Concerning Hobbits Part II

In the western lands of Eriador, between the Misty Mountains and the Mountains of Lune, Hobbits found Men and Elves. In fact, there were still Dúnedains, the kings of Men who had come, through sea, from the West; but they were rapidly disappearing and the lands in the Kingdom of the North were becoming fallow and deserted.

It was, undoubtedly, in the first times that Hobbits learnt their letters and began to write in the Dúnedain way. In that time they also forgot the languages they had once used and moved on speaking only the Common Speech, Westron. However, they kept some of their old words, like the names of the months and days and a great amount of proper names from the past.

In 1601 of the Third Age, the fallohide brothers Marcho and Blanco set foot from Bree and crossed the Baranduin river with a large company of Hobbits and occupied all the lands who followed them, between the river and the Far Downs.

And so began the Shire Reckoning, given that the year of the crossing of the Brandywine river (name given by the Hobbits to the former Baranduin) became the first year of the Shire (The years of the Third Age of the Elven calendars and the Dúnedain’s are calculated by adding 1600 years to the Shire Reckoning).

The Hobbits fell in love with their new land and so they stayed. While there was a king they were his subjects; but in reality they had leaders of their own and didn’t lay hand in anything outside their borders. Even during the battle of Fornost with the Witchking of Angmar , Hobbits supposedly sent a number of archers to help their suzerain, even though no story of Men has ever registered that fact. But the Kingdom of the North was ended in that war, and so the Hobbits occupied that land as officially their own and chose, between their leaders, a baron to assume the authority of the former king.  

The Hobbits called it the Shire. And so, in that peaceful corner of the world, they dedicated themselves to the well-organized job of living and worrying every little less with the outside world, where dark things were put to work. They even convinced themselves that peace and abundance were normal daily things to Middle Earth and also the right to every reasonable person.  They even forgot (or ignored) the little they had ever known about the Guardians and their efforts to bring peace to the Shire. They were, in fact, protected, but they had forgotten that a long time ago.

Never did the Hobbits from any species fight against each other. The last battle (and in fact the only one ever fought inside the borders of the Shire) was the Battle of the Greenfields, in 1147 (S.R), in which Bandobras Took put an invasion of orcs out of the Shire.

Even though there were still some weapons in the Shire, they were used as trophies, hanging in their chimneys, walls or in the Michel Delving museum. The museum was called “Mathom-House”, since the Hobbits gave the name “mathom” to everything without an immediate utility or purpose, but that they wanted to keep.

However, the peace and quiet had allowed that people to keep their strength. If things were to come to a point, it would be known that Hobbits were difficult to scare or kill. Maybe they were so unbendingly friends with good things because they could, when necessary, go on without them and survive to the foulest treats of despair, to enemies or time in a way that would surprise those who didn’t knew them well and couldn’t see past their big bellies and well fed faces.

They were agile with the bow due to their sharp vision and good aiming skills. But these talents weren’t only dedicated to bows and arrows: if a Hobbit were to go down and pick up a rock, the best thing for his enemy to do was to hide quickly enough.

Every hobbit had lived in holes in the ground in the past, and it was on those shelters where they still felt more comfortable nowadays, but with the running of time they were forced to move to other ways of residence.  In fact, in Bilbo’s time only the richest or the poorest respected the old ways of living under the ground.  The poorest kept living in simple holes with only one window or even none. While the richest ones build a more luxurious version of those simple excavations.  But it wasn’t easy to find adequate spaces for those large, ramified, tunnels (smials, as they called them). So, in plains and low areas, Hobbits started to build above the ground.

It is probable that the craft of building has been taught to the hobbits by the Dúnedains. But it is also possible that hobbits might have learned it directly from the Elves, professors of Men in their primes: the Elves of the High Kindred hadn’t yet forsake Middle Earth and, in that time, were still living in the Grey Havens, to the west and in other places next to the Shire.

