Hobbits are a fictional race of people in the novels of
J. R. R. Tolkien
John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (, ; 3 January 1892 – 2 September 1973) was an English writer and philology, philologist. He was the author of the high fantasy works ''The Hobbit'' and ''The Lord of the Rings''.
From 1925 to 1945, Tolkien was ...
. About half average human height, Tolkien presented hobbits as a variety of humanity, or close relatives thereof. Occasionally known as halflings in Tolkien's writings, they live barefooted, and dwell in homely underground houses which have windows, as they are typically built into the sides of hills. Their feet have naturally tough leathery soles (so they do not need shoes) and are covered on top with curly hair.
Hobbits first appeared in the 1937 children's novel ''
The Hobbit
''The Hobbit, or There and Back Again'' is a children's fantasy novel by English author J. R. R. Tolkien. It was published in 1937 to wide critical acclaim, being nominated for the Carnegie Medal and awarded a prize from the '' ...
'', whose titular hobbit is the protagonist
Bilbo Baggins
Bilbo Baggins is the title character and protagonist of J. R. R. Tolkien's 1937 novel ''The Hobbit'', a supporting character in ''The Lord of the Rings'', and the fictional narrator (along with Frodo Baggins) of many of Tolkien's Middle-eart ...
, who is thrown into an unexpected adventure involving a
dragon
A dragon is a reptilian legendary creature that appears in the folklore of many cultures worldwide. Beliefs about dragons vary considerably through regions, but dragons in western cultures since the High Middle Ages have often been depicted as ...
. In its sequel, ''
The Lord of the Rings
''The Lord of the Rings'' is an epic high-fantasy novel by English author and scholar J. R. R. Tolkien. Set in Middle-earth, intended to be Earth at some time in the distant past, the story began as a sequel to Tolkien's 1937 children's boo ...
'', the hobbits
Frodo Baggins
Frodo Baggins is a fictional character in J. R. R. Tolkien's writings, and one of the protagonists in ''The Lord of the Rings''. Frodo is a hobbit of the Shire who inherits the One Ring from his cousin Bilbo Baggins, described familiarly as "u ...
,
Sam Gamgee
Sam, SAM or variants may refer to:
Places
* Sam, Benin
* Sam, Boulkiemdé, Burkina Faso
* Sam, Bourzanga, Burkina Faso
* Sam, Kongoussi, Burkina Faso
* Sam, Iran
* Sam, Teton County, Idaho, United States, a populated place
People and fictional ...
,
Pippin Took
Peregrin Took, commonly known simply as Pippin, is a fictional character from J. R. R. Tolkien's fantasy novel ''The Lord of the Rings''. He is closely tied with his friend and cousin, Merry Brandybuck, and the two are together during most of th ...
, and
Merry Brandybuck
Meriadoc Brandybuck, usually called Merry, is a Hobbit, a fictional character from J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth legendarium, featured throughout his most famous work, ''The Lord of the Rings''.
Merry is described as one of the closest friend ...
are primary characters who all play key roles in fighting to save their world ("
Middle-earth
Middle-earth is the fictional setting of much of the English writer J. R. R. Tolkien's fantasy. The term is equivalent to the ''Miðgarðr'' of Norse mythology and ''Middangeard'' in Old English works, including ''Beowulf''. Middle-earth is t ...
") from evil. In ''The Hobbit'', hobbits live together in a small town called Hobbiton, which in ''The Lord of the Rings'' is identified as being part of a larger rural region called
the Shire
The Shire is a region of J. R. R. Tolkien's fictional Middle-earth, described in ''The Lord of the Rings'' and other works. The Shire is an inland area settled exclusively by hobbits, the Shire-folk, largely sheltered from the goings-on in the ...
, the homeland of the hobbits in the northwest of Middle-earth. They also live in a village east of the Shire, called
Bree, where they co-exist with regular humans. Tolkien hints that there may be other hobbit settlements thereabouts, but they are never visited in the story.
The origins of the name and idea of "hobbits" have been debated; literary antecedents include
Sinclair Lewis
Harry Sinclair Lewis (February 7, 1885 – January 10, 1951) was an American writer and playwright. In 1930, he became the first writer from the United States (and the first from the Americas) to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature, which was ...
's 1922 novel ''
Babbitt
Babbitt may refer to:
Fiction
*Babbitt (novel), ''Babbitt'' (novel), a 1922 novel by Sinclair Lewis
**Babbitt (1924 film), ''Babbitt'' (1924 film), a 1924 silent film based on the novel
**Babbitt (1934 film), ''Babbitt'' (1934 film), a 1934 film ...
'', and Edward Wyke Smith's 1927 ''
The Marvellous Land of Snergs
''The Marvellous Land of Snergs'' is a children's fantasy, written by E. A. Wyke-Smith and illustrated by the ''Punch'' cartoonist George Morrow. It was originally published in Britain by Ernest Benn in September 1927, and later published in th ...
''. There is a possible connection with old names for ghostly creatures, which include
bogle
A bogle, boggle, or bogill is a Northumbrian''Rambles in Northumberland, and on the Scottish border ...'' by William Andrew Chatto, Chapman and Hall, 1835 and Scots term for a ghost or folkloric being,''The local historian's table book, of r ...
s, hobbits, and
hobgoblin
A hobgoblin is a household spirit, typically appearing in folklore, once considered helpful, but which since the spread of Christianity has often been considered mischievous. Shakespeare identifies the character of Puck in his ''A Midsummer Nigh ...
s. Tolkien emphatically rejected a relationship with
rabbit
Rabbits, also known as bunnies or bunny rabbits, are small mammals in the family Leporidae (which also contains the hares) of the order Lagomorpha (which also contains the pikas). ''Oryctolagus cuniculus'' includes the European rabbit speci ...
s, and emphasized hobbits' humanity, though later scholars have noted several lines of evidence to the contrary.
