Hobbit

Tolkien claimed that he started The Hobbit suddenly, without premeditation, in the midst of grading a set of student essay exams, writing on a blank piece of paper: "In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit".[2]

In the prologue to The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien writes that hobbits are between two and four feet (0.61–1.22 m) tall, the average height being three feet six inches (107 cm). 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 of the race of Stoor can. Their feet are covered with curly hair (usually brown, as is the hair on their heads) with leathery soles, so hobbits hardly ever wear shoes. The race's average life expectancy is 100 years. Two hobbits, Bilbo Baggins 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. Hobbits are considered to "come of age" on their 33rd birthday, so a 50-year-old hobbit would be regarded as entering middle-age.[T 8]

Hobbits are not quite as stocky as the similarly-sized dwarves, but still tend to be stout, with slightly pointed ears. Tolkien does not describe hobbits' ears in The Hobbit or The Lord of the Rings, but in a 1938 letter to his American publisher, he described them as having "ears only slightly pointed and 'elvish'".[T 9] Tolkien describes hobbits thus:

I picture a fairly human figure, not a kind of 'fairy' rabbit as some of my British reviewers seem to fancy: fattish in the stomach, shortish in the leg. A round, jovial face; ears only slightly pointed and 'elvish'; hair short and curling (brown). The feet from the ankles down, covered with brown hairy fur. Clothing: green velvet breeches; red or yellow waistcoat; brown or green jacket; gold (or brass) buttons; a dark green hood and cloak (belonging to a dwarf).[T 9]

Originally, there were three types of hobbits, with different physical characteristics and temperaments: Harfoots, Stoors, and Fallohides.[T 10]

The Harfoots were the most numerous group of hobbits and were the first to enter Eriador. They were the smallest in stature, and the most typical of the race as described in The Hobbit. They lived in holes, or smials, and had closer relations with Dwarves than did other hobbits. Tolkien coined the term as analogous to "hairfoot".[T 10]

The Stoors were the second most numerous group of hobbits and the last to enter Eriador. They were stockier than other hobbits. They had an affinity for water, dwelt mostly beside rivers, and were the only hobbits to use boats and swim. Males were able to grow beards. Tolkien says they were "less shy of Men". Many hobbits of Buckland and the Marish in the Shire were Stoors, as were Déagol and Sméagol/Gollum.[T 11] Tolkien used the Old English word stor or stoor, meaning "strong".[T 10][9]

The Fallohides were the least numerous group and the second group to enter Eriador. They were generally fair-haired and tall (for hobbits). They preferred the forests and had links with the Elves, and were more adventurous than the other breeds. Wealthy prominent families, like the Tooks and Brandybucks, tended to be of Fallohide descent. Bilbo and three of the four principal hobbit characters in The Lord of the Rings (Frodo, Pippin, and Merry) had Fallohide blood through their common ancestor, the Old Took. Tolkien created the name from the archaic meanings of English words "fallow" and "hide", meaning "pale skin".[T 10]

Hobbit holes or smials as depicted in Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings film trilogy

In his writings, Tolkien depicted hobbits as fond of an unadventurous, bucolic and simple life 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.[T 8] They claim to have invented the art of smoking pipe-weed.[T 12]

The hobbits of the Shire 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.[10] They use the term mathom for old and useless objects, which are invariably given as presents many times over, or are stored in a museum (mathom-house).[T 8]

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 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, to ensure that the calendar remained in time with the seasons.[T 13]

Tolkien stated that he liked gardens, trees, and wearing waistcoats, just as hobbits did; he was often photographed with trees.[T 14]

Hobbits traditionally live in "hobbit-holes" or smials, underground homes found in hillsides, downs, and banks.[T 8] It has been suggested that the soil or ground of the Shire consists of loess and that this facilitates the construction of hobbit-holes.[11] Loess is a yellow soil, it causes the colour of the Brandywine River, and it was used in making the bricks at Stock, the main Shire brickyard.[12] Like all hobbit architecture, the hobbit-holes are notable for their round doors and windows.[T 8]

Tolkien likened his own tastes to those of hobbits in a 1958 letter:[T 14]

I am in fact a Hobbit in all but size. I like gardens, trees, and unmechanized farmlands; I smoke a pipe, and like good plain food (unrefrigerated), but detest French cooking; I like, and even dare to wear in these dull days, ornamental waistcoats. I am fond of mushrooms (out of a field); have a very simple sense of humour (which even my appreciative critics find tiresome); I go to bed late and get up late (when possible). I do not travel much."[T 14]

In their earliest folk tales, hobbits appear to have inhabited the Valley of Anduin, between Mirkwood and the Misty Mountains. According to The Lord of the Rings, they had lost the genealogical details of how they are related to the Big People. 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.[T 8]

The Harfoots lived on the lowest slopes of the Misty Mountains in hobbit holes dug into the hillsides. The Stoors lived on the marshy Gladden Fields where the Gladden River met the Anduin; and the Fallohides preferred to live in the woods under the Misty Mountains.[T 8]

In the Third Age, the hobbits undertook the arduous task of crossing the Misty Mountains. Reasons for this trek are unknown, but they possibly had to do with Sauron's growing power in nearby Greenwood, which later became known as Mirkwood as a result of the shadow that fell upon it during Sauron's 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, and the Angle formed by the rivers Mitheithel and Bruinen, the divisions between the hobbit-kinds began to blur. The Tolkien critic Tom Shippey explains that the name "Angle" has a special resonance, as the name "England" comes from the Angle (Anglia) between the Flensburg Fjord and the River Schlei, in the north of Germany next to Denmark, the origin of the Angles among the Anglo-Saxons who founded England.[13]

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.[T 8]

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 of the Shire from among their own chieftains.[T 8]

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.[T 8]

The Tolkien critic Paul H. Kocher 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.[14] Frodo becomes in some ways the symbolic representation of the conscience of hobbits, a point made explicitly in the story "Leaf by Niggle" which Tolkien wrote at the same time as the first nine chapters of The Lord of the Rings.[15] 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, 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.[T 15] Thus, upon recovery from the wound inflicted by the Witch-King of Angmar on Weathertop, Gandalf speculates that the hobbit Frodo "may become like a glass filled with a clear light for eyes to see that can".[16] Similarly, as Frodo nears Mount Doom 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."[16]

Dungeons & Dragons began using the name halfling as an alternative to hobbit for legal reasons.[17][18] "halfling" comes from the Scots word hauflin, meaning an awkward rustic teenager who is neither man nor boy, and so half of both. This usage of the word pre-dates both The Hobbit and Dungeons & Dragons.[19]

Comic horror rock band Rosemary's Billygoat 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.[20]

The skeletal remains of several diminutive paleolithic hominids were discovered on the Indonesian island of Flores in 2004. These tiny people, named Homo floresiensis after the island on which the remains were found,[21] were informally dubbed "hobbits"[1] by their discoverers in a series of articles published in the scientific journal Nature.[22] 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.[23]

• Were Hobbits a sub-group of Humans? from the Tolkien Meta-FAQ, compiled by Steuard Jensen
• Concerning Hobbits: Welsh Fairies in Oxford from the Tolkien Library