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88-509: The chapter changes the book's tone from the first chapter's light-hearted hobbit partying, and introduces major themes of the book. These include a sense of the depth of time behind unfolding events , the power of the Ring , and the inter-related questions of providence, free will, and predestination . Peter Jackson , in his Lord of the Rings film trilogy , splits up Gandalf's description of

176-538: A Warwickshire village of about the period of the Diamond Jubilee [of Queen Victoria, in 1897] ". Shippey described hobbit culture, complete with tobacco and potatoes, as a "creative anachronism" on Tolkien's part. In his view, anachronism is the "essential function" of hobbits, enabling Tolkien to "bridge the gap" by mediating between readers' lives in the modern world and the dangerous ancient world of Middle-earth. Fimi comments that this applies both to

264-465: A leap year , 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, though others lived in houses. It has been suggested that the soil or ground of the Shire consists of loess and that this facilitates the construction of hobbit-holes. Loess is a yellow soil, which would explain

352-484: 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

440-537: A blank piece of paper: "In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit". The term "hobbit", however, has real antecedents in modern English. One is a fact that Tolkien admitted: the title of Sinclair Lewis 's 1922 novel Babbitt , about a "complacent American businessman" who goes through a journey of some kind of self-discovery, facing "near-disgrace"; the Tolkien scholar Tom Shippey observes that there are some parallels here with Bilbo's own journey. According to

528-747: 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

616-598: 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. In their earliest folk tales , hobbits appear to have lived in Rhovanion , in 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

704-456: A good many times", applies as much to the start of The Lord of the Rings as to the section of book 4 to which he applied it. By beginning the work with a "long-expected" party, he was consciously echoing the "unexpected party" that began The Hobbit . She suggests that he was clearly planning that the hero – whether Bilbo, or in draft variants his son or his adopted young cousin Bingo – would throw

792-515: 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. They were more adventurous than

880-567: A letter from Tolkien to W. H. Auden , one "probably ... unconscious" inspiration was Edward Wyke Smith 's 1927 children's book The Marvellous Land of Snergs . Tolkien described the Snergs as "a race of people only slightly taller than the average table but broad in the shoulders and [who] have the strength of ten men." Another possible origin emerged in 1977 when the Oxford English Dictionary announced that it had found

968-485: A list of ghostly beings in The Denham Tracts (1895), though these bear no similarity to Tolkien's Hobbits. Scholars have noted Tolkien's denial of a relationship with the word " rabbit ", pointing to several lines of evidence to the contrary. Hobbits are modern, unlike the heroic ancient-style cultures of Gondor and Rohan , with familiar things like umbrellas, matches, and clocks. As such they mediate between

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1056-506: 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 , an altogether darker tale, where Bilbo's younger cousin Frodo sets out from the Shire to destroy the Ring that Bilbo had brought home. 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

1144-581: 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 homeland of the hobbits in the northwest of Middle-earth. Some also live in a region east of the Shire, Bree-land , where they co-exist with Men . The origins of the name and idea of "Hobbits" have been debated; literary antecedents include Sinclair Lewis 's 1922 novel Babbitt , and Edward Wyke Smith's 1927 The Marvellous Land of Snergs . The word "hobbit" also appears in

1232-406: A variety of humanity, or close relatives thereof. Occasionally known as halflings in Tolkien's writings, they live barefooted, and traditionally dwell in homely underground houses which have windows, built into the sides of hills, though others live in houses. 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

1320-401: A war that threatens to devastate their land. 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 . Niggle is a painter struggling against the summons of death to complete his one great canvas, a picture of a tree with

1408-681: Is an American scholar known for his research and writings on the works of J. R. R. Tolkien . Together with his wife Christina Scull , a fellow Tolkien scholar, they have jointly won Mythopoeic Scholarship Awards for Inklings Studies five times. Wayne Hammond was born in Cleveland, Ohio , and then raised in Brooklyn, Ohio . He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree with Honors as an English major at Baldwin-Wallace College in 1975. He gained his Master of Arts degree in Library Science from

1496-513: 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 , Gandalf 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 he casts aside weapons and refuses to fight others with physical force: "For him struggles for

1584-412: 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: I picture a fairly human figure, not a kind of 'fairy' rabbit as some of my British reviewers seem to fancy: fattish in

1672-492: Is with rabbit , 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 that carries him; the eagle , too, tells Bilbo not to be "frightened like a rabbit". The giant bear-man Beorn teases Bilbo and jokes that "little bunny is getting nice and fat again", while

1760-674: 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 , close by the Éothéod , the ancestors of the Rohirrim. This led to some contact between