Halfling
Halflings are a fictional race found in some fantasy novels and games. They are often depicted as similar to humans except about half as tall, and are not quite as stocky as the similarly-sized dwarves. Similar to the depiction of hobbits in the w ...
s appear as a race in ''
Dungeons & Dragons
''Dungeons & Dragons'' (commonly abbreviated as ''D&D'' or ''DnD'') is a fantasy tabletop role-playing game (RPG) originally designed by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson. The game was first published in 1974 by TSR (company)#Tactical Studies Rules ...
'', the original name hobbits being later avoided for legal reasons. The usage has been taken up by fantasy authors including
Terry Brooks
Terence Dean Brooks (born January 8, 1944) is an American writer of fantasy fiction. He writes mainly epic fantasy, and has also written two film novelizations. He has written 23 ''New York Times'' bestsellers during his writing career, and has ...
,
Jack Vance
John Holbrook Vance (August 28, 1916 – May 26, 2013) was an American mystery, fantasy, and science fiction writer. Though most of his work has been published under the name Jack Vance, he also wrote several mystery novels under pen names.
...
, and
Clifford D. Simak
Clifford Donald Simak (; August 3, 1904 – April 25, 1988) was an American science fiction writer. He won three Hugo Awards and one Nebula Award. The Science Fiction Writers of America made him its third SFWA Grand Master, and the Horror Wr ...
.
Characteristics
Tolkien describes hobbits as between two and four feet (0.6–1.2 m) tall, with the average height being . They dress in bright colours, favouring yellow and green. Nowadays (according to Tolkien's fiction), they are usually shy, but are nevertheless capable of great courage and amazing feats under the proper circumstances. They are adept at throwing stones. For the most part, they cannot grow beards, but a few Stoor hobbits can. Their feet are covered with curly hair (usually brown, as is the hair on their heads) and have leathery soles, so hobbits hardly ever wear shoes.
Hobbits are not quite as stocky as the similarly sized
dwarves, but still tend to be stout, with slightly pointed ears. Tolkien clarified their appearance in a 1938 letter to his American publisher:
Tolkien presented hobbits as relatives of the human race,
or a "variety"
[ Note: Gives the OED's definition of "hobbit", and states it was written by Tolkien, and included almost unchanged.] or separate "branch"
of humanity.
In Tolkien's fictional world, hobbits and other races are aware of the similarities between humans and hobbits (hence the colloquial terms for each other of "
Big People" and "Little People"); nevertheless, the hobbits consider themselves a separate people.
The race's average life expectancy is 100 years, but some of Tolkien's main hobbit characters live much longer:
Bilbo Baggins
Bilbo Baggins is the title character and protagonist of J. R. R. Tolkien's 1937 novel ''The Hobbit'', a supporting character in ''The Lord of the Rings'', and the fictional narrator (along with Frodo Baggins) of many of Tolkien's Middle-eart ...
and the Old Took are described as living to the age of 130 or beyond, though Bilbo's long lifespan owes much to his possession of the
One Ring
The One Ring, also called the Ruling Ring and Isildur's Bane, is a central plot element in J. R. R. Tolkien's ''The Lord of the Rings'' (1954–55). It first appeared in the earlier story ''The Hobbit'' (1937) as a magic ring that grants the w ...
. Hobbits are considered to "come of age" on their 33rd birthday, so a 50-year-old hobbit would be regarded as entering middle-age.
Origins
Tolkien claimed that he started ''The Hobbit'' suddenly, without premeditation, in the midst of grading a set of student essay exams in 1930 or 1931, writing its famous
opening line on a blank piece of paper: "In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit".
In English literature
The term "hobbit", however, has real antecedents in modern English. One is a fact that Tolkien admitted: the title of
Sinclair Lewis
Harry Sinclair Lewis (February 7, 1885 – January 10, 1951) was an American writer and playwright. In 1930, he became the first writer from the United States (and the first from the Americas) to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature, which was ...
's 1922 novel ''
Babbitt
Babbitt may refer to:
Fiction
*Babbitt (novel), ''Babbitt'' (novel), a 1922 novel by Sinclair Lewis
**Babbitt (1924 film), ''Babbitt'' (1924 film), a 1924 silent film based on the novel
**Babbitt (1934 film), ''Babbitt'' (1934 film), a 1934 film ...
'', about a "complacent American businessman" who goes through a journey of some kind of self-discovery, facing "near-disgrace"; the critic
Tom Shippey
Thomas Alan Shippey (born 9 September 1943) is a British medievalist, a retired scholar of Middle and Old English literature as well as of modern fantasy and science fiction. He is considered one of the world's leading academic experts on the ...
observes that there are some parallels here with Bilbo's own journey.
According to a letter from Tolkien to
W. H. Auden
Wystan Hugh Auden (; 21 February 1907 – 29 September 1973) was a British-American poet. Auden's poetry was noted for its stylistic and technical achievement, its engagement with politics, morals, love, and religion, and its variety in ...
, one "probably ... unconscious" inspiration was
Edward Wyke Smith
Edward Augustine Wyke-Smith (12 April 1871 – 16 May 1935) was an English adventurer, mining engineer and writer. He is known mainly for ''The Marvellous Land of Snergs'', a children's fantasy novel he wrote as E. A. Wyke-Smith, whose "sne ...
