The One Wiki to Rule Them All
Register
Advertisement
The One Wiki to Rule Them All

Lotho Sackville-Baggins was a Hobbit of the Shire, hailing from the Sackville-Baggins family.

Lotho had a poor facial complexion for which he was called the "Little Pimple" or "Pimple".

Biography[]

Lotho was born in the year SR 1364 to Otho Sackville-Baggins and his wife Lobelia. He, like the rest of his family, was very unpopular and generally disliked in the Shire. Like his father and mother, he had always desired Bag End for himself - in the year SR 1418 of Shire Reckoning he had already waited sixty-two years for the inheritance, but was foiled when Bilbo's nephew Frodo Baggins was bestowed the home.

In TA 3012, after Otho had passed away, Lotho came to be considered a wealthy Hobbit through inheriting his father's pipe-weed plantations in the Southfarthing.[1]

In TA 3016 or TA 3017, Lotho began to quietly sell away the best Pipe-weed to Men, using great wagons at Sarn Ford, in exchange for money. Most of these Men were Ruffians in the employ of Saruman. Using this money, Lotho began buying up an excessive amount of property including inns, farms, malt-houses, leaf-plantations, and mills, supposedly including the Old Mill; while he kept his activities a secret, rumors of them inevitably spread throughout the Shire.[1]

In TA 3018, after Frodo sold Bag End to the Sackville-Baggins, Lotho arrived at Bag End with his mother after lunch on September 23 to inspect their new home.[2] A short time after moving into Bag End, Lotho had the Old Mill torn down, hiring outsiders to build a New Mill, bigger than the old one, in addition to other mills under the guise of grinding corn faster. By December, Lotho's trades with outsiders began to include things beyond just Pipe-weed. As a consequence, things began to become scarce as winter came and people started getting angry. To appease them, Lotho came up with an answer to their struggles; he invited some Ruffians among his buyers to stay in the Shire to assert his dominance. Initially, those harmed by the activities of the Ruffians were compensated by Lotho, but soon enough Lotho could not keep up with the Ruffions. After Will Whitfoot, the Mayor of the Shire, decided to journey to Bag End to confront him in protest, Lotho sent his Men to imprison him in the Lockholes.[1]

Not that long within the New Year, Lotho declared himself as the Chief Shirriff, calling himself the Chief. With the aid of Sharkey's Men under his command, the Shire became a totalitarian regime. Lotho restricted the inns to the Ruffians, made a new version of The Rules, and sent his Men to gather goods "for fair distribution". While anyone who disagreed with him was sent to the Lockholes, there was resistance to his rule. Fredegar Bolger led a band of rebels in the Brockenbores near the Hills of Scary, though Lotho's Men smoked them out, sending them to the Lockholes.[3] In Tookland, Paladin II Took also resisted and the Tooks hunted any Ruffian Lotho sent there.[1]

Eventually however, Lotho's regime came to an end on September 22[4] when he was stripped of his power after Saruman came to Bag End under the alias of Sharkey. Lotho was stabbed in his sleep by Gríma at the behest of Saruman (who suggests Gríma may have eaten him as well). Publicly, Lotho simply disappeared from the public eye and his mother was taken to the Lockholes.[1]

Etymology[]

Lotho is a representation of Lotha in the Shire-speech variant of Hobbit-speech, though it carried no contemporary meaning.[5]

Other versions[]

Originally, Lotho's name was Cosimo within early drafts. In one variant of a draft, he fought Sancho Proudfoot at Bag End being supported by his mother, Lobelia, who broke her umbrella upon Sancho's head.[6] Christopher Tolkien stated in a note to this draft that in these variants, Lotho had an overshadowed wife named Miranda,[6] though the character was removed in the very next draft.[7] In a separate draft, Cosimo's epithet was sandy-haired.[8]

In an outline sketching out the Scouring of the Shire, Cosimo industrialized the Shire with factories and smoke on his own without Saruman's aid.[9] In an early version of The Mirror of Galadriel, a very wealthy Cosimo is seen by Frodo buying a lot of property.[10] Tolkien wrote in some plot notes that the Sackville-Bagginses become pot-boys in Bree after they are kicked out of the Shire,[11] presumably including Cosimo.

