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curufinwefeanor13
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Post Halflings
on: July 16, 2009 09:49
In the books the Hobbits are called the Halflings, are they really half something or does it have something to do with their height?
starofdunedain
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Post RE: Halflings
on: July 16, 2009 10:02
The race of men call Hobbits halflings because they're half their height. They're 100% their own race.
Iavas87
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Post RE: Halflings
on: July 17, 2009 06:34
Actually, they're more an offshoot of Men (i.e. humans), and the the only distinct non-corrupted sentient races in Middle-Earth that we know of for sure are: Ainur, Dwarves, Elves, Men, and Ents.
curufinwefeanor13
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Post RE: Halflings
on: July 17, 2009 12:59
Iavas87 what do you mean by offshoot? Do you mean they are actually half something or short men that became their own race.
Celebrian
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Post RE: Halflings
on: July 17, 2009 04:51
I don't think Hobbits are part Man. I think they are a distinct creation. Because of their size and their customs, they were generally overlooked by the other peoples and therefore there is little lore regarding them outside of their own society. Most of what we know about Middle Earth's ancient history is recorded from the point of view of Elves, who had only occasional interests and dealings with Dwarves and Men and apparently little or none with Hobbits. We know that, at least in the third age, Elves and even some Men knew of the existence of Hobbits but since they seldom entered into any tales there is little recorded about them.

As for the name, I believe it was a worn down version of the word, Holbytla (sp) which meant "hole delver" or something like that. From their earliest days, Hobbits dug tunnels or holes to live in and it was their preferred form of dwelling even into the Third age.

[Edited on 18/7/2009 by Celebrian]
Ilandir
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Post RE: Halflings
on: July 18, 2009 01:32
I agree with Iavas87. Hobbits were a type of strain that emerged from the human race. In fact, it is written somewhere - probably in the Prologue to FOTR (i'm not sure though).

With "strain" or "offshoot" that means that at some point the DNA structure of humans branched off to another new structure from which hobbits got 'created'.
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Iavas87
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Post RE: Halflings
on: July 18, 2009 07:28
Halflings are not half- of anything. That is, they are not the result of interbreeding between races.

However, leaving aside any attempted scientific explanations with DNA and such (only because Tolkien wrote that such notions fit into his stories about as well as sparkly fairy-castle minarets), I did mean that Halflings branched off from Men. Indeed, they are a breed of Men, if you will.

There isn't much canonical talk of "races" in Middle-earth - that's a roleplaying term. Rather, there are the free-peoples - that is, types of sentient beings created or approved by Ilúvatar. These are Elves and Men (the Eruchin, or Children of the One), Dwarves (created by the Vala Aulë and given free will by Ilúvatar), and Ents (granted by Ilúvatar to the Vala Yavanna). You could also include the Ainur (i.e. Valar and Maiar) under that heading, though they were created before the world.

Those are the only thinking beings, not including animals and the various servants of the Dark Lord (who are either corrupted members of existing free-willed races, corrupted animals, corrupted Maiar, or creations driven solely by the will of the Dark Lord himself). In that system of classification, Hobbits are not a separate 'race', but rather a type of Men, from whom they split apart early in the Third Age and changed in appearance. Despite these changes, they still share the same fate in the afterlife and are thus, essentially, the same 'race'.

[Edited on 18/7/2009 by Iavas87]
cirdaneth
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Post RE: Halflings
on: July 19, 2009 12:19
Yes, Iavas, Tolkien does state in the Prologue to LotR that Hobbits are "relatives of ours". It's not hard to imagine as our own species varies from 6ft Massai warriors to 3ft bushmen. Tokiien also points out that both hobbits and men had shrunk over the years.

It seems that back when everyone was taller, a Hobbit was half a Numenorean. ... and the tallest of them was about 7ft 6ins ... making a Hobbit 3ft 9ins. Don't forget that Bullroarer was even taller than that, and that entdraft seems to have reversed the shrinking pocess for Merry and Pippin.

I've been delving into words again ... Tolkien was fascinated by the sounds of words and would explore a sound for all its meanings and try to relate them. In Sindarin 'el' is a star and 'ell' is an elf. In English an ell was an old unit of measurement, related to arm-length in the same way as the cubit. It was not standardised for centuries and varied enormously from place to place. However ...

The English ell was eventually standardised at 45 inches ... which is 3ft 9ins ... or half a Numenorean.

