quiet down the holiday have found themselves harassed by neighborhood kids, who in turn have horrific accidents. During the late 19^th through early 20^th century, celebrators frequently got tetanus or “lockjaw” from dirty wounds caused by fireworks injuries. While modern vaccinations prevent this disease, people continue to be injured or die from fireworks accidents in the United States. Nevertheless, all states except my own, the People’s Republic of Massachusetts, allow some form of fireworks to be purchased and set off without any licensing, and many states have no limit to the size of fireworks. At least the hobbits were bright enough to let Gandalf do the work and otherwise stay away from danger. For Gandalf’s fireworks show, I created Roman candles — although the hobbits might call these dwarf-candles — peonies, and rings, which alludes not so subtly to the One Ring.

The Express Train

Among the many puzzles of the language found in The Lord of the Rings is the phrase “express train” used to describe the fireworks dragon whizzing overhead and scaring many hobbits. This has been regarded by some literary analysts as a deliberate mistranslation, much like the words “tobacco” and “Christmas tree” that appeared in The Hobbit. While hobbits did not have the engine power required for a modern express train, if they were to use a similar method of transportation with the power they did have, they likely could use horse-drawn carts. The first bus was invented in 1662 by Blaise Pascal, a genius jack-of-all-trades from France who wanted to help out Louis XIV by giving the king yet another way to earn a lot of money: providing affordable public carriage services on a regular route. Unfortunately, by the time the plan was put into place, Pascal had already died at age thirty-nine, and his invention would soon follow. The enterprise had the name Carosses à Cinq Sous, meaning “Coaches of Five Pennies”, apparently the fare for a ride, and the plan might have been successful if not for a fatal flaw in the service: due to post-medieval feudalism, coaches only accepted nobility and gentry who likely already had coaches, not peasants who did not have coaches. As smart as Pascal was, perhaps he could not see beyond the prejudices of his time.

The horse-bus, short for horse-drawn omnibus, would not become popular among the masses until the 19^th century. According to the possibly biased Museum of Transport Greater Manchester, John Greenwood of Manchester started this type of bus service in 1824. His descendants, John Greenwoods II and III, operated the company until 1903. A great help to their business was the Tramways Act of 1870, a law that encouraged the creation not of bus routes but of track-based street tramways. The origin of this law came from an unlikely source: American-Australian George Francis Train who lived up to his unusual surname.

When Train was young and still mostly mentally healthy, he became world-famous for his love of transportation. The book Le Tour du monde en quatre-vingts jours by Jules Verne, known in English as Around the World in Eighty Days, was inspired in part by Train’s trip. Train ran for president, defended suffragists, rubbed shoulders with Boston Brahmin, narrowly avoided a scandal involving the financing of the construction of the Union Pacific Railroad, joined the gold rush in Australia, and most notably for our purposes, was adamant about creating a horse-drawn tramway in the British Isles. The concept of putting tracks on a perfectly good street was so shocking to Victorians of the 1860s that he was arrested on Uxbridge Road in London despite having a permit for the project. Within a few years, he apparently made enough fuss in a country where he was not a citizen that the government passed the Tramways Act.

A family of hobbits sits in a 19th century style horse-drawn tram as it pulls to a stop. Their relatives stand around the tram waiting for them.

Outside of Great Britain, tramways were set up across the Anglophone world. These received a variety of different names depending on the region. In the United States, these were considered horse-drawn railways. Among the oldest of these was Pontchartrain Rail-Road of New Orleans, LA, which predated the Tramways Act by forty years, as the railroad opened in 1830, although regular service did not begin until 1832. According to local historian Graham Cooper, now Creative Director and Lead Historian of Livery Tours on the Gulf Coast, both horse-drawn omnibuses and steam engines ran on the line until steam engines became safer, as they had no need to be fed, housed, and cleaned up after like horses. Hobbits loved their ponies and did not seem to mind chores when these were done with friends and a song. They would have preferred the traditional horse-drawn railroad to the steam-powered equivalent.

Illustrating the Party

Bilbo was known for his kindness and generosity to all hobbits in the Shire, even if his good deeds were not always appreciated. In my illustrations of his party, I wanted to show how all people enjoyed the festivities regardless of status, whether Sam and Rosie investigated a cracker brought all the way from Dale, Merry and Pippin explored the fireworks brought by Gandalf, the Took family arrived by the horse-drawn express train, or the whole company was frightened by the dragon firework. This scene is the last mostly carefree and whimsical moment before the audience realizes something is wrong with Bilbo and his magic ring, and I wanted to include as much childlike wonder as possible even as the underlying darkness of the story begins to seep in.