[Child of the 7th Age]

You have a point. I do think the word was purposely excluded, perhaps for a variety of reasons. Bear with me. I am thinking out loud here, especially the last half of this post, and am wondering if I am way off base!

First, Lalwende is certainly right. The farmers of the Shire--and most hobbits were farmers--would have done their own slaughtering and offered things directly to their customers ("sanitized" hobbits like Bilbo, for example). It's one thing to do butchering as part of a vast list of farm chores: chores that are essentially life-giving. It's another thing to do only butchering: singling out the killing function as the sole reason for any job. Everything in the Shire is life-affirming, so to single out butchers would have been to go against the grain.

Secondly, just listen to the way the word sounds: B - U - T - C - H - E - R . Not very nice. Tolkien was acutely aware not only of the dictionary meaning of the word but how it sounded to the ear. And "butcher" does not sound very nice.

Lalwende: Why was my first thought one of revulsion at the very thought of butchers being present in The Shire? Perhaps the thought of killing animals would intrude on the vision of The Shire as the perfect rural paradise?

I don't think it's so much a matter of "revulsion" as simply being out-of-place. People have to do many things to survive that are less than pleasant: slaughter animals to eat, tend to wounds and illnesses, find some way to dispose of dead bodies, protect themselves from dangerous things. In one way or other, all these things have to do with staving off the eternal reaper: the onslaught of death. None of these things are present in the Shire, at least in the late third age. Either the tasks (like defense) are farmed out to others (the Rangers) or they are simply not discussed. This is quite different than early Shire history where there were migrations, plagues, harsh winters where people starved, and hobbits going off to battle. But all these things--things that bring about change-- have evaporated by the late third age. And isn't it interesting how our own discussion always focuses exclusively on the Shire of the late third age rather than the earlier periods, even though we have considerable detail on the latter?

Not only have the dangers disappeared by the late third age (except for those rumors of danger floating in from the outside) but, sadly, so have the oddballs and adventurers who make life far more interesting. No more hobbits running off to sea, something that Gandalf said was fairly common in the Took line earlier on. This can be seen from the family trees in the appendix.

Bilbo is the first "crack" in this ideal but bland Shire ("crack" - a word, I think, that was probably literally applied to Bilbo by his neighbors.) There is another hint of this "crack" in two very different characters: Lobelia and Ted Sandyman, who will side with the change represented by Saruman, at least intiailly.

So what's going on here? It's only with the reintroduction of death as represented by the Scouring that adventurous characters can again come to the fore: specifically those hobbits who stood up against the intruders. You can again have true change going beyond the cyclic rhythm of agricultural life: change that focuses on individuals. Merry and Pippin can emerge as leaders. Before, there was simply no need. You can likewise have an adventurous descendent of Elfstan Fairbairn go off with Elanor and found a new community in the Tower Hills. (Elfstan -- what a name for a hobbit! Very suggestive, I would say.)

So, in a strange way, death or at least its possibility represents not an end but a change for the Shire. The question is not whether death will occur. The hobbits have "grown up" so death is inevitable. The question is what that death will mean: will it be the demeaning deaths perpetrated by Saruman and crew, or will it be death with meaning as represented by those hobbits that gave their lives? In other words, change happens in the grown-up Shire, but will it be destructive or positive in nature?

After the Scouring, did the Shire simply go back to what it was in the late third age, or did change become part of the basic rhythm of life? I would say the latter, although in a limited way. There has been too much change generated by events to go back. You have hobbits born with golden hair, the physical presence of the mallorn in the party field, Bilbo and Frodo's books passed down through the Gamgee/Fairbairn family, the tales told by Sam to his children, the establishment of a far-western outpost, the scholarly studies by Merry, plus all those new trees and burrows. The one contrary fact is the continued isolation of the Shire -- something I've never felt comfortable with -- but Tolkien interprets this positively.


If the end of the war of the ring actually means the reintroduction of death/change into the Shire, then Frodo's leaving, his symbolic death, makes even more sense. He has "grown up" more than any other hobbit in the Shire. He can not go back to the "old" Shire. Not only has he changed, the Shire has also changed. Given that reality, he must inevitably move on. And given the fact that Tolkien says his main theme is that of "Death", the reintroduction of death in the Shire as an impetus for change would seem to make at least some sense. Perhaps "Death" is a gift in more than one way.

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Edit: My poor brain just figured something out. Someone else may have said this before, but it just clicked in my head. The true "burial" of dead hobbits isn't in a mound or under the ground. The true burial of hobbits was in the family pedigrees. A grave is an acknowledgement of death, and the family trees were a way to acknowledge death yet still affirm life on the same page. The hobbits had always published geneology but it wasn't till after the war that they appeared systematically as an attachment to the Redbook. Thus, the acknowledgement of the deaths could only come after the Scouring.