I rest my case. :disco:
Ilandir
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Post RE: Halflings
on: July 19, 2009 04:39
Tolkien does state in the Prologue to LotR that Hobbits are "relatives of ours"


Thanks for confirming that cirdaneth! I wasn't sure whether what I said, that it was in the Prologue, was correct and couldn't check it since I don't have the books with me right now. So, thanks!
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curufinwefeanor13
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Post RE: Halflings
on: July 19, 2009 10:20
So when men call Hobbits Halflings they are talking about the Hobbit's hight, but Hobbits are short men that evolved into their own race. Hobbits are still essentially the same race as men though, with the fact that their afterlife is the same.
pitya
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Post RE: Halflings
on: July 20, 2009 04:25
Considering no one knows what happened to mortal men upon their death in Tolkien mythology, that guess is as good as any.

I always had a theory (a crazy one, I'll admit) that hobbits were descendants of the entwives; the timeline works, and Treebeard had never heard of a hobbit, which indicates they were a sporadic creation/development, plus how famously Treebeard and the hobbits got along. What if hobbits were a combination of ent and man, or ent man and elf (ergo the ears)?
curufinwefeanor13
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Post RE: Halflings
on: July 23, 2009 08:09

I always had a theory (a crazy one, I'll admit) that hobbits were descendants of the entwives; the timeline works, and Treebeard had never heard of a hobbit, which indicates they were a sporadic creation/development, plus how famously Treebeard and the hobbits got along. What if hobbits were a combination of ent and man, or ent man and elf (ergo the ears)?


Is it possible for Entwives or Ents to have children with other races? Since always thought of Ents as walking trees I didn't think it would work, but are Ents and Entwives really walking trees or are they mammals? Do the Entwives give birth like Elves, Men, and Dwarfs, and if they don't how would they reproduce? (Would this question need another Thread?) Hobbits make me think that they are part Elf since they live in hills like Elves in folklore, (Didn't Elu Thingol live in Menegroth the Thousand Caves?) but Hobbits aren't as ethereal as Tolkien's Elves and seem to have a bit of man in them.
Ashbrook
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Post RE: Halflings
on: July 24, 2009 09:41
What's up with the Hobbit ears then?
pitya
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Post RE: Halflings
on: July 24, 2009 10:50
I would say Ents were more than just walking trees; they look like trees but they were definitely a race of their own. Could they be something similar to dryads? Goldberry is described as Riverman's daughter, and she appears human. Would Riverman be similar to Treebeard? If so it'd be safe to say that Riverman is a naiad and Treebeard is a dryad?

We also have very few clues as to what Entwives looked like. They could have been smaller, or more human-looking. Maybe they took after flowers or shrubs instead of trees.

Hobbits are anything but immortal, so I would be more inclined to say their ears would then come from the Entwives, not elves.

Hobbits make me think that they are part Elf since they live in hills like Elves in folklore


There are several different elven houses that resided in caves, but they usually did it with the help of dwarves, if I remember right. It always seemed to be a defensive and tactical residence rather than a preferred residence to me. Then again, when the hobbits were first cultivating the Shire the hobbit-hole may have been just that, like rabbits running to their holes.
Celebrian
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Post RE: Halflings
on: July 24, 2009 05:16
The Ents are among the oldest living things in Middle Earth. Their creation is explained in The Silmarillion and this topic is currently under discussion in the Book Club section of this forum. It's an interesting study and I hope anybody posting here who hasn't popped in over there will soon join in.

I think that the pointed ears on Hobbits was a creation of Peter Jackson, not Professor Tolkien. I think he did that to make them seem more different from Men, but it really only served to make them seem more like Elves. I still think Hobbits are beings in their own right, not cross-bred accidents or a collection of genetically inferior Men. They could be considered a different kind of Men. We know there were many peoples under the general heading of Men (Woses, Easterlings, Numenoreans, etc.) To me, part of the beauty of the stories is that so many different types of beings could come together, in spite of being totally alien to each other and having had their share of misunderstandings and conflicts, to unite in the purpose of defending "good" for each other and their entire world.
LadyBeruthiel
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Post RE: Halflings
on: July 24, 2009 05:18
Ears? Where does Tolkien mention elves and/or hobbits having pointed ears? I know hobbits have plump tummies and curly hair, and that elves are tall and graceful, but I don't remember any description of ears.

