Hobbits?

[Findarato Ingoldo]

Does anyone know where Hobbits came from?

[webwizard333]

They came from the East right? There were three types and each one came at a different time. That's all I can remember. I loaned my book with the info to a friend.

[Elenna]

I would have said that they came from holes in the ground, but hey whatta I know!

From the east you say, interesting? I never realived that the Hobbits came from somewhere. I always just imagined that they were always right there in the shire.

Elenna

~For all that has good has bad, and all that is bad contains goodness. In like manner there is light in darkness and darkness in light. And all who seek shall find which they desire.~

[Shanamir Duntak]

They supposedly come from the same root as humans.
They likely evolved differently... :)

[Elenna]

When in the time line were the hobbits created?

I know the elves were first ans the nthe dwarves who were put back to sleep until the time of the humans, but when were the hobbits introduced to middle earth and was their creator Eru or someone else?

Curious ~ Elenna :)

~For all that has good has bad, and all that is bad contains goodness. In like manner there is light in darkness and darkness in light. And all who seek shall find which they desire.~

[Shanamir Duntak]

As I just said, if my memory is good, they're supposed to be an offroot of human race.

[Inoldonil]

Your memory is good Shanamir :) Tolkien indeed said they were a diminutive Race of Man. Somewhere in unrecorded history they 'evolved' from the Big People.

[Elenna]

Ahh.....evolution.

Makes scence really.

Is there any indication in the time line when this change started to occur?

Thanks ~ and sorry for being such a pest

Elenna ;) :p

~For all that has good has bad, and all that is bad contains goodness. In like manner there is light in darkness and darkness in light. And all who seek shall find which they desire.~

[Shanamir Duntak]

Hum... think about what you're asking.... these changes occurs over thousands of years.... it's like asking which child was no more a human and was a hobbit, when do we know that these changes are enough to tell that?

[Inoldonil]

No, to my knowledge there's no indication in any historical records about just when Hobbits 'began'. I quoted evolved because I'm not sure evolution has any place in Tolkien's legendarium. Something similar undoubtedly occurred, however.

Whenever it was, Tom Bombadil witnessed it.

[easterlinge]

Hobbits "evolving" from Mannish stock is not impossible...... The Pygmies of the Congo are about Hobbit-sized, but are most assuredly Human.

Maybe the Pygmies are the last surviving population of Halflings in the world.....

[Shanamir Duntak]

Most probably, they are not... Tolkien said that now, the hobbits have mastered the ways of going by unnoticed...
That's why we can't see them or haven't heard of them.. :)

[Elenna]

I see, what a silly question of me to ask.

I just thought that maybe Tolkien gave them a beginning in the time line as he did the rest.

Maybe more like a time of discovery? When were the hobbits first discovered, maybe that is a better way to phrase my question, since you are obviously right Shanamir, those changes over time would be to small to really calculate when certain offspring of Humans became Hobbits.

Anyhow, what an interesting question, (and It wasn't even my topic :p ) ~ Thanks all

Elenna

~For all that has good has bad, and all that is bad contains goodness. In like manner there is light in darkness and darkness in light. And all who seek shall find which they desire.~

[Shanamir Duntak]

Hum... not sure about that... would have to look it up in the book (but it's dated somewhere)

[Elenna]

My books are out on loan so I can not look this up myself, but I am thinking that the part in the prelude to FOTR where it talks about the Shire and the lays of the Shire and about the Hobbits themselves and all that other Hobbit stuff. Would it say in there?

Elenna

~For all that has good has bad, and all that is bad contains goodness. In like manner there is light in darkness and darkness in light. And all who seek shall find which they desire.~

[Shanamir Duntak]

Sorry, can't look right now. Maybe someone could answer?

[Elenna]

Busy, busy, busy........gee, what would a hobbit say? :)

Thanks Shanamir, your the best.

Elenna

~For all that has good has bad, and all that is bad contains goodness. In like manner there is light in darkness and darkness in light. And all who seek shall find which they desire.~

[Inoldonil]

Hobbits "evolving" from Mannish stock is not impossible...... The Pygmies of the Congo are about Hobbit-sized, but are most assuredly Human.