1848-626: The First World War , in which Tolkien had fought, and the Second World War , during which he wrote much of The Lord of the Rings . In his foreword to the second edition, Tolkien denied that either the book or the chapter reflected the Second World War: [ The Lord of the Rings ] is neither allegorical nor topical. As the story grew it put down roots (into the past) and threw out unexpected branches: but its main theme

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1936-580: The Indonesian island of Flores in 2004. The fossils, of a species named Homo floresiensis 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 . 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. Wayne G. Hammond Wayne Gordon Hammond (born February 11, 1953)

2024-722: The University of Michigan in 1976. From August 1976 to June 2015, he was Assistant Librarian of the Chapin Library of Rare Books at Williams College , and in July 2015 was promoted to Chapin Librarian. In 1994, Hammond married fellow Tolkien scholar Christina Scull , and the two have since collaborated on several projects. John Garth describes Hammond and Scull as "two highly regarded veterans of Tolkien studies." Their book J. R. R. Tolkien: Artist and Illustrator won

2112-633: The 16th century, so Tolkien invented a calque made of English words. Donald O'Brien, writing in Mythlore , notes, too, that Aragorn 's description of Frodo 's priceless mithril mail -shirt, "here's a pretty hobbit-skin to wrap an elven -princeling in", is a "curious echo" of the English nursery rhyme " To find a pretty rabbit-skin to wrap the baby bunting in ." Tolkien has King Théoden of Rohan say "the Halflings, that some among us call

2200-487: The 1937 children's novel The Hobbit , whose titular Hobbit is the protagonist Bilbo Baggins , who is thrown into an unexpected adventure involving a dragon . In its sequel, The Lord of the Rings , the hobbits Frodo Baggins , Sam Gamgee , Pippin Took , and Merry Brandybuck are primary characters who all play key roles in fighting to save their world (" Middle-earth ") from evil. In The Hobbit , hobbits live together in

2288-609: The 19th century caricaturist John Leech 's "wildly unflattering" depictions of the Irish in Punch magazine . The 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. The skeletal remains of several diminutive paleolithic hominids were discovered on

2376-691: The Angle formed by the rivers Mitheithel and Bruinen , 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 and the River Schlei , in the north of Germany next to Denmark, the origin of the Angles among the Anglo-Saxons who founded England. Further,

2464-537: The Christmas of 1937, Tolkien began to write, without a clear idea where the story would lead, or indeed whether the audience would be children or adults. The first chapter set out in a style much like that of The Hobbit , with a story of Bilbo Baggins 's speech at his birthday party. As he stated, the tale "grew in the telling", becoming the epic fantasy The Lord of the Rings , which was published in 1954–55. Tolkien's biographer, Humphrey Carpenter , writes that at

2552-639: 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 ( Frodo , Pippin , and Merry ) 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, and fairer than most". Tolkien created

2640-678: 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 were of Stoor descent. Due to the time the Stoors spent living in Dunland before migrating to

2728-644: 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 , hobbits undertook the arduous task of crossing the Misty Mountains - a migration period they refer to as the "Wandering Days",

The Shadow of the Past - Misplaced Pages Continue

2816-768: The Hobbits. But progress on the story stalled until the summer of 1938. Tolkien then had the Elf Gildor explain that the Ring had been made by the Necromancer , who wanted to find it; and the Black Riders were the Ringwraiths . He was then able to draft a dialogue between the Hobbit and Gandalf about how the Ring must be destroyed. Suddenly the ideas began to flow. It was a critical section, as it represents both

2904-462: The Holbytlan". Tolkien set out a fictional etymology for the word "Hobbit" in an appendix to The Lord of the Rings , that it was derived from holbytla (plural holbytlan ), meaning "hole-builder". This was Tolkien's own new construction from Old English hol , "a hole or hollow", and bytlan , "to build". Tolkien describes hobbits as between two and four feet (0.6–1.2 m) tall, with

2992-646: 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

3080-609: The Old English word stor or stoor , meaning "strong". 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. They claimed to have invented the art of smoking pipe-weed . They were extremely "clannish" and had strong "predilections for genealogy "; accordingly, Tolkien included several Hobbit family trees in The Lord of

3168-495: 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. Tolkien devised a fictional history with three types of hobbits, with different physical characteristics and temperaments: Harfoots , Fallohides , and Stoors . By

3256-474: The Ring as "three basic data". Firstly, the Ring is enormously powerful, whether in the right or the wrong hands. Secondly, it is dangerous "and ultimately fatal to all its possessors – in a sense, there are no right hands". Finally, it cannot just be set aside quietly, but that it will have to be destroyed in the place where it was made, Mount Doom. In his view, that adds up to the modern saying " Power corrupts , and absolute power corrupts absolutely". That view, of

