93
votes
Accepted
Who were the two large hobbits?
Merry and Pippin.
Both had benefited from Treebeard's Ent-draught, as described in "Flight to the Ford" (in The Fellowship of The Ring):
You are thirsty I expect. Perhaps you are also tired....
- 7,586
53
votes
Accepted
What is the life expectancy of a Hobbit?
Tolkien does actually give us one explicit piece of information: in the Prologue, section 3, he mentions:
[Bilbo] was old even for Hobbits, who reached a hundred as often as not;
This tracks with ...
- 62.8k
52
votes
Accepted
Are hobbits religious?
Doubtful
Tolkien wrote in a footnote to Letter 153 that Hobbits had no practice of worship or prayer:
There are thus no temples or 'churches' or fanes in this 'world' among 'good' peoples. They had ...
- 162k
43
votes
What monetary system did Hobbits use in the Shire?
Basically, nothing. There are a handful of references to specific coins, primarily in the Bree section of FOTR. Bill Ferny sells a pony for 12 silver pennies; Barliman Butterbur makes an allusion to ...
- 1,487
40
votes
Accepted
What are hobbits' daily eating schedules?
Lots
From the prologue (emphasis mine):
As for the Hobbits of the Shire, with whom these tales are concerned, in the days of their peace and prosperity they were a merry folk. They dressed in ...
- 162k
39
votes
Why were Hobbits not included in the old lists?
Because they didn't know about them at the time
Hobbits are generally left out of history because they're a fairly secretive people and, for much of their early history, weren't overly concerned with ...
- 162k
39
votes
Is Sam exclusively Frodo's gardener, or his general servant?
The early chapters of LoTR have a fairly strange depiction of Frodo's life in Bag End, which clearly dates from their origin as a sequel to The Hobbit rather than the much more serious work that it ...
- 62.8k
35
votes
Accepted
What livestock did hobbits raise?
Cows
There is one specific mention of owning cows, which is the fictional innkeeper in the song Frodo sings at Bree, which is a song that it's implied Bilbo would frequently sing in the Shire, ...
- 87.3k
33
votes
Can the Elves and Hobbits in Tolkien's Legendarium grow facial hair?
Yes
Elves
One example of an elf growing facial hair is Círdan the Shiprwight, who is said to have a "long beard"
As they came to the gates Círdan the Shipwright came forth to greet them. ...
- 76.8k
32
votes
Accepted
How are the lands of the Shire governed?
As you might expect, Tolkien (that great world-builder) had considered these issues and covered them in some depth. From the prologue to The Fellowship of the Ring, section Of the Ordering of the ...
- 134k
30
votes
Accepted
Are Hobbits related (distant or no) to Elves?
They (like we) are cousins to the Elves. First, from Tolkien's Letters
I suppose that actually the chief difficulties I have involved myself in are scientific and biological - which worry me just ...
- 39.5k
27
votes
Accepted
What type of writing did the Hobbits use?
From Appendix E, "Writing and Spelling," section II, "Writing" of The Lord of the Rings:
The scripts and letters used in the Third Age were all ultimately of Eldarin origin, and ...
- 115k
26
votes
Accepted
Why were Hobbits not included in the old lists?
Hobbits originated as a subgroup of men, but no one knows exactly when/how/where the original split occurred. The elves did not tell the ents because either it had not happened yet or those elves ...
- 8,238
26
votes
Accepted
Height of the LoTR Races
Men
Númenóreans (2nd age) - 7'
Halflings was derived from the Numenorean name for them (in Sindarin Periannath). ... The name thus evidently referred to their height as compared with Numenorean men, ...
- 87.3k
25
votes
Accepted
Did the Hobbits of the Fellowship of the Ring wear hats?
There is no mention of Hobbits wearing hats in the Lord of the Rings
I have searched my copies for the words "hat" and "hats", and never are the Hobbits mentioned to be wearing ...
- 76.8k
25
votes
What monetary system did Hobbits use in the Shire?
Until European rulers discovered fiat currency by adulterating the coinage, coins simply had the value of however much they weighed. There was no need for exchange rates, because you just weighed the ...
- 4,656
24
votes
Accepted
Why didn't the Hobbits receive any magic rings?
Everyone was unaware of the Hobbits
Hobbits (Perian) were only discovered around 2890 years after the Rings had been forged. Therefore Sauron was unaware of their existence and wouldn't've been able ...
- 76.8k
24
votes
What is the life expectancy of a Hobbit?
No official answer exists from Tolkien, as far as I’m aware, however it’s not as long as you seem to think.
Based on the lengths of time known Hobbits had lived for and when they died, Emil Johansson ...
- 76.8k
22
votes
Accepted
How did Gerontius Took get to be so old?
There is no in-universe explanation given for the extreme age of the Old Took. Absent any other information, we have to assume that he was just lucky, which has been known to happen, even in our ...
- 162k
22
votes
Why did Gollum want the Ring so badly when he was still a hobbit?
Perhaps because everyone is not the same, even if they are of the same race.
It is true that we are told that Hobbits in general have a greater ability to resist the the temptation of the Ring than ...
- 21k
19
votes
What happened to the Stoor Hobbits?
Firstly, Hobbits were never mentioned prior to the year 1050 of the Third Age when the Harfoots entered Eriador and in doing so were first mentioned in the records:
1050 The Periannath are ...
- 76.8k
17
votes
Why did Gollum want the Ring so badly when he was still a hobbit?
Sméagol was simply not a good person
His personality is what made him susceptible to the Ring, much like how Boromir succumbed so much faster than Aragorn.
Tolkien discusses this most clearly in ...
- 162k
17
votes
Accepted
What's the physical difference between Hobbits and Dwarves?
Dwarves and Hobbits have very different origins are two different species
Dwarves are creations of Aule, the craftsman.
in their beginning the Dwarves were made by Aulë in the darkness of Middle-...
- 76.8k
16
votes
Accepted
Can the Elves and Hobbits in Tolkien's Legendarium grow facial hair?
The prologue to The Fellowship of the Ring describes the Hobbits. Before The Shire was settled there were three races or types or ethnic groups or subdivisions of Hobbits: Harfoots, Stoors, and ...
- 176
15
votes
What is the life expectancy of a Hobbit?
The question is flawed.
Today, the average human life span is 77.5 years according to the WHO, which no doubt includes populations with widely varying life spans.
When Tolkien wrote in the late 1930s ...
- 39.2k
14
votes
How did Gerontius Took get to be so old?
What does LOTR say about hobbit longevity?
The prologue to The Fellowship of the Ring section 3, "Of the Ordering of the Shire" says:
Sixty years had passed since he set out on his ...
- 39.2k
14
votes
What's the physical difference between Hobbits and Dwarves?
There is already an excellent answer to this question by Edlothiad (I don't think I have ever managed to answer a Tolkien question before him). As the question lists language as one of the things that ...
- 21k
13
votes
Accepted
How many Hobbit clans/families have 'feet' in their surnames?
There are a few, but far from the majority:
The Proudfoot family is invited to the special pavilion at Bilbo's Party:
There were many Bagginses and Boffins, and also many Tooks and Brandybucks; ...
- 162k
13
votes
Did the Hobbits of the Fellowship of the Ring wear hats?
To the end of his days Bilbo could never remember how he found himself outside, without a hat, walking-stick or any money, or anything that he usually took when he went out.
We might then think that ...
- 131
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