Three Elf Towers were still to be seen on the Tower Hills. They shone far off in the moonlight and the tallest was furthest away, standing alone on a green mound.  The hobbits of the West farthing used to say that it was possible to see the sea from that tower, even though no hobbit has ever climbed it. In fact, very few hobbits had ever seen the sea or sailed on it and even lesser had returned to tell the tale. Hobbits usually didn’t know how to swim and were very apprehensive when it came to rivers or boats. As the time passed, they talked less and less with the Elves, began to fear them and became distrustful of those who maintained contact with them – and so the sea turned into a word of fear among them, a symbol of death and so they learned to turn their eyes away from the hills of the west.

The craft of construction may have been learned from the Elves or Men, but Hobbits did it their own way. They didn’t like towers; their houses were usually long, short and confortable. The main characteristic of their homes was round windows and doors. Hobbits often shared their homes with their large families (Bilbo and Frodo, being single were a very rare case, as in many other aspects such as their friendship with the elves).  They were very clannish and reckoned up their relationships. Hobbits drew long and elaborate family-trees with innumerable branches. The genealogical trees at the end of the Red Book were themselves another small book that only Hobbits would find appealing or interesting: “they liked to have books filled with things that they already knew, set out fair and square with no contradictions.”

The Fellowship of The Ring Prologue Concerning Hobbits part I

Today, I will be writing about the prologue of The Fellowship of the Ring, concerning hobbits. J.R.R. Tolkien tells us we could find more information about them in the Red Book of The Westmarch, published with the title The Hobbit. That story was taken from the first chapters of The Red Book, written by Bilbo himself, which he called There and Back Again, this books tells us the story of his journey to the East and his return.

Let me tell you what I learned about Hobbits:

Hobbits are a shy, but very ancient people. They love peace, quiet and good tilled earth, their favourite habitat was a well organized and cultivated area. These  creatures weren't very fond of any objects more complicated than a bellows or a watermill. Hobbits had a good ear and eye and, even though they have a tendency for obesity, they are very agile and quick in movements. They can easily disappear fast and silentely when they feel threatened. Hobbits are, in fact, small creatures. Even smaller than Dwarves, meaning they are less robust and vigorous, even if they aren't really shorter.

    Family of Hobbits
About the Hobbits from the Shire, back when they lived happily in peace and prosperity, they were a joyful people. They would dress colorful clothes, tending for yellow and green, but would rarely wear shoes, for their feet had hard soles and were covered in curly, usually brown hair. This is why the only job Hobbits wouldn't do that much was that of a shoemaker. However, they had long and able fingers and knew how to make many other useful and gracious things.
In general, their faces were more large cheeked than beautiful: large, shiny eyes, red cheeks and a mouthful of laughs, food and drinks. And they would laugh and eat and drink frequent and willingly, for they loved simple jokes and six meals per day. Hobbits were cozy and sighed at the vision of a party and presents, which they would glady recieve and give.
In ancient times, they spoke the languages of Men. Their origins have their inception in the Begining of Times, which memory has been lost and forgotten. Only Elves still keep any annals from that missing time, but their traditions are related entirely to their own history, in which Men rarely appear and Hobbits aren't even mentioned. However, it's very clear that Hobbits lived quietly in Middle Earth many years before the other peoples had conscience of their existence.

The Third Age of Middle Earth is long gone and many things have changed; but the regions where Hobbits lived back then were the same where they still live nowadays: Northwest of The Old World, east from the sea. The love for knowledge was far from a general caracteristic of Hobbits; but some would still study their own family books and colect information from ancient times and distant lands by intermediate of Elves, Dwarves and Men. Their own registers just began after their settling in the Shire. Their oldest legends and their peculiar acts make clear that Hobbits had, in a distant past, travelled to the West. Seems like Hobbits once lived in the high valleys of the Anduin, between the forest Greenwood The Great and the Misty Mountains. It is not known for sure why they decided to travel to Eriador.

    Map of Eriador
Their annals speak of the multiplication of Men and of a shadow that fell upon the forest and darkened it so deeply that Men started to call it Mirkwood.
Before the crossing of the mountains, Hobbits were divided in three races: Harfoots, Stoors and Fallohides.