's 1927 children's book ''
The Marvellous Land of Snergs
''The Marvellous Land of Snergs'' is a children's fantasy, written by E. A. Wyke-Smith and illustrated by the ''Punch'' cartoonist George Morrow. It was originally published in Britain by Ernest Benn in September 1927, and later published in th ...
''.
Tolkien described the Snergs as "a race of people only slightly taller than the average table but broad in the shoulders and
hohave the strength of ten men."
Another possible origin emerged in 1977 when the ''
Oxford English Dictionary
The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' (''OED'') is the first and foundational historical dictionary of the English language, published by Oxford University Press (OUP). It traces the historical development of the English language, providing a com ...
'' announced that it had found the source that it supposed Tolkien to have used: James Hardy wrote in his 1895 ''
The Denham Tracts, Volume 2'': "The whole earth was overrun with ghosts, boggles ... hobbits, hobgoblins." The Tolkien scholar
Tom Shippey
Thomas Alan Shippey (born 9 September 1943) is a British medievalist, a retired scholar of Middle and Old English literature as well as of modern fantasy and science fiction. He is considered one of the world's leading academic experts on the ...
writes that the list was of ghostly creatures without bodies, nothing like Tolkien's solid flesh-and-blood hobbits. Tolkien scholars consider it unlikely that Tolkien saw the list.
Rabbit
An additional connection is with
rabbit
Rabbits, also known as bunnies or bunny rabbits, are small mammals in the family Leporidae (which also contains the hares) of the order Lagomorpha (which also contains the pikas). ''Oryctolagus cuniculus'' includes the European rabbit speci ...
, one that Tolkien "emphatically rejected", although the word appears in ''The Hobbit'' in connection with other characters' opinions of Bilbo in several places.
Bilbo compares himself to a rabbit when he is with the
eagle
Eagle is the common name for many large birds of prey of the family Accipitridae. Eagles belong to several groups of genera, some of which are closely related. Most of the 68 species of eagle are from Eurasia and Africa. Outside this area, just ...
that carries him; the
eagle
Eagle is the common name for many large birds of prey of the family Accipitridae. Eagles belong to several groups of genera, some of which are closely related. Most of the 68 species of eagle are from Eurasia and Africa. Outside this area, just ...
, too, tells Bilbo not to be "frightened like a rabbit". The giant bear-man
Beorn
Beorn is a fictional character created by J. R. R. Tolkien, and part of his Middle-earth legendarium. He appears in ''The Hobbit'' as a " skin-changer", a man who could assume the form of a great black bear. His descendants or kinsmen, a group o ...
teases Bilbo and jokes that "little bunny is getting nice and fat again", while the dwarf
Thorin shakes Bilbo "like a rabbit".
Shippey writes that the rabbit is not a native English species, but was deliberately introduced in the 13th century, and has become accepted as a local wild animal. Shippey compares this "situation of
anachronism
An anachronism (from the Ancient Greek, Greek , 'against' and , 'time') is a chronology, chronological inconsistency in some arrangement, especially a juxtaposition of people, events, objects, language terms and customs from different time per ...
-cum-familiarity" with the lifestyle of the hobbit, giving the example of smoking "pipeweed". He argues that Tolkien did not want to write "
tobacco
Tobacco is the common name of several plants in the genus '' Nicotiana'' of the family Solanaceae, and the general term for any product prepared from the cured leaves of these plants. More than 70 species of tobacco are known, but the ...
", as it did not arrive until the 16th century, so Tolkien invented a
calque
In linguistics, a calque () or loan translation is a word or phrase borrowed from another language by literal word-for-word or root-for-root translation. When used as a verb, "to calque" means to borrow a word or phrase from another language wh ...
made of English words.
Donald O'Brien, writing in ''
Mythlore
''Mythlore'' is a biannual (originally quarterly) peer-reviewed academic journal founded by Glen GoodKnight and published by the Mythopoeic Society. Although it publishes articles that explore the genres of myth and fantasy in general, special att ...
'', notes, too, that
Aragorn
Aragorn is a fictional character and a protagonist in J. R. R. Tolkien's ''The Lord of the Rings''. Aragorn was a Ranger of the North, first introduced with the name Strider and later revealed to be the heir of Isildur, an ancient King of Arno ...
's description of
Frodo
Frodo Baggins is a fictional character in J. R. R. Tolkien's writings, and one of the protagonists in ''The Lord of the Rings''. Frodo is a hobbit of the Shire who inherits the One Ring from his cousin Bilbo Baggins, described familiarly as "u ...
's priceless ''
mithril
Mithril is a fictional metal found in J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth writings. It appears in many derivative fantasy works by later authors. It is described as resembling silver, but being stronger and lighter than steel. Tolkien first wrote o ...
''
mail
The mail or post is a system for physically transporting postcards, letter (message), letters, and parcel (package), parcels. A postal service can be private or public, though many governments place restrictions on private systems. Since the mid ...
-shirt, "here's a pretty hobbit-skin to wrap an
elven-princeling in", is a "curious echo"
of the English
nursery rhyme
A nursery rhyme is a traditional poem or song for children in Britain and many other countries, but usage of the term dates only from the late 18th/early 19th century. The term Mother Goose rhymes is interchangeable with nursery rhymes.
From t ...
"
To find a pretty rabbit-skin to wrap the baby bunting in."