3344-551: The Ring from Sauron's hand, destroying the dark lord's physical form. Isildur refused to destroy the Ring, however, and it eventually led him to his death in the River Anduin . The Ring was lost for over 2000 years, until the Stoorish Hobbit Déagol found it while fishing in the Anduin. His relative Sméagol, who was fishing with Déagol, was instantly ensnared by the Ring and murdered him to take it for himself;

3432-440: The Ring turned him into the creature Gollum, who, centuries later, lost his "Precious" to Bilbo in the riddle game portrayed in The Hobbit . Gollum went in search of Bilbo and the Ring a few years later, and was eventually captured by Sauron, who tortured him into revealing that "Baggins" from "the Shire" had the Ring. Gandalf says that the Ring must be destroyed by throwing it into the fires of Mount Doom. Frodo decides he must leave

3520-416: The Ring's history to Frodo and compresses other parts of his talk. The philologist and University of Oxford professor J. R. R. Tolkien had been working on his legendarium , the complex narratives that became The Silmarillion , for some 20 years, and had in 1937 published the well-received children's book The Hobbit . His publishers, George Allen & Unwin , asked him for a follow-up book. Over

3608-549: The Ring, and not by its maker. In which case you also were meant to have it. And that may be an encouraging thought. The scholar Kathleen Dubs examines the Boethian philosophy of providence that in her view Tolkien seems to follow. In this case, it is that bearing the Ring is in some way "meant" or "appointed" for Frodo, yet all the same his will is free: he can choose to accept the task or not. She quotes English literature scholar Paul Kocher 's analysis of Frodo's acceptance of

The Shadow of the Past - Misplaced Pages Continue

3696-572: The Rings and The Hobbit made extensive use of prosthetics . Wētā Workshop spent a year creating hobbit feet to look like large, furry feet, yet act as shoes for the actors. In total, 1,800 pairs were worn by the four lead hobbit actors during production. In addition, actors went in for face casts to create pointed ears and false noses. 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

3784-520: The Rings . Most hobbits married and had large families, although Bilbo and Frodo were exceptions to this general rule. 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. 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

3872-513: The Shire, and agrees with Gandalf that he will travel to Rivendell , home to Elrond , a leader of the Elves. Gandalf hears something, and catches Sam eavesdropping under the window. He tells Sam he will have to go with Frodo. Kate Nepveu, writing for Tor.com , calls the chapter "remarkable in both mechanics and content". That is because it consists in large part of Gandalf talking to Frodo and steadily providing him with information. She writes that

3960-542: 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

4048-546: 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

4136-410: The act as loathsome, but Gandalf replies that Gollum's corruption "is a sad story, and it could have happened to others, even to some hobbits I have known"; Rutledge calls this "a central insight". She comments that Gandalf is hinting that Frodo should not be so quick to judge Gollum. She compares the remark to Matthew 7:1 "Judge not, that ye be not judged". Shippey summarizes Gandalf's explanations of

4224-431: The actors playing the Harfoots. The fantasy author Neil Gaiman , 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 ; and that they resemble

4312-412: The average height being three feet six inches (1.1 m). They dress in bright colours, favouring yellow and green. 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

4400-481: The book Frodo has by then acquired a measure of wisdom and fortitude. Frodo's decision to leave the Shire is not moved but it is heavily compressed. Timmons comments that the change makes Frodo seem powerless and without initiative, whereas in the book he is reflective, speaking at length, and makes his own decision. Hobbit Hobbits are a fictional race of people in the novels of J. R. R. Tolkien . About half average human height, Tolkien presented hobbits as

4488-458: 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. The first Thain of the Shire was Bucca of

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4576-454: The central plot of the book. In particular, it demonstrated that the Ring was immeasurably powerful and unalterably evil, so that its destruction was the only viable choice, however dangerous that might be. Tolkien sent drafts of three chapters to his publisher for comment. They were read by the 12-year-old Rayner Unwin , who had given a favourable opinion of The Hobbit to his father some years earlier; this time he reported that he had enjoyed

4664-539: The centre of Gandalf's account in the chapter is the Rhyme of the Rings . He adds that the verse, one of many in The Lord of the Rings , serves as the epigraph of the whole book and as final proof of the Ring's nature: 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. The chapter introduces Tolkien's thinking on

4752-456: The chapter. The whole two-book volume is narrated as a single strand with Frodo as the protagonist, except for the flashback narratives within "The Shadow of the Past" and later " The Council of Elrond ". The Tolkien scholar Verlyn Flieger adds that the two chapters are similar in that "the past must be recapitulated by Gandalf or Elrond [in their respective flashback sections] in order to explain