Is that so? Where in the old Ages of Tolkien's Middle-earth do the Pygmies and Congo figure, now? :p What I meant was that Tolkien's Middle-earth doesn't seem to contain evolution as we know it. Men did not evolve, we simply awoke. Something similar had to have happened, though.

The first record of Hobbits was in III 1050, as seen in the Tale of Years: Hyarmendacil conquers the Harad. Gondor reaches the height of its power. About this time a shadow falls on Greenwood, and men begin to call it Mirkwood. The Periannath are first mentioned in records, with the coming of the Harfoots to Eriador.

But it is known that for some time before this the Hobbits lived in the Vales of Anduin with the Northmen. They, however, kept no written records. I quote what is to be found in JRR Tolkien's Prologue on this matter: Their earliest tales seem to glimpse a time when they dwelt in the upper vales of Anduin, between the eaves of Greenwood the Great and the Misty Mountains. Why they later undertook the hard and perilous crossing of the mountains into Eriador is no longer certain. Their own accounts speak of the multiplying of Men in the land, and of a shadow that fell on the forest, so that it became darkened and its new name was Mirkwood.

Before the crossing of the mountains the Hobbits had already become divided into three somewhat different breeds: Harfoots, Stoors, and Fallohides. The Harfoots were browner of skin, smaller, and shorter, and they were beardless and bootless; their hands and feet were neat and nimble; and they preferred highlands and hillsides. The Stoors were broader, heavier in build; their feet and hands were larger, and they preferred flat lands and riversides. The Fallohides were fairer of skin and also of hair, and they were taller and slimmer than the others; they were lovers of trees and of woodlands.

The Harfoots had much to do with Dwarves in ancient times, and long lived in the foothills of the mountains. They moved westward early, and roamed over Eriador as far as Weathertop while the others were still in the Wilderland. They were the most normal and representative variety of Hobbit, and far the most numerous. They were the most inclined to settle in one place, and longest preserved their ancestral habit of living in tunnels and holes.

The Stoors lingered long by the banks of the Great River Anduin, and were less shy of Men. They came west after the Harfoots and followed the course of the Loudwater southwards; and there many of them long dwelt between Tharbad and the borders of Dunland before they moved north again.

The Fallohides, the least numerous, were a northerly branch. They were more friendly with Elves than the other Hobbits were, and had more skill in language and song than in handicrafts; and of old they preferred hunting to tilling. They crossed the mountains north of Rivendell and came down the River Hoarwell. In Eriador they soon mingled with the other kinds that had preceded them, but being somewhat bolder and more adventurous, they were often found as leaders or chieftains among clans of Harfoots or Stoors..

Finally, there is some relevant stuff in Of Dwarves and Men, an unfinished work published in The Peoples of Midde-earth, Late Writings. The first part I will quote is part of a kind of short essay within an essay, Tolkien was listing the great differences between the Woses and Hobbits. Numbers corresponding to notes at the end are enclosed in brackets: Hobbits on the other hand were in nearly all respects normal Men, but of very short stature. They were called 'halflings'; but this refers to the normal height of men of Númenórean descent and of the Eldar (especially those of Ñoldorin descent), which appears to have been about seven of our feet.[54] Their height at the periods concerned was usually more than three feet for men, though very few ever exceeded three foot six; women seldom exceeded three feet. ......

The vague tradition preserved by the Hobbits of the Shire was that they had dwelt once in lands by a Great River, but long ago had left them, and found their way through or round high mountains, when they no longer felt at ease in their homes because of the multiplication of the Big Folk and of a shadow of fear that had fallen on the Forest. This evidently reflects the troubles of Gondor in the earlier part of the Third Age. The increase in Men was not the normal increase of those with whom they lived in friendship, but the steady increase of invaders from the East, further south held in check by Gondor, but in the North beyond the bounds of the Kingdom harassing the older 'Atanic' inhabitants, and even in places occupying the Forest and coming through it into the Anduin valley. But the shadow of which the tradition spoke was not solely due to human invasion. Plainly the Hobbits had sensed, even before the Wizards and the Eldar had become fully aware of it, the awakening of Sauron and his occupation of Dol Guldur.[ 60 ]

54] See the discussion of lineal measurements and their equation with our measures in the legend of The Disaster of the Gladden Fields.
[This discussion (which, with the work itself, belongs to the very late period - 1968 or later) is found in Unfinished Tales, pp. 285 ff., where a note on the stature of Hobbits is also given.]