From a literary point of view, hobbits have more in common with humans than with any other creature. Tolkien scholar Tom Shippey suggests that they are meant to link modern people with the mythic past JRRT creates in Middle Earth, so hobbits are a lot like rural 19th-century Englishmen. That would be why Tolkien says they are relatives of ours, though not us, exactly. But neither are we exactly the men of Numenor.
pitya
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Post RE: Halflings
on: July 24, 2009 08:23
Ears? Where does Tolkien mention elves and/or hobbits having pointed ears?


In concept sketches Tolkien did, I'm almost certain he drew hobbits with pointed ears. I don't know about elves... You'd think that PJ, Howe, and all the other artists got the idea from somewhere though. With as much research as they did to create the film, one would think they wouldn't give elves or hobbits pointed ears without a distinct point of origin, especially because of all the make-up/prosthetics they had to deal with anyway. It seems ridiculous to make all the hobbits spend the extra time to get pointed ears if Tolkien never said anything about it.
Iavas87
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Post RE: Halflings
on: July 25, 2009 04:38
In his description of Hobbits, Tolkien mentioned that their ears were "slightly pointed and elf-like", which is one of those passages that makes fans like myself wonder whether he meant traditional elves or if his own Middle-earth Elves had pointed ears as well, a point which is not mentioned anywhere else save in that one quote. So, we don't know if Elves had pointed ears, but Hobbits definitely did... slightly.
Morwinyoniel
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Post RE: Halflings
on: July 25, 2009 05:11
Tolkien does state in the Prologue to LotR that Hobbits are "relatives of ours"


Thanks for confirming that cirdaneth! I wasn't sure whether what I said, that it was in the Prologue, was correct and couldn't check it since I don't have the books with me right now. So, thanks!


There's even more in other sources. This is the definition that Tolkien himself sent in September 1970 to his former pupil, Robert Burchfield, who at the time was the senior Editor of the Oxford English Dictionary:

One of an imaginary people, a small variety of the human race, that gave themselves this name (meaning 'hole-dweller' but were called by others halflings, since they were half the height of normal Men.

(emphasis mine)

This letter was quoted in The History of The Hobbit by J.D. Rateliff, page 858.
LadyBeruthiel
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Post RE: Halflings
on: July 25, 2009 05:31
In his description of Hobbits, Tolkien mentioned that their ears were "slightly pointed and elf-like", which is one of those passages that makes fans like myself wonder whether he meant traditional elves or if his own Middle-earth Elves had pointed ears as well, a point which is not mentioned anywhere else save in that one quote. So, we don't know if Elves had pointed ears, but Hobbits definitely did... slightly.


I haven't seen that description, Iavas. Can you tell me where to find it?
cirdaneth
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Post RE: Halflings
on: July 25, 2009 09:51
Here you are:
LAS¹- * lassē leaf: Q lasse , N lhass ; Q lasselanta leaf-fall, autumn, N lhasbelin (*lassekwelēne ). cf. Q Narqelion [KWEL]. Lhasgalen Greenleaf, Gnome name of Laurelin. (Some think this is related to the next and * lassē 'ear'. The Quendian ears were more pointed and leaf-shaped than [?human] .)

LAS²- listen. N lhaw ears (of one person), old dual * lasū - whence singular lhewig . Q lár, lasta - listen; lasta listening, hearing - Lastalaika 'sharp-ears', a name, cf. N Lhathleg . N lhathron hearer, listener, eavesdropper (< * la(n)sro-ndo ); lhathro or lhathrado listen in, eavesdrop.

- The Etymologies, The Lost Road and other writings , HOME V, Pages 367-8.
curufinwefeanor13
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Post RE: Halflings
on: July 25, 2009 11:23
I would say Ents were more than just walking trees; they look like trees but they were definitely a race of their own. Could they be something similar to dryads? Goldberry is described as Riverman's daughter, and she appears human. Would Riverman be similar to Treebeard? If so it'd be safe to say that Riverman is a naiad and Treebeard is a dryad?


In Greek Myths dryads and naiads and oreads and all the other Nymphs i forgot to mention were female. I guess they could be something similar to them and I thought it was Riverwoman which is the opposite of Greek Myths where the river deities were male. It is not safe to say Treebeard is a dryad, but he is a tree shepherd.
LadyBeruthiel
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Post RE: Halflings
on: July 26, 2009 02:05
Thanks, cirdaneth; that helps with the pointy elf-ears. I was wondering where Prof. Tolkien says that about the hobbit ears. Is it in the Letters?
cirdaneth
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Post RE: Halflings
on: July 26, 2009 08:33
I can't answer that one, LadyB, though I think I've seen it somewhere. Maybe Iavas can tell us.
Morwinyoniel
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Post RE: Halflings
on: July 29, 2009 07:15
It's in Letter 27 (193:
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) [...]