In a draft of The Land of Shadow chapter, Sam speculated that Cosimo made a mess in the Shire, causing there to be trouble when they got back.[12] Tolkien wrote in another group of plot notes that Cosimo was driven out of the Shire after the Hobbits returned there.[13]

In a draft of the Many Partings chapter, Saruman directly mentions Cosimo when he genuinely warns the Travellers about events in the Shire.[14]

Upon mapping out a conversation, Tolkien was originally going to call Cosimo the New Mayor before changing this to the Chief Shirriff. In a later draft, the Bucklanders were going to be among those who rebelled against Cosimo (Fredegar, Tooks) as they would not allow him to dictate them. In another draft, Cosimo was going to drop "Baggins" and simply call himself Sackville. Eventually, Tolkien changed Cosimo to Lotho.[15]

The Lord of the Rings Online - Lotho Sackville-Baggins

Lotho Sackville-Baggins in The Lord of the Rings Online

In adaptations[]

Translations[]

Foreign Language Translated name
Arabic لوثو ساكفيل-باجينز
Belarusian Cyrillic Лато Сацквілле-Торбінс
Catalan Lotho Vilabossot i de Saquet
Chinese (Hong Kong) 傲梭·塞克維爾巴金斯
Danish Lotho Posenborg-Sækker
Dutch Lotho Buul-Balings
Finnish Lotho Säkinheimo-Reppuli
French Lotho Bessac-Descarcelle
Georgian ლოთო საჩქვილ-ბაგინსი
German Lotho Sackheim-Beutlin
Greek Λοθο τσουβάλιυιλλε-Μπάγκινς
Hebrew לותו סאקוויל-באגינס
Kannada ಳೊಥೊ ಸ್ಯಾಕ್ವಿಲ್-ಬ್ಯಾಗ್ಗಿನ್ಸ್
Russian Лотто Саквилль-Бэггинс
Spanish Lotho Sacovilla-Bolsón
Ukrainian Cyrillic Лото Сацквілле-Беггінс
Yiddish לאָטהאָ סאַקקוויללע-באַגגינס

References[]

  1. 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 The Lord of the Rings, The Return of the King, Book Six, Ch. VIII: "The Scouring of the Shire"
  2. The Lord of the Rings, The Fellowship of the Ring, Book One, Ch. III: "Three is Company"
  3. The Lord of the Rings, The Return of the King, Book Six: "The Grey Havens"
  4. The Chronology of The Lord of the Rings, pg. 84
  5. The Lord of the Rings, The Return of the King, "Appendix F", "On Translation"
  6. 6.0 6.1 The Return of the Shadow, "The Second Phase: XVI. Delays are Dangerous", pg. 276, 283 (Note 5)
  7. The Return of the Shadow, "The Third Phase (1): XIX The Journey to Bree", p. 324
  8. The Treason of Isengard, "II. The Fourth Phase (1): From Hobbiton to Bree", p. 32
  9. The Treason of Isengard, "II. The Fourth Phase (1): From Hobbiton to Bree", p. 216 (Note 7)
  10. The Treason of Isengard, "XI. The Story Foreseen from Moria", p. 249
  11. The Treason of Isengard, "XIII. Galadriel", p. 286
  12. Sauron Defeated, "Part One: The End of the Third Age: III. The Land of Shadow", pp. 32, 34
  13. Sauron Defeated, "Part One: The End of the Third Age: V. The Field of Kormallen: The Story Foreseen from Kormallen", p. 52
  14. Sauron Defeated, "Part One: The End of the Third Age: VII. Many Partings", pp. 65-6
  15. Sauron Defeated, "Part One: The End of the Third Age: IX. The Scouring of the Shire", pg. 77-9, 82-5, 88-92, 94-6, 97-9, 101, 103-4, 106-7, 110
Advertisement