Fictional etymology
Tolkien has King
Théoden
Théoden is a fictional character in J. R. R. Tolkien's fantasy novel, ''The Lord of the Rings''. The King of Rohan and Lord of the Mark or of the Riddermark, names used by the Rohirrim for their land, he appears as a supporting character in ''T ...
of
Rohan say "the Halflings, that some among us call the Holbytlan".
Tolkien set out a fictional
etymology
Etymology ()The New Oxford Dictionary of English (1998) – p. 633 "Etymology /ˌɛtɪˈmɒlədʒi/ the study of the class in words and the way their meanings have changed throughout time". is the study of the history of the Phonological chan ...
for the
word "hobbit" in an appendix to ''
The Lord of the Rings
''The Lord of the Rings'' is an epic high-fantasy novel by English author and scholar J. R. R. Tolkien. Set in Middle-earth, intended to be Earth at some time in the distant past, the story began as a sequel to Tolkien's 1937 children's boo ...
'', that it was derived from ''holbytla'' (plural ''holbytlan''),
meaning "hole-builder". This was Tolkien's own new construction from
Old English
Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain, Anglo ...
''hol'', "a hole or hollow", and ''bytlan'', "to build".
Types
![Hobbit origins map](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b1/Hobbit_origins_map.svg)
Tolkien devised a fictional history with three types of hobbits, with different physical characteristics and temperaments: ''Harfoots'', ''Fallohides'', and ''Stoors''. By the time of Bilbo and Frodo, these kinds had intermixed for centuries, though unevenly, so that some families and regions skewed more towards descent from one of the three groups.
The Harfoots were by far the most numerous group of hobbits and were the first to enter the land of
Eriador
The geography of Middle-earth encompasses the physical, political, and moral geography of J. R. R. Tolkien's fictional world of Middle-earth, strictly a continent on the planet of Arda but widely taken to mean the physical world, and '' Eä'', all ...
, which contains the Shire and Bree. They were the smallest in stature, "browner of skin" in complexion, and the most typical of the race as described in ''The Hobbit''. They lived in
holes
A hole is an opening in or through a particular medium, usually a solid body. Holes occur through natural and artificial processes, and may be useful for various purposes, or may represent a problem needing to be addressed in many fields of en ...
, or ''smials'', and had closer relations with
Dwarves than other hobbits did. Harfoots tended to live in gentle rolling hill country, and were mostly agrarian. They were the first group to cross the Misty Mountains, settling in the lands around Bree starting in Third Age 1050 (about 2,000 years before the time of Bilbo and Frodo, and five and a half centuries before the founding of the Shire in Third Age 1601). Tolkien coined the term "Harfoot" as analogous to "hairfoot".
[
The Fallohides were the least numerous, and the second group to enter Eriador. They were generally fair-haired, and taller and slimmer than other hobbits. While the other two types of hobbit were on average about three and a half feet tall, Fallohides were closer on average to four feet (though still shorter than dwarves, who had an average height of four and a half feet). They were more adventurous than the other breeds and preferred living in woodlands, where they became skilled huntsmen (known for their accuracy with ranged weapons). They had closer relations with ]Elves
An elf () is a type of humanoid supernatural being in Germanic mythology and folklore. Elves appear especially in North Germanic mythology. They are subsequently mentioned in Snorri Sturluson's Icelandic Prose Edda. He distinguishes "ligh ...
(who also tended to live in forests). Due to their contact with the Elves, Fallohides were the first hobbits to learn literacy, and therefore were the only ones who preserved even vague knowledge of their past before crossing the Misty Mountains. The Fallohides crossed into Eriador about a century after the Harfoots did, and settled in the pre-existing Harfoot villages of the Bree-land. Never very numerous, the Fallohides intermixed with and were largely absorbed by the Harfoots during this time, though several prominent families such as the Tooks and the Masters of Buckland had a substantial Fallohide descent, unlike many of the people that they led. After about four centuries, a large expedition of Hobbits migrated westward from Bree-land led by the Fallohide brothers Marcho and Blancho, who settled and founded the Shire in TA 1601.[
Bilbo and three of the four principal hobbit characters in '']The Lord of the Rings
''The Lord of the Rings'' is an epic high-fantasy novel by English author and scholar J. R. R. Tolkien. Set in Middle-earth, intended to be Earth at some time in the distant past, the story began as a sequel to Tolkien's 1937 children's boo ...
'' (Frodo
Frodo Baggins is a fictional character in J. R. R. Tolkien's writings, and one of the protagonists in ''The Lord of the Rings''. Frodo is a hobbit of the Shire who inherits the One Ring from his cousin Bilbo Baggins, described familiarly as "u ...
, Pippin
Pippin or Pepin may refer to:
Arts and entertainment
* ''Pippin'' (comics), a children's comic produced from 1966 to 1986
* ''Pippin'' (musical), a Broadway musical by Stephen Schwartz loosely based on the life of Pepin the Hunchback
* Pippin T ...
, and Merry
Merry may refer to:
A happy person with a jolly personality People
* Merry (given name)
* Merry (surname)
Music
* Merry (band), a Japanese rock band
* ''Merry'' (EP), an EP by Gregory Douglass
* "Merry" (song), by American power pop band Magna ...
