HOBBITS
We can definitely claim that hobbits were Tolkien's favourite characters, for a small hobbit - not a mighty warrior or a noble knight - was entrusted with the fate of Middle-earth. "Many are the strange chances of the world, and help oft shall come from the hand of the weak when the Wise falter."[1]
The name Hobbit was applied to any of their kind in the Shire or in Bree. Men called them halflings and the Elves Perriannath. The origin of the word 'hobbit' was by most forgotten, but most probably it is a worn-down form of a Rohan word 'holbytla' - 'hole builder'. But still what kind of folk those hobbits are?
"They are little people, smaller than Dwarves: less stout and stocky, that is, even when they are not actually shorter; they are dressed in bright colours; they seldom wore shoes, since their feet had tough leathery soles and were clad in thick curly hair much like the hair of their heads, which was commonly brown. Hobbit's faces were as a rule good-natured rather than beautiful, broad, bright-eyed, red-cheeked, with mouths apt to laughter and eating and drinking." [2]
Traditionally Hobbits live in holes with round doors and windows. They stay away from the so-called progress, their manners are rather old-fashioned and even patriarchal. There exists an astounding habit, which the hobbits prefer to call 'art': they inhale through pipes the smoke of burning leaves of pipe-weed that is probably a variety of Nicotiana. Of all the races of Middle-earth they more than anyone else bear resemblance to us.
Hobbits are very ancient people, their beginning lies far back in the Elder Days. Those inhabiting the Shire and Bree had long ago adopted the Common Speech which they used freely and carelessly in their own manner. They seem always to have used the languages of Men near whom, or among whom, they lived. Thus they quickly adopted the Common Speech after they entered Eriador, and by the time of their settlement at Bree they had already begun to forget their former language. This was evidently a Mannish tongue of upper Anduin, akin to that of the Rohirrim.
The language of the Shire was never notable for its refinement. It is simple, provincial, abound in colloquial expressions and rather 'unsophisticated', as it were. But when occasion reqired, the more learned among the Hobbits could make a brilliant display of eloquence.
The tongues of the Shire and Rohan both originated from the Mannish speech of Wilderland, though hobbits spoke for the most part a rustic dialect, preserving just a few words, such as mathom and smial, names of days, months and seasons and the place-names of Bree and Shire, out of their ancient language, while in Rohan a more antique form was used, more formal and high-flown. One of the four hobbits who took part in the quest, listening to the speech of the Rohirrim felt that 'it was a language in which there seemed to be many words that he knew, yet he could not piece them together.'[4]
As for their personal names, hobbits prefer those, revealing features of character, appearence or a type of a dwelling such as, for example, Longholes, Burrows, Goodbodies, Chubbs, Sandyman, Baggins, Proudfoot, Brockhouse. Women usually had names of flowers: Primrose, Beladonna, Rosamunda, Primula, Elanor; names of men originated from ancient Germanic: Peregrin, Isengrim, Fortinbras, Hildibrand.
The Hobbits have universal appeal of little things. They live a simple, satisfying provincial life close to land. Their power lies in an unexpected ability to withstand the evil. They hold unique position among the peoples of The Lord of the Rings. They are Tolkien's individual idea rather than a people out of Mythology, and they like by a set of very human ideas in contrast to the glorified lives of the Wise, the Elves and the Dúnedain." [13]
The land of the Hobbits bears a striking resemblance to Merry Old England as Tolkien saw it. The countryside of the Shire where the hobbits live, is one of farmyard or pasture with a bit of wildwood here and there, like rural England. Even the names of places sound very much like those of Britain: Tuckborough, Bucklebury, Norbury, Hobbiton (compare with Salisbury, Loughborough, Glastonbury, Kmaresborough, Tiverton, Launceston).It seems that when Tolkien said he wished to dedicate his book to England, his native country, he thought of creating the Shire - a land of peaceful and down-to-earth people, who stay out of wars, conquests and fights. Unlike Rohan that represents the Britain of Anglo-Saxons, vikings, warriors and knights, the Shire is a contemporary countryside with five o'clock tea, pubs and village gossips.
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