4840-517: The colour of the Brandywine River, and the nature of the bricks made at Stock, the main Shire brickyard. Hobbit architecture favours round doors and windows. Tolkien likened his own tastes to those of hobbits in a 1958 letter: 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

4928-406: The corrupting effect of the Ring's power , could be said, he writes, to be the core of the book. Shippey compares this with the pigs-turned-farmers of George Orwell 's Animal Farm , another modern fantasy written in response to war , writing that "in an age which has seen many pigs become farmers", no reviewer has ever complained about Tolkien's "opening move" in the chapter. Shippey states that

5016-444: 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 -cum-familiarity" with the lifestyle of the Hobbit, giving the example of smoking "pipeweed". He argues that Tolkien did not want to write " tobacco ", as it did not arrive until

5104-530: The earliest remembered time in their history. 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 his search of the forest for the One Ring. Hobbits took different routes in their journey westward, but as they began to settle together in Bree-land , Dunland , and

5192-405: The end of 1937, Tolkien wrote the first chapter of The Lord of the Rings , "A Long-Expected Party", but "had as yet no clear idea of what the new story was going to be about". A sketch of "The Shadow of the Past" soon followed; it was among the first parts of the book to be written, early in 1938. The scholar Christina Scull notes that Tolkien's words, "I wrote and tore up and rewrote most of it

5280-412: The end of the Third Age most hobbits outside The Shire could be found in their village of Staddle on the southeastern slopes of Bree-hill. However, some also lived with Men in the village of Bree itself and in nearby Archet and Combe. 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

5368-582: The hall of Bilbo's home, Bag End , shows both a clock and a barometer (mentioned in an early draft), and he had another clock on his mantelpiece . To arrange a party, hobbits rely on a daily postal service . The effect, the scholars agree, is to bring the reader comfortably into the ancient heroic world. Dungeons & Dragons began using the name halfling as an alternative to hobbit for legal reasons. Fantasy authors including Terry Brooks , Jack Vance , and Clifford D. Simak use races of halflings. Peter Jackson 's films of The Lord of

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5456-459: The human race, or a "variety" 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, 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 and

5544-473: The interrelated questions of providence , free will , and predestination ; these pervade the story. Commentators including Shippey have remarked on a statement by Gandalf in the chapter that appears to hint at a benevolent power behind the scenes: Behind that there was something else at work, beyond any design of the Ring-maker. I can put it no plainer than by saying that Bilbo was meant (sic) to find

5632-517: The manuscript evidence in The Treason of Isengard . In 1944, Tolkien returned to the chapter, adding descriptions of Gollum , the Ring, and the hunt for Gollum by Gandalf , the Elves, and Aragorn . Frodo grows restless in his comfortable home, Bag End , in the Shire , and starts to hear rumours of a dark power growing in the East. His gardener, Sam Gamgee , who likes tales of Elves, discuss

5720-520: The material, but that there was "too much Hobbit talk". Tolkien had thus made the Ring the central element of the chapter, and of the book, but it still took in Hammond and Scull's words "much further thought" for the full history of the Rings to develop. In Scull's view, he probably only finally settled the relationship of the Rings of Power to Sauron in the autumn of 1941. Christopher Tolkien discusses

5808-676: 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. The new land that they founded on the west bank of the Brandywine was called The Shire. Many hobbits followed them, and by

5896-486: The modern world known to readers and the heroic ancient world of Middle-earth. Halflings appear as a race in Dungeons & Dragons , and the works of other fantasy authors including Terry Brooks , Jack Vance , and Clifford D. Simak . 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

5984-639: The moment that Tolkien devised the central plot of the whole book, and the point in the story where the protagonist, Frodo Baggins , and the reader realize that there will be a quest to destroy the Ring . The manuscripts illustrating the slow development of Tolkien's ideas are documented by Tolkien's son Christopher in The Return of the Shadow . Tolkien later described "The Shadow of the Past" as "the crucial chapter". The Tolkien scholar Tom Shippey concurred, labelling it "the vital chapter", as it established

6072-425: The most typical of the race as described in The Hobbit . They lived in holes , 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

6160-448: 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 rivers , and were

6248-501: 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 ". The Stoors migrated into Eriador two centuries after

6336-442: 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 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

6424-460: 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 , 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

6512-429: The party and then set off on The Hobbit -style adventures. In February 1938 he wrote to his publisher that as he had not intended to write a sequel, he feared "I squandered all my favourite 'motifs' and characters on the original 'Hobbit'." Tolkien told his publisher that "stories tend to get out of hand, and this has taken an unpremeditated turn"; a Black Rider, of unknown provenance, had appeared, searching intently for

6600-407: The power of the Ring. The chapter transforms the Ring from the simple plot device of The Hobbit to a central element of the book. The episcopal priest Fleming Rutledge notes that Tolkien called it "the crucial chapter". In her view, the key passage is Gandalf's narration of Gollum's "slimy and murderous deed": Gollum strangles his relative Deagol to gain possession of the Ring. Frodo describes

6688-419: The present". After the light tone of the first chapter, " A Long-Expected Party ", Tolkien deepens the plot. He starts to give the reader a sense of the depth of time behind the unfolding events , and the feeling that past and present are connected. Flieger writes that in the chapter, time both provides "the essential framework of the narrative [and] becomes the traveled road between past and present, connecting

6776-420: The quest. He writes that Gandalf, like Elrond in "The Council of Elrond", is quite tentative in his guidance. Gandalf does not assume that Frodo will do "what he was intended to do, though he should". Instead, he makes it clear to Frodo that "the decision lies with you". The scholar Elizabeth Goodenough writes that the chapter's title "resonantly links not only the past and coming war against Sauron" but also both

6864-463: The right must hereafter be waged only on the moral plane". Tolkien scholars including Shippey and Dimitra Fimi have stated that the hobbits are misfits in Middle-earth's heroic cultures like Gondor and Rohan . Those have a basis in ancient societies such as ancient Rome and the Anglo-Saxons . In contrast, Tolkien placed the Shire in a society he had personally experienced, "more or less

6952-648: The rumours in the Green Dragon Inn with Ted Sandyman, the miller's son. Ted thinks the tales are irrelevant nonsense. The Wizard Gandalf makes one of his rare visits to the Shire, 17 years after Bilbo's farewell birthday party. He tells Frodo about the danger he is in through the Ring that his cousin Bilbo has given him. Gandalf tells Frodo of the Ring's history: Sauron made the Ring in Mount Doom and used it to wage war on Middle-earth until Isildur cut

7040-406: 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." Shippey 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. An additional connection

7128-437: 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; [and specifically for Bilbo, in The Hobbit ] a dark green hood and cloak (belonging to a dwarf). Tolkien presented hobbits as relatives of

7216-489: The structure "might be frowned upon as inelegant", but nevertheless engages the reader. She notes that the subject of the conversation circles around from the danger of possessing the Ring, to its faraway history, back to the danger it poses to the Shire and to Frodo, in nine sections. She comments that, following the science fiction and fantasy author Ursula Le Guin , it could be called a "there and back again" structure. Shippey mentions another distinctive structural feature of

7304-454: The style of language used by hobbits, and to their material culture of "umbrellas, camping kettles, matches, clocks, pocket handkerchiefs and fireworks", all of which are plainly modern, as are the fish and chips that Sam Gamgee thinks of on his journey to Mordor . Most striking, in her view, however, is Tolkien's description of the enormous dragon firework at Bilbo's party which rushed overhead "like an express train". Tolkien's drawing of

7392-404: 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 , which contains the Shire and Bree. They were the smallest in stature, "browner of skin" in complexion, and

7480-462: The two worlds." The chapter was originally titled "Ancient History". This contributes to the feeling, Lawrence Krikorian writes in Mallorn , that Tolkien is reporting a "true history of Middle-earth". Tolkien later reinforces this feeling by adding small seemingly irrelevant details and talk of locking Frodo up in a tower to write the story of the quest. "The Shadow of the Past" begins to reveal

7568-525: The two, and as a result many old words and names in "Hobbitish" are derivatives of words in Rohirric (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 where

7656-581: Was modified by the war that began in 1939 or its sequels. The Tolkien scholar Daniel Timmons notes that Peter Jackson , in his Lord of the Rings film trilogy , splits up Gandalf's description of the Ring's history to Frodo. Jackson puts part of it in Bag End, and part of it much later in the darkness of the Mines of Moria . Timmons remarks that by making Frodo appear terrified by the news as late as Moria, Jackson makes Frodo appear not to have matured, whereas in

7744-617: Was settled from the outset by the inevitable choice of the Ring as the link between it and The Hobbit. The crucial chapter, "The Shadow of the Past", is one of the oldest parts of the tale. It was written long before the foreshadow of 1939 [the start of the Second World War] had yet become a threat of inevitable disaster, and from that point the story would have developed along essentially the same lines, if that disaster had been averted. Its sources are things long before in mind, or in some cases already written, and little or nothing in it

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