60 ] The invasions were no doubt also in great part due to Sauron; for the 'Easterlings' were mostly Men of cruel and evil kind, descendants of those who had served and worshipped Sauron before his overthrow at the end of the Second Age.

[easterlinge]

Well, when I said "evolve" I did not mean in the (heretical?)Darwinian sense....

More like selective inbreeding or the like..... It's possible to mate a Great Dane with a Chihuahua, so they are indeed the same species, but got differentiated by selective breeding.

So the Hobbits may have arisen out of short Men always marrying short women over a long period of time.......


But they would still be Mannish, a Hobbit-Human pairing would still be fertile...... as would a Hobbit-Elf pairing as is said of an ancestor of the Tooks.....

[Shanamir Duntak]

Who would DO that???... eussssshhhh :p

[easterlinge]

While we're on the topic, goldfish are the result of centuries of selective breeding of carp. Can't imagine two more different fish, but they're the same species.

Ditto bulldogs and poodles

Horses and ponies......

Or Serbs and Zulus, or Greeks and Turks...

Or Sindar and Noldor. (??? questionable)

[Inoldonil]

Ah, I see easterlinge. Thanks for the explanation, although it would have been more fitting to say something rude in your turn. But wait a minute, ... what about the ancestor of the Tooks, now?

Not the Sindar and Noldor. By the time Elwe was found after being lossed in Nan Elmoth, after which he took up his rightful claim of High Kingship of the Teleri (in Middle-earth), the Noldor were already in Tirion upon Tuna in the Blessed Land. That is, the people who eventually came to be called the Sindar were those Teleri who were (a) a part of Olwe's Host, persuaded by Ossë to remain in Middle-earth, or (b) the friends of Elwë who were left behind when Olwë left, in search of their lord. Nowë was their leader (later called CÃ*rdan). The 'a' people were called the Falathrim, that is, the Host of the Foaming Shore. The 'b' people called themselves the Eglath, or the Forsaken People. These were the folk who made up the 'Sindar' when Elwë took up the High Kingship, although they didn't have that (Quenya) name yet.

When Elwë came forth from Nan Elmoth with Melian, the friends of Elwe settled in Eglador (later called Doriath), and called themselves, as well as their brethren ruled by Nowë the Edhil, which Tolkien simply translates 'Elves'. But the Falathrim were somewhat a people apart and retained the old name 'Teleri' for themselves, or in later Sindarin Telir or Telerrim.

But by the time the Noldor returned to Middle-earth, (where they would eventually give the Edhil their famous name: ) the Sindar included the Falathrim, the Mithrim (named after the land they dwelt in, or vice-versa), those of Nevrast and those of Doriath. These last were actually a mixture of Sindar and Nandor from Ossiriand, some of the Laiquendi had left their home for the Guarded Realm after the death of their first and last King on Amon Ereb in the first battle of the Wars of Beleriand. There were probably still some homeless travelers left over from that battle, too.

[Elenna]

So many names, So lil' memory.

Elenna ~ Lady of the Stars

[easterlinge]

"But wait a minute, ... what about the ancestor of the Tooks, now?"


Don't you remember in "the Hobbit", that is was said that Bandobras Took's ancestor was a fairy (elf?) ?

[Elenna]

Gee.....all this mushy mushy stuff........:o

Elenna ~ Lady of the Stars

[Inoldonil]

Nope, didn't remember that at all.

[Findarato Ingoldo]

Where'd you hear that? You got me curious. :p

[Finmandos12]

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[Inoldonil]

He read it in The Hobbit.

Do you want me to delete that, Mandos?

[Findarato Ingoldo]

Thanks. I should have figured that. :o

[UnStashable]

I thought that species could branch off and form new subcatergoies in the way that petty dwarves split off from "regular" dwarves.

[Ñólendil]

The Petty Dwarves were outcasts. They are a very sad element in Dwarvish history: The great Dwarves despised the Petty-dwarves, who were (it is said) the descendants of Dwarves who had left or been driven out from the Communities, being deformed or undersized, or slothful and rebellious.

---The War of the Jewels, Quendi and Eldar