) had Fallohide blood through their common ancestor, the Old Took. The one physical description given for Frodo matches this, as Gandalf identifies him as "taller than some (hobbits), and fairer than most". Tolkien created the name from the archaic meanings of English words "fallow" and "hide", meaning "pale skin".[
The Stoors were the second most numerous group of hobbits and the last to enter Eriador. They were quite different from the other two groups: they were stockier than other hobbits, though slightly shorter, and they were also the only group whose males were able to grow beards. They had an affinity for water, dwelt mostly beside ]river
A river is a natural flowing watercourse, usually freshwater, flowing towards an ocean, sea, lake or another river. In some cases, a river flows into the ground and becomes dry at the end of its course without reaching another body of wate ...
s, and were the only hobbits to use boats and swim (activities which other hobbits considered dangerous and frightening). Their hands and feet were also sturdier than those of other hobbits, who generally didn't wear shoes for cushioning their steps, though because the Stoors tended to live near muddy riverbanks they often wore boots to keep their feet dry (making them the only hobbits to use footwear of any kind). Tolkien says they were "less shy of Men
A man is an adult male human. Prior to adulthood, a male human is referred to as a boy (a male child or adolescent). Like most other male mammals, a man's genome usually inherits an X chromosome from the mother and a Y chrom ...
". The Stoors migrated into Eriador two centuries after the Fallohides did, but instead of settling in Bree-land they headed farther south to Dunland by Third Age 1300, finally migrating to the newly founded Shire in Third Age 1630, the last of the three groups to arrive. The Stoors mostly settled along the banks of the River Brandywine in the east of the Shire, thus many hobbits of Buckland and the Marish
The Shire is a region of J. R. R. Tolkien's fictional Middle-earth, described in ''The Lord of the Rings'' and other works. The Shire is an inland area settled exclusively by hobbits, the Shire-folk, largely sheltered from the goings-on in the ...
were of Stoor descent. Due to the time the Stoors spent living in Dunland before migrating to the Shire, their names have a slight Celtic influence.[
A small group of Stoors did not go as far south as Dunland but settled in the wetlands of the Angle in southern Rhudaur, between Dunland and Bree. When the evil power of Angmar rose in the north many of these Stoors joined their kin in Dunland, but some fled back east over the mountains and settled in the marshes of the Gladden Fields: Déagol and Sméagol/Gollum both belonged to this group. ] Tolkien used the Old English word ''stor'' or ''stoor'', meaning "strong".[
]
Lifestyle and culture
In his writings, Tolkien depicted hobbits as fond of an unadventurous, bucolic and simple life
Simple living refers to practices that promote simplicity in one's lifestyle. Common practices of simple living include reducing the number of possessions one owns, depending less on technology and services, and spending less money. Not only is ...
of farming, eating, and socializing, although capable of defending their homes courageously if the need arises. They would enjoy six meals a day, if they could get them.[ They claimed to have invented the art of smoking ]pipe-weed
This list of fictional plants describes invented plants that appear in works of fiction.
In fiction
*Audrey Jr.: a man-eating plant in the 1960 film ''The Little Shop of Horrors''
**Audrey II: a singing, fast-talking alien plant with a taste for ...
.
They were extremely "clannish" and had strong "predilections for genealogy
Genealogy () is the study of families, family history, and the tracing of their lineages. Genealogists use oral interviews, historical records, genetic analysis, and other records to obtain information about a family and to demonstrate kins ...
"; accordingly, Tolkien included several hobbit family trees in ''The Lord of the Rings''. Most Hobbits married and had large families, although Bilbo and Frodo were exceptions to this general rule.
The hobbits of the Shire
The Shire is a region of J. R. R. Tolkien's fictional Middle-earth, described in ''The Lord of the Rings'' and other works. The Shire is an inland area settled exclusively by hobbits, the Shire-folk, largely sheltered from the goings-on in the ...
developed the custom of giving away gifts on their birthdays, instead of receiving them, although this custom was not universally followed among other hobbit cultures or communities. The term '' mathom'' is used for old and useless objects, but which hobbits are unwilling to throw away. ''Mathoms'' are invariably given as presents many times over, sometimes returning to the original owner, or are stored in a museum (''mathom-house'').[
The hobbits had a distinct calendar: every year started on a Saturday and ended on a Friday, with each of the twelve months consisting of thirty days. Some special days did not belong to any month—]Yule
Yule, actually Yuletide ("Yule time") is a festival observed by the historical Germanic peoples, later undergoing Christianised reformulation resulting in the now better-known Christmastide. The earliest references to Yule are by way of indig ...
1 and 2 (New Year's Eve & New Years Day) and three Lithedays in mid-summer. Every fourth year there was an extra Litheday, most likely as an adaptation, similar to a leap year
A leap year (also known as an intercalary year or bissextile year) is a calendar year that contains an additional day (or, in the case of a lunisolar calendar, a month) added to keep the calendar year synchronized with the astronomical year or s ...
, to ensure that the calendar remained in time with the seasons.
Hobbits traditionally live in "hobbit-holes", or ''smials'', underground homes found in hillsides, downs, and banks.[ It has been suggested that the soil or ground of the Shire consists of ]loess
Loess (, ; from german: Löss ) is a clastic, predominantly silt-sized sediment that is formed by the accumulation of wind-blown dust. Ten percent of Earth's land area is covered by loess or similar deposits.
Loess is a periglacial or aeolian ...
and that this facilitates the construction of hobbit-holes. Loess is a yellow soil, which would explain the colour of the Brandywine River, and the nature of the bricks made at Stock, the main Shire brickyard. Like all hobbit architecture, the hobbit-holes are notable for their round doors and windows.[
Tolkien likened his own tastes to those of hobbits in a 1958 letter:]
Fictional history
In their earliest folk tales
Oral literature, orature or folk literature is a genre of literature that is spoken or sung as opposed to that which is written, though much oral literature has been transcribed. There is no standard definition, as anthropologists have used vary ...
