When The Lord of the Rings begins, it seems as if Folco Boffin is destined for a role as a significant minor character among the Hobbit "gentry" who are relatives of Frodo. If not as important as Merry and Pippin, then at least as relevant as Fredegar ("Fatty") Bolger, or Farmer Cotton.
We hear in the first pages that Frodo had "a good many friends" among the younger hobbits who, as children when Bilbo resided there, were often in and out of Bag End: the first name mentioned is Folco Boffin, followed by Fredegar Bolger, then Pippin and Merry.
Later, when Frodo is about to leave Bag End and is packing his possessions to move to Crickhollow; we are told that "some of his friends came to stay and help with the packing: there was Fredegar Bolger and Folco Boffin...".
By that evening, only the special four friends (i.e. Folco, Fredegar, Merry, and Pippin) remain in Bag End to join Frodo in his final farewell birthday feast - and these four stay the last night.
But through all this there is an ominous foreshadowing of Folco's fate; in that he is never given a single line to speak, nor are his actions referenced...
It is as if Folco was a Non Playable Character in a computer game; or maybe an actor without an Equity Card, who can appear on screen, but is not allowed dialogue...
Because the next morning, as Frodo prepares to depart on his quest; Pippin stays to accompany Frodo on his walk (as well as Frodo's servant, not yet friend, Sam); and before lunch, Merry and Fredegar drove off with Frodo's furniture on a cart.
Frodo has his last Bag End lunch with Folco and Pippin. Just the three of them.
And then?
"Folco went home after lunch..."
Folco went home after lunch.
And is never mentioned again*.
Folco, one of Frodo's very best friends, just disappears - Forever!
When the travellers return to Scour the Shire; we are told about Fredegar's fate during the tyranny of the Ruffians; but we never hear a word about Folco.
Poor young Folco! - forever destined to be a Loose End, maybe a "nod"?...
*Except in the Boffin Family Tree** in the Appendix C, and then only in the posthumously revised version of Lord of the Rings, with its two additional Trees. But the fact that there exists a Boffin Family Tree - alongside others for Baggins, Took, Brandybuck, Gamgee, and Bolger - is further evidence to suggest that Folco was (at some point) anticipated to become one of five significant hobbit friends-of-Frodo.
**This is entitled Boffin of the Yale - who was called Buffo, and describes the relationship between Folco's lineage and that of Fredegar, Bilbo and Frodo. Bilbo and Frodo are descendants of Buffo's daughter Berylla (who married a Baggins); and Fredegar of Buffo's eldest son Bosco via his grandaughter Jessamine who married a Bolger.
However, Buffo's other two sons left no issue: Basso is "reputed to have 'gone to sea'"; while Briffo "removed to Bree".
From these clues I have philologically reconstructed what I propose is the original of the Northumbrian folk song, dance and nursery rhyme: "Bobby Shafto" - Shafto being the surname of an old family of minor gentry, owning several farms.
Of course, the words have been corrupted by cumulative scribal errors over the millennia, but the tune remains the same. This was, I believe, how it was originally sung by Bosco's wife (name unrecorded):
Basso Boffin's gone to sea
Briffo Boffin went to BreeBosco stayed to marry me
Bonny Bosco Boffin
From "The Istari" [i.e. "the wizards") chapter of Unfinished Tales (1982) we know that Gandalf's name was derived from an Old Norse name list, having the presumed Icelandic meaning of approximately "elf with a staff"; and this is supposed to be a translation into modern English of the Common Speech word of the Men of Northwestern Middle Earth.
Tolkien explains: "Gandalf was not an elf, but would be by Men associated with them, since his alliance and association with them was well-known." And also because Gandalf was observed to have lived many lives of Men.
We also learn that "Men perceived that [wizards] did not die, but remained the same (unless it were that they aged somewhat in looks)..."
From The Nature of Middle Earth, 2021 - in the chapter "Beards"; we discover "the fact that the elvish race had no beards".
Putting together elvish beard-less-ness which was presumably obvious to Men (who, the "Beard" chapter says, all had beards except for the Numoreans and those of other elvish descent such as Aragron and Imrahil); with the fact that Gandalf had been given the name of "elf" with a staff; it seems we must infer that Gandalf had no beard at the time he was given the name Gandalf.
Probably the characteristic Gandalfian beard was one of the signs by which men observed the Wizards had "aged somewhat in looks"?