Harfoots: this race had a darker skin and were smaller and shorter; their hands and feet were perfect and agile and they prefered higher lands and hills. Harfoots got along well with Dwarves, in the old times, and lived for a long time in mountain foothills. They were the first to leave for the west and to wander through Eriador until they reached Weathertop. They consisted in the most common variety of hobbits and, by far, the most numerous. Also, Harfoots were the most expected to settle down on a place and they were the ones who kept the ancient habit of living in tunnels and holes.


Stoors: this variety of hobbit was stronger; they had bigger feet and hands and prefered plain lands and riversides. Stoors took themselves longer in the Vale of Anduin  and were more fearless of Men. They set for the west after the Harfoots and took the Redhorn Pass south, where many of them stayed for a long time between Tharbad and Swanfleet, before they finally took off to the west.

Fallohides: this race had lighter skin and hair, were fairer than the others and none of them ever grew a beard; they loved trees and forests. Fallohides were the less common and in their earliest known history they lived in the forested region where later was the Eagles Eyrie near the High Pass to the north, in the Vale of Anduin.
They were known for making friendship with Elves and for their bigger hability to languages and songs than to physical work and, by far, would rather hunt than cultivate. They crossed the mountains north to Rivendell and descended the river Hoarwell. In Eriador they made haste to join the other races who had anticipated them, but, since they were the braver and the more fearless of all the three hobbit races, they were to be found in the front of Harfoot and Stoor's clans, as their leaders and commanders. Even during Bilbo's time it was to be found between the important families, such as the Tooks and the Brandybuck, the strong ancestry of Fallohides.

(Prologue Concerning Hobbits continues)

Introduction to the trilogy

Today I started re-reading The Lord of The Rings trilogy by J.R.R. Tolkien and I'll be posting informations from each chapter and my opinions about each one of them, concluding on my general opinion once I finish The Return of The King, again.
The Fellowship of The Ring begins with an introduction wrote by Sir J.R.R. Tolkien himself, the page right after the one containing the verses about The One Ring, which also opens the following two books:

  "Three Rings for the Elven-kings under the sky,
  Seven for the Dwarf-lords in their halls of stone,
  Nine for Mortal Men doomed to die,
  One for the Dark Lord on his dark throne
  In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.
  One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them,
  One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them
  In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie."

In the introduction, Tolkien tells us about his writing and the complications he found on its process.
The Lord of the Rings came to him as an inspiration of linguistic interest and as a way to give the needed historical backgrounds to the Elvish languages, making The Lord of The Rings a work of personal interest. His faith on the success of these books came down from a little to none as his advisors would demonstrate such little faith on the story. What pushed him through were the letters from the readers who wanted to know more about Hobbits.
What captivated me more in this introduction was the denial of any kinds of allegorical content in the whole story of The Lord of The Rings. Sir J.R.R. Tolkien accused himself as an enemy of any kinds of allegory and made it crystal clear that his story was not related to the "Real War" of 1939. But even more interesting was the one paragraph in which Tolkien described what The Lord of The Rings would have turned out to be if it was related to the reality in which he lived in:
The One Ring would have been captured and used against Sauron; it wouldn't have been destroyed but slaved, just as Barad-dûr (the tower of Sauron in Mordor) wouldn't have been destroyed but occupied. Saruman would have eventually found the needed allies in Mordor and learned how to create his own Ring of Power, in order to challenge Sauron. In this conflict, both parts would have demonstrated hatred towards the Hobbits, who wouldn't have survived that long, not even as slaves.
 Frodo about to destroy the Ring An example of Men's power in World War II
The author continues by saying that he prefers the story with its applicability to the thoughts and experience of the readers, which distinguishes itself from an allegory since the first lies on the reader's freedom and the second on the intentional control of the author.
J.R.R. Tolkien gave us the freedom to read The Lord of The Rings in a subjective way. In my personal view, I can apply the trilogy to my own concepts of the nowadays world and it helps me to get through with my daily life.