, hobbits appear to have inhabited the Valley of Anduin, between Mirkwood
Mirkwood is a name used for a great dark fictional forest in novels by Sir Walter Scott and William Morris in the 19th century, and by J. R. R. Tolkien in the 20th century. The critic Tom Shippey explains that the name evoked the excitement of t ...
and the Misty Mountains
The geography of Middle-earth encompasses the physical, political, and moral geography of J. R. R. Tolkien's fictional world of Middle-earth, strictly a continent on the planet of Arda but widely taken to mean the physical world, and ''Eä'', all ...
. According to ''The Lord of the Rings
''The Lord of the Rings'' is an epic high-fantasy novel by English author and scholar J. R. R. Tolkien. Set in Middle-earth, intended to be Earth at some time in the distant past, the story began as a sequel to Tolkien's 1937 children's boo ...
'', they had lost the genealogical details of how they are related to the Big People. Still, Tolkien clearly states in "Concerning Hobbits" that hobbits are not technically a distinct race from Men, the way that Elves or Dwarves are, but branched off from other humans in the distant past of the Elder Days. Many eons later, but still early in the Third Age, the ancient hobbits lived in the valley of the Anduin River
The geography of Middle-earth encompasses the physical, political, and moral geography of J. R. R. Tolkien's fictional world of Middle-earth, strictly a continent on the planet of Arda but widely taken to mean the physical world, and ''Eä'', all o ...
, close by the Éothéod
Rohan is a fictional kingdom of Men in J. R. R. Tolkien's fantasy setting of Middle-earth. Known for its horsemen, the Rohirrim, Rohan provides its ally Gondor with cavalry. Its territory is mainly grassland. The Rohirrim call their land the Ma ...
, the ancestors of the Rohirrim. This led to some contact between the two, and as a result many old words and names in "Hobbitish" are derivatives of words in Rohirric
The English philologist and author J. R. R. Tolkien created a number of constructed languages, including languages devised for fictional settings. Inventing languages, something that he called ''glossopoeia'' (paralleling his idea of ''mythopoei ...
(which Tolkien "translated" into his text by presenting it as Old English).[
The Harfoots lived on the lowest slopes of the Misty Mountains in hobbit holes dug into the hillsides. They were not only smaller and shorter, but also beard- and bootless. The Stoors lived on the marshy ]Gladden Fields
Isildur is a fictional character in J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth, the elder son of Elendil, descended from Elros, the founder of the island Kingdom of Númenor. He fled with his father when the island was drowned, becoming in his turn King of ...
where the Gladden River met the Anduin, and were broader and heavier in build; and the Fallohides preferred to live in the woods under the Misty Mountains. They were described as fairer of skin and hair, as well as taller and slimmer than the rest of the hobbits.[
]
In the Third Age
In J. R. R. Tolkien's legendarium, the history of Arda, also called the history of Middle-earth, began when the Ainu (Middle-earth), Ainur entered Arda (Middle-earth), Arda, following the creation events in the Ainulindalë and long ages of l ...
, the hobbits undertook the arduous task of crossing the Misty Mountains - a migration period they refer to as the "Wandering Days", the earliest remembered time in their history. Reasons for this trek are unknown, but they possibly had to do with Sauron
Sauron (pronounced ) is the title character and the primary antagonist, through the forging of the One Ring, of J. R. R. Tolkien's ''The Lord of the Rings'', where he rules the land of Mordor and has the ambition of ruling the whole of Middl ...
's growing power in nearby Greenwood, which later became known as Mirkwood
Mirkwood is a name used for a great dark fictional forest in novels by Sir Walter Scott and William Morris in the 19th century, and by J. R. R. Tolkien in the 20th century. The critic Tom Shippey explains that the name evoked the excitement of t ...
as a result of the shadow that fell upon it during his search of the forest for the One Ring. The hobbits took different routes in their journey westward, but as they began to settle together in Bree-land, Dunland
In J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth fiction, Man and Men denote humans, whether male or female, in contrast to Elves, Dwarves, Orcs, and other humanoid races.
Men are described as the second or younger people, created after the Elves, and diff ...
, and the Angle formed by the rivers Mitheithel and Bruinen
Rivendell ('' sjn, Imladris'') is a valley in J. R. R. Tolkien's fictional world of Middle-earth, representing both a homely place of sanctuary and a magical Elvish otherworld. It is an important location in ''The Hobbit'' and ''The Lord of th ...
, the divisions between the hobbit-kinds began to blur. Shippey explains that the name "Angle" has a special resonance, as the name "England" comes from the Angle (Anglia) between the Flensburg Fjord
Flensburg Firth or Flensborg Fjord (german: Flensburger Förde; da, Flensborg Fjord) is the westernmost inlet of the Baltic Sea. It forms part of the border between Germany to the south and Denmark to the north, on the eastern side of Schleswig ...
and the River Schlei, in the north of Germany next to Denmark, the origin of the Angles
The Angles ( ang, Ængle, ; la, Angli) were one of the main Germanic peoples who settled in Great Britain in the post-Roman period. They founded several kingdoms of the Heptarchy in Anglo-Saxon England. Their name is the root of the name ' ...
among the Anglo-Saxons
The Anglo-Saxons were a Cultural identity, cultural group who inhabited England in the Early Middle Ages. They traced their origins to settlers who came to Britain from mainland Europe in the 5th century. However, the ethnogenesis of the Anglo- ...
who founded England. Further, the migrations of the three types of hobbit mirror those of England's founders.
