A family murder in Great Smials?

[Faramir Jones]

While Tolkien presented the Shire as a more idealised version of a village in the English Midlands c.1897, he cleverly did not present it as some kind of utopia. Apart from the insularity of the vast majority of hobbits, whom Fordo in an exasperated moment thought were 'too stupid for words', we have the family feud between Bilbo and his Sackville-Baggins cousins, which carried on across decades and generations.

But there is something else that I found particularly revealing about Tolkien's portrayal of the Shire in this way: Letter 214 of his Letters, where he hinted at the possible murder of a very prominent member of the Took family by one of her own relatives. The member was 'Lalia [Took] the Great (or less courteously the Fat)':

Fortinbras II, one time head of the Tooks and Thain, married Lalia of the Clayhangers in 1314, when he was 35 and she was 31. He died in 1380 at the age of 102, but she long outlived him, coming to an unfortunate end in 1402 at the age of 119. So she ruled the Tooks and Great Smials for 22 years, a great and memorable, if not universally beloved, 'matriarch'. She was not at the famous Party (SY 1401), but was prevented from attending rather by her great size and immobility than by her age. Her son, Ferumbