Hobbit

For other uses, see Hobbit (disambiguation).

Hobbits are a subset of the race of Men, from J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth, sometimes considered a separate race. They first appear in the book The Hobbit, and also play a major role in The Lord of the Rings.

Description

File:Frodo Baggins.jpg

Frodo Baggins (as portrayed by Elijah Wood in the New Line film of The Lord Of The Rings)

Hobbits are between two to four feet tall, the average height being three feet six inches. They tend towards stoutness and have slightly pointed ears.. Their feet are furry, with leathery soles; most Hobbits never wear shoes. It is a common misconception that Hobbits have oversized feet (helped by the recent films), but they are in fact normal in size for their height. They are fond of an unadventurous bucolic life of farming, eating, and socializing. Living rather longer than humans, Hobbits can sometimes live for up to 130 years (with 100 years average). The time at which a young Hobbit "comes of age" is 33, as compared to the human 21 years. Thus a seventy-year-old Hobbit would only be middle-aged. Hobbits also like to drink ale, often in inns, not unlike the English countryfolk, who were Tolkien's inspiration; Hobbits also enjoy tobacco, sometimes referred to as weed (not to be confused with marijuana), something that can be attributed mostly to their love of gardening and herb-lore. We can also see that in the name Tolkien chose for the part of Middle-earth where the Hobbits live: "The Shire" is clearly reminiscent of the English county names (e.g., Lancashire, Shropshire — see English Shire).

Hobbits enjoy at least seven meals a day when they can get them. Mealtimes mentioned by Tolkien include breakfast, second breakfast, elevenses, lunch, Noon tea, dinner, and supper.

Origin

In the context of Tolkien's legendarium, Hobbits are evidently related to Men, and are represented as a pygmy offshoot of that race. Their exact origin is unknown, but by the early Third Age they were living in the Vales of Anduin in Wilderland.

Etymology

Main article: Hobbit (word)

Hobbits are also called Halflings (in Sindarin, perian singular and pheriannath collective) due to their small stature. However, the term is slightly offensive to Hobbits, as to themselves they are not 'half' of anything, and usually do not use the term to refer to themselves. Tolkien's etymology for 'Hobbit' is interesting as well: obviously constructed without prior intent, it would have been natural for him to connect it to the German prefix hob meaning small (e.g. hobgoblin). However this prefix dates back only to the 13th century, too late by Tolkien's standards, and so he constructed an alternative etymology, from Old English hol-bytla, "hole-dweller". When later he began to work out the language relations further, Hobbit was to be derived from the Rohirric (actually Anglo-Saxon - which Rohirric parallels in Tolkien's universe) Holbytlan (hole builders). In the original Westron, the name was Kuduk (Hobbit), derived from the actual Rohirric kûd-dûkan (hole dweller).

According to Tolkien, the word hobbit was the first element of The Hobbit that he created. As a university lecturer, he was in the process of correcting reports when he started scribbling on a piece of paper and wrote, "In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit", and the multitude of stories sprang from that. The idea of a little hole dwelling creature was introduced to Tolkien by one of his students in a story he had written.

Some well-known Hobbits

• Bilbo Baggins
• Frodo Baggins
• Samwise "Sam" Gamgee
• Meriadoc "Merry" Brandybuck
• Peregrin "Pippin" Took
• Fredegar "Fatty" Bolger
• Otho and Lotho Sackville-Baggins
• The Old Took
• Bullroarer Took
• Sméagol (who became the creature Gollum)
• Déagol

Though in The Hobbit it is mentioned that Gandalf "was responsible for so many quiet lads and lasses going off into the Blue for mad adventures," no female Hobbits are depicted in Tolkien's stories explicitly doing so; however Hobbit women do appear in his works, such as the formidable Lobelia Sackville-Baggins.

History

Historically, the Hobbits are known to have originated in the Valley of Anduin, between Mirkwood and the Misty Mountains. According to The Lord of the Rings, they have lost the genealogical details of how they are related to the rest of humankind. At this time, there were three Hobbit-kinds, with different temperaments. While situated in the valley of the Anduin River the Hobbits lived close by the Éothéod, the ancestors of the Rohirrim, and this led to some contact between the two. As a result many old words and names in "Hobbitish" are derivatives of words in Rohirric, so much so that even someone without linguistic training could make out the relation (Merry would later write an entire book devoted to the relationship, Old Place Names in the Shire).