In the year 1601 of the Third Age (year 1 in the Shire Reckoning), two Fallohide brothers named Marcho and Blanco gained permission from the King of Arnor at Fornost to cross the River Brandywine and settle on the other side. Many hobbits followed them, and most of the territory they had settled in the Third Age was abandoned. Only Bree and a few surrounding villages lasted to the end of the Third Age. The new land that they founded on the west bank of the Brandywine was called the Shire.[
Originally the hobbits of the Shire swore nominal allegiance to the last Kings of Arnor, being required only to acknowledge their lordship, speed their messengers, and keep the bridges and roads in repair. During the final fight against Angmar at the Battle of Fornost, the hobbits maintain that they sent a company of archers to help but this is nowhere else recorded. After the battle, the kingdom of Arnor was destroyed, and in the absence of the king, the hobbits elected a ]Thain Thain is a name.
Surname
Notable people with the surname include:
* Bradley Thain (born 1997), South African rugby union player
* Caryl Thain (1895–1969), English cricketer
* Colin Thain (born 1959), political scientist
* Gary Thain (1948–1975 ...
of the Shire from among their own chieftains.[
The first Thain of the Shire was Bucca of the Marish, who founded the Oldbuck family. However, the Oldbuck family later crossed the Brandywine River to create the separate land of Buckland and the family name changed to the familiar "Brandybuck". Their patriarch then became Master of Buckland. With the departure of the Oldbucks/Brandybucks, a new family was selected to have its chieftains be Thain: the Took family (Pippin Took was son of the Thain and would later become Thain himself). The Thain was in charge of Shire Moot and Muster and the Hobbitry-in-Arms, but as the hobbits of the Shire generally led entirely peaceful, uneventful lives the office of Thain came to be seen as something of a formality.][
Hobbits first appear in ''The Hobbit'' as the rural people of the Shire; the book tells of the unexpected adventure that happened to one of them, Bilbo, as a party of Dwarves seeks to recover an ancient treasure from the hoard of a dragon. They are again central to '']The Lord of the Rings
''The Lord of the Rings'' is an epic high-fantasy novel by English author and scholar J. R. R. Tolkien. Set in Middle-earth, intended to be Earth at some time in the distant past, the story began as a sequel to Tolkien's 1937 children's boo ...
'', an altogether darker tale, where Bilbo's younger cousin Frodo sets out from the Shire to destroy the Ring that Bilbo had brought home.
Moral significance
The Tolkien critic Paul H. Kocher
Paul Harold Kocher (April 23, 1907 – July 17, 1998) was an American scholar, writer, and professor of English. He wrote extensively on the works of J. R. R. Tolkien as well as on Elizabethan English drama, philosophy, religion, and medicine. His ...
notes that Tolkien's literary techniques require readers to view hobbits as like humans, especially when placed under moral pressure to survive a war that threatens to devastate their land. Frodo
Frodo Baggins is a fictional character in J. R. R. Tolkien's writings, and one of the protagonists in ''The Lord of the Rings''. Frodo is a hobbit of the Shire who inherits the One Ring from his cousin Bilbo Baggins, described familiarly as "u ...
becomes in some ways the symbolic representation of the conscience of hobbits, a point made explicitly in the story "Leaf by Niggle
"Leaf by Niggle" is a short story written by J. R. R. Tolkien in 1938–39 and first published in the '' Dublin Review'' in January 1945. It can be found, most notably, in Tolkien's book titled '' Tree and Leaf'', and in other places (includi ...
" which Tolkien wrote at the same time as the first nine chapters of ''The Lord of the Rings''. Niggle is a painter struggling against the summons of death to complete his one great canvas, a picture of a tree with a background of forest and distant mountains. He dies with the work incomplete, undone by his imperfectly generous heart: "it made him uncomfortable more often than it made him do anything". After discipline in Purgatory
Purgatory (, borrowed into English via Anglo-Norman and Old French) is, according to the belief of some Christian denominations (mostly Catholic), an intermediate state after physical death for expiatory purification. The process of purgatory ...
, however, Niggle finds himself in the very landscape depicted by his painting which he is now able to finish with the assistance of a neighbour who obstructed him during life. The picture complete, Niggle is free to journey to the distant mountains which represent the highest stage of his spiritual development.[ Thus, upon recovery from the wound inflicted by the Witch-King of Angmar on ]Weathertop
The geography of Middle-earth encompasses the physical, political, and moral geography of J. R. R. Tolkien's fictional world of Middle-earth, strictly a continent on the planet of Arda but widely taken to mean the physical world, and ''Eä'', all o ...
, Gandalf
Gandalf is a protagonist in J. R. R. Tolkien's novels ''The Hobbit'' and ''The Lord of the Rings''. He is a Wizards (Middle-earth), wizard, one of the ''Istari'' order, and the leader of the Fellowship of the Ring (characters), Fellowship of t ...
speculates that the hobbit Frodo "may become like a glass filled with a clear light for eyes to see that can". Similarly, as Frodo nears Mount Doom
In J. R. R. Tolkien's fictional world of Middle-earth, Mordor (pronounced ; from Sindarin ''Black Land'' and Quenya ''Land of Shadow'') is the realm and base of the evil Sauron. It lay to the east of Gondor and the great river Anduin, and to ...
he casts aside weapons and refuses to fight others with physical force: "For him struggles for the right must hereafter be waged only on the moral plane".
In popular culture
Fantasy
''Dungeons & Dragons
''Dungeons & Dragons'' (commonly abbreviated as ''D&D'' or ''DnD'') is a fantasy tabletop role-playing game (RPG) originally designed by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson. The game was first published in 1974 by TSR (company)#Tactical Studies Rules ...