(Here, Tolkien was probably comparing hobbits' ears to those of the elves and fairies of folklore rather than of the Eldar of Middle-earth.)
curufinwefeanor13
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Post RE: Halflings
on: July 29, 2009 07:22
So Halflings are Tolkien's jolly folklore elves? Weren't they created for a Fairytale purpose?
Morwinyoniel
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Post RE: Halflings
on: July 30, 2009 01:11
Not exactly, although they indeed were created for a children's book in the first place.

But, the comparison to the folkloric elves and fairies (which are often described as having clearly pointy ears, like this one) was just to clarify. Remember, at that time, no stories about the Eldar of Middle-earth were published yet; and, although the elves in The Hobbit later turned out to be of Eldarin origin (mostly Noldor in Rivendell, Sindar and Nandor in Mirkwood), they weren't identified as such in TH.
LadyBeruthiel
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Post RE: Halflings
on: July 30, 2009 11:37
Thanks, Morwinyoniel! I really need to stop rereading LOTR long enough to get to the Professor's Letters.
curufinwefeanor13
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Post RE: Halflings
on: July 30, 2009 01:29

I always had a theory (a crazy one, I'll admit) that hobbits were descendants of the entwives; the timeline works, and Treebeard had never heard of a hobbit, which indicates they were a sporadic creation/development, plus how famously Treebeard and the hobbits got along. What if hobbits were a combination of ent and man, or ent man and elf (ergo the ears)?


Were there Ents in the Old Forest or only trees like Old Willow?
cirdaneth
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Post RE: Halflings
on: July 30, 2009 08:58
Were there Ents in the Old Forest or only trees like Old Willow?
This is a discussion on Halflings. Ent questions belong elsewhere. Thank you.
Elthir
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Post RE: Halflings
on: January 11, 2010 05:19
With as much research as they did to create the film, one would think they wouldn't give elves or hobbits pointed ears without a distinct point of origin, especially because of all the make-up/prosthetics they had to deal with anyway. It seems ridiculous to make all the hobbits spend the extra time to get pointed ears if Tolkien never said anything about it.


I think the actors spent a lot of time putting on larger, fake Hobbit feet, but Tolkien's Hobbits don't have disproportionally large feet (that I know of).
Elthir
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on: June 12, 2014 02:15
Well, I've no idea why this thread got bumped [I'm only posting this after the mysterious bump], but since it has, I'll add my opinion about the 'ear quotes'.

At one point [pun intended] Tolkien imagined both his Elves and his Hobbits as more pointy eared than Men, but that was back in 1938-ish. The letter about Hobbits is around that time [quoted by Morwinyoniel above], and so is Etymologies [quoted by Cirdaneth above). For the dating of the latter [not the letter], see below 'the line of dread'.

Tolkien abandoned Etymologies but much later [after The Lord of the Rings had been published] he would write a new linguistic document that we now call Words Phrases And Passages [WPP], and in it he looks at the same or similar 'LAS' words too, writing...

'Q lasse 'leaf (S las); pl. lassi (S lais). It is only applied to certain kinds of leaves, especially those of trees, and would not e.g. be used of leaf of a hyacinth (linque). It is thus possibly related to LAS 'listen', and S-LAS stem of Elvish words for 'ear'; Q hlas, dual hlaru. Sindarin dual lhaw, singular lhewig.'

JRRT Words, Phrases and Passages, Parma Eldalamberon 17


So what's 'missing' when you compare this to the entry in Etymologies [again, see Cirdaneth's quote above]? The very statement about Elvish ears being more pointed and leaf-shaped than human ears is 'missing' here...

... of course there is still 'possibly related' even here, but whatever that says, or doesn't say about Elvish ears, in my opinion this should not necessarily be read with the abandoned Etymologies entry in mind.

We are generally 20 years later here. Did Tolkien still think his Elves had more pointed and leaf-shaped ears than Men, or did he prefer to leave it only at 'possibly' now, compared to the statement back in Etymologies?

And what about Hobbits? Tolkien never published any description that Hobbits had pointed ears, but he did publish his illustrations. Does Bilbo certainly have pointed ears in JRRT's renderings? Or could one wonder if the angle of the hair makes them only look pointed... if they do, that is, in a given illustration.

And was Tolkien 'locked in' by some letter the public was never meant to see? I would say no; he could easily change his mind, if desired.

Another if...