The Harfoots, the most numerous, were almost identical to the Hobbits as they are described in The Hobbit, and lived on the lowest slopes of the Misty Mountains, and lived in holes or Smials dug into the hillsides. The Stoors, the second most numerous, were shorter and stockier, and had an affinity for water, boats and swimming, and so they lived on the marshy Gladden Fields where the Gladden River met the Anduin (there is a similarity here to the hobbits of Buckland and the Marrish in the Shire. It is possible that those hobbits were the descendents of Stoors). The Fallohides, the least numerous, were an adventurous people that preferred to live in the woods that hugged the Misty Mountains, and were said to be taller, and fairer (all of these traits were much rarer in later days, and it has been implied that wealthy, eccentric families that tended to lead other hobbits politically, like the Tooks and Brandybucks, were of Fallohide decent).

About the year T.A. 1050, for reasons unknown, but possibly having to do with Sauron's growing power in nearby Greenwood (later named Mirkwood because of the shadow that fell on it as Sauron searched the area for the One Ring), they undertook the arduous task of crossing the Misty Mountains. The Hobbits took different routes in their journey westward, but as they began to settle together in Bree-land, Dunland, and the Angle formed by the rivers Mitheithel and Bruinen, the divisions between the Hobbit-kinds began to blur.

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. Large numbers of 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.

A map of the Shire and surrounding regions may be found at Eriador.

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 absence of the king the Hobbits elected a Thain of the Shire from among their own chieftains.

The first Thain of the Shire was Bucca of the Marrish, who founded the Oldbuck family. However, later on the Oldbuck family 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 (Indeed, 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 led entirely peaceful, uneventful lives the office of Thain was seen as something more of a formality.

They dwindled and grew progressively smaller in stature after the Fourth Age. However, the prologue "Concerning Hobbits" in The Lord of the Rings states that they have survived into Tolkien's day.

The theological nature of hobbits

Characters within Tolkien's works consider Hobbits to be a separate race from Men, but Tolkien made it clear that they are actually an offshoot of the race of Men. Nearly all Tolkien scholars agree that Hobbits are closely related to Men, and are still far more closely related than they are to either Elves or Dwarves. Thus Hobbits are among the Younger Children of Ilúvatar and are the result of the same act of creation as Men. This would imply that Hobbits have the Gift of Men to pass entirely beyond Arda, which also means that the avoidance of the Gift of Men in Hobbits, like in Men, can be physically and morally destructive. Sméagol, who had originally been a Hobbit, was transformed into the monster Gollum by a combination of the evil of the One Ring and the resulting avoidance of the Gift of Men. Bilbo Baggins became "thin and stretched" from the immortality that the One Ring granted to him, since neither Men nor Hobbits are intended for immortality in this world. Men and Hobbits appear to have the same theological nature (because Hobbits are derived from Men), which is that they are the result of the act of creation that resulted in the Younger Children of Ilúvatar.

Usage outside Tolkien

"Hobbit" is a trademark owned by the Tolkien estate, as are most of the names, places and artifacts included in books by J. R. R. Tolkien. For this reason Dungeons & Dragons and other fantasy tend to refer to Hobbits and Hobbit-like races rather as Halflings (hin in the Mystara universe, hurthlings in ADOM).

The name hobbit had previously appeared in an obscure "list of spirits" by Michael Denham, which includes several repetitions. There is no evidence to suggest Tolkien used this as a source — indeed he spent many years trying to find out whether he really did coin the word. Denham's "hobbit spirits" (which are never referenced anywhere except in the long list) have no obvious relation to Tolkien's Hobbits, other than the name (which may possibly imply hob- "small", see below): Tolkien's Hobbits are small humans, not spirits. Nonetheless, some few people have suggested that the reference in the Denham list should invalidate the trademark. See Hobbit (word) for more discussion.

The lexeme hob, meaning small, is a root word for hobbledehoy, hobgoblin, hobyah and the surname Hobley. This may have influenced Tolkien's name; see Origin above.

Homo floresiensis, an extinct species of humans discovered in 2004, has been informally dubbed a "hobbit" by its discoverers.