'' began using the name ''halfling'' as an alternative to ''hobbit'' for legal reasons. "Halfling
Halflings are a fictional race found in some fantasy novels and games. They are often depicted as similar to humans except about half as tall, and are not quite as stocky as the similarly-sized dwarves. Similar to the depiction of hobbits in the w ...
", attested from 1808 in Scots usage, means an adolescent who is neither man nor boy, and so half of both. Fantasy authors including Terry Brooks
Terence Dean Brooks (born January 8, 1944) is an American writer of fantasy fiction. He writes mainly epic fantasy, and has also written two film novelizations. He has written 23 ''New York Times'' bestsellers during his writing career, and has ...
, Jack Vance
John Holbrook Vance (August 28, 1916 – May 26, 2013) was an American mystery, fantasy, and science fiction writer. Though most of his work has been published under the name Jack Vance, he also wrote several mystery novels under pen names.
...
, and Clifford D. Simak
Clifford Donald Simak (; August 3, 1904 – April 25, 1988) was an American science fiction writer. He won three Hugo Awards and one Nebula Award. The Science Fiction Writers of America made him its third SFWA Grand Master, and the Horror Wr ...
use races of halflings.
'' The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power'', a series screened from 2022, has attracted "fierce debate" about its handling of race, and racism aimed at the actors playing the Harfoots. The fantasy author Neil Gaiman
Neil Richard MacKinnon GaimanBorn as Neil Richard Gaiman, with "MacKinnon" added on the occasion of his marriage to Amanda Palmer. ; ( Neil Richard Gaiman; born 10 November 1960) is an English author of short fiction, novels, comic books, gr ...
, defending the casting, commented that "Tolkien described the Harfoots as "browner of skin" than the other hobbits. So I think anyone grumbling is either racist or hasn't read their Tolkien." Commentators have observed that the hobbit-like Harfoots speak in Irish accents, behave as friendly peasants, and are accompanied by Celtic music
Celtic music is a broad grouping of music genres that evolved out of the folk music traditions of the Celtic people of Northwestern Europe. It refers to both orally-transmitted traditional music and recorded music and the styles vary considerab ...
; and that they resemble the 19th century caricaturist John Leech's "wildly unflattering" depictions of the Irish in ''Punch'' magazine.
Popular music
The comic horror rock band Rosemary's Billygoat
Rosemary's Billygoat is an American heavy metal/hard rock band formed in Los Angeles South Bay in 1991, consisting of singer Mike Odd, guitarist Neal Gargantua, bassist Pat Trick and drummer Paul Bearer.
Influenced both musically and visually ...
recorded a song and video called "Hobbit Feet", about a man who takes a girl home from a bar only to discover she has horrifying "hobbit feet". According to lead singer Mike Odd, the band received over 100 pieces of hate mail from angry Tolkien fans.
Taxonomy
A few biological taxa
In biology, a taxon (back-formation from ''taxonomy''; plural taxa) is a group of one or more populations of an organism or organisms seen by taxonomists to form a unit. Although neither is required, a taxon is usually known by a particular nam ...
have been named after hobbits. The skeletal remains of several diminutive paleolithic
The Paleolithic or Palaeolithic (), also called the Old Stone Age (from Greek: παλαιός ''palaios'', "old" and λίθος ''lithos'', "stone"), is a period in human prehistory that is distinguished by the original development of stone too ...
hominids
The Hominidae (), whose members are known as the great apes or hominids (), are a taxonomic family of primates that includes eight extant species in four genera: '' Pongo'' (the Bornean, Sumatran and Tapanuli orangutan); ''Gorilla'' (the east ...
were discovered on the Indonesia
Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Guine ...
n island of Flores
Flores is one of the Lesser Sunda Islands, a group of islands in the eastern half of Indonesia. Including the Komodo Islands off its west coast (but excluding the Solor Archipelago to the east of Flores), the land area is 15,530.58 km2, and th ...
in 2004. The fossils, of a species named ''Homo floresiensis
''Homo floresiensis'' also known as "Flores Man"; nicknamed "Hobbit") is an extinct species of small archaic human that inhabited the island of Flores, Indonesia, until the arrival of modern humans about 50,000 years ago.
The remains of an i ...
'' after the island on which the remains were found, were informally dubbed "hobbits" by their discoverers in a series of articles published in the scientific journal ''Nature
Nature, in the broadest sense, is the physics, physical world or universe. "Nature" can refer to the phenomenon, phenomena of the physical world, and also to life in general. The study of nature is a large, if not the only, part of science. ...
''. The excavated skeletons reveal a hominid that (like a hobbit) grew no larger than a three-year-old modern child and had proportionately larger feet than modern humans. Another such organism is '' Peperomia hobbitoides'', a small tuberous plant of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec
The Isthmus of Tehuantepec () is an isthmus in Mexico. It represents the shortest distance between the Gulf of Mexico and the Pacific Ocean. Before the opening of the Panama Canal, it was a major overland transport route known simply as the Te ...
, Mexico. It was named for being small, "strongly and faithfully tied to this home substrate", and "under threat by forces much larger than itself"—in this case habitat destruction.
See also
* Hobbit Day
Hobbit Day is a name used for September 22 in reference to its being the birthday of the hobbits Bilbo and Frodo Baggins, two fictional characters in J. R. R. Tolkien's popular set of books ''The Hobbit'' and ''The Lord of the Rings''. According ...
Notes
References
Primary
:''This list identifies each items' locations in Tolkien's writings.''
Secondary
Sources
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The Hobbit
The Lord of the Rings
Fictional human races