... so my answer is: depends upon what document is raised, and how people treat texts with respect to [argh] 'canon'. Even WPP was never published by Tolkien himself, but again at least it is the much later document and reflects the world of The Lord of The Rings, at some point after it was published.

Again, whatever it reveals


the line of dread

Etymologies, according to Christopher Tolkien, dates generally to the late 1930's. Christopher notes (edited a bit here by me): '... some of the additions and corrections can be securely dated to the end of 1937 and the beginning of 1938, the time of the abandonment of QS and the beginning of The Lord of the Rings (...) there are relatively few names that belong specifically to The Lord of the Rings; that all of them are quite clearly additions to existing entries or introduce additional base-stems; that almost all were put in very hastily, mere memoranda, and not really accommodated to or explained in relation to the base-stems, and that the great majority come from the earlier part of The Lord of the Rings -- before the breaking of the fellowship. (...) Clear cases of names from later in The Lord of the Rings do occur (...) but are very few.

'I conclude therefore that while my father did for two or three years make rather desultory entries in the Etymologies as new names emerged in The Lord of the Rings, he gave up even this as the new work proceeded (...)

[Edited on 06/12/2014 by Elthir]
tarcolan
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on: June 12, 2014 06:41
An excellent and erudite, if I may say, explanation of the matters concerning the shape of ears by Elthir. Us of a lesser breed may wish to fall on our knees in worship and admiration at the profound depth of analysis hereforto demonstrated. Newcomers may be suitably sideaxed at the unexpected depths of the intricacies of ear shapes per se as regards Elves and Hobbits. As a by-note I might add that I am still unclear as to the capitalisation of the various races. But that is as makes no never mind.

I suspect, adopting my movie mod hat for the present discourse, that the portrayal of Hobbits in the justifiably famous films as having notably different ears than Men or Orcs or indeed Dwarves, may be mainly an aid for the viewer to differentiate between the aforementioned races.

I think therefore it is up to the reader, taking into account the revelations of Elthir's research, to visualise the Hobbits and Elves in any way they please.

As for the movie-only bunch, have a nice life.
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cirdaneth
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on: June 13, 2014 04:22
It was meeee! I bumped it to see if there was more to say. The original post was about relative stature but ears are OK too.
Elthir
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on: June 13, 2014 09:00
Ah that explains it Cirdaneth

And Tarcolan, while I'm not always sure if you are slamming me or praising me [although some time ago now, see what I believe is your last response to me in the film section too, which I still don't quite understand, for example]...

... I conclude that I have fun wondering

And yes I agree: I knew the films were going to 'pointy-ear' [a verb?] both Elves and Hobbits, for distinction if nothing else.

Hmm, something about Hobbit stature. Once again, the line of dread...

Hobbits, a somewhat detailed look

An extract from a letter apparently addressed to Tolkien's American publishers, and probably written in March or April 1938. Houghton Mifflin seem to have asked JRRT to supply drawings of hobbits for use in some future edition of The Hobbit.


'(...) 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).'

Actual size – only important if other objects are in picture – say about three feet or three feet six inches. The hobbit in the picture of the gold-hoard, Chapter XII, is of course (apart from being fat in the wrong places) enormously too large. But (as my children, at any rate, understand) he is really in a separate picture or 'plane' – being invisible to the dragon.

JRRT, letter 27


Much later, in one note dated around 1969, as I read the following anyway, JRRT ended up describing full grown males at an average of 3 foot 5 inches.

'... to this: Dwarves about 4 foot high at least. Hobbits were lighter in build, but not much shorter; their tallest men were 4 ft. but seldom taller. Though nowadays their survivors are seldom 3 feet high, in the days of the story they were taller which means that they usually exceeded 3 ft. and qualified for the name halfling. But the name halfling must have originated circa TA 1150, getting on for some 2,000 years [1868] before the War of the Ring, during which the dwindling of the Numenoreans had shown itself in stature as well as life-span. So that it referred to a height of full grown males of an average of, say, 3 ft. 5.'


That's quoted in The Reader's Guide to The Lord of the Rings, Hammond And Scull. Another contemporary note states that at the time of the story the average height of a male adult hobbit: Harfoots at 3 foot 6, Fallohides slimmer and a little taller, and Stoors broader, stouter, and a little shorter. In The Hobbit it's noted generally that 'hobbits are smaller than the bearded Dwarves'.

In one of these late notes JRRT also said that the remarks in the Prologue are unnecessarily vague regarding the height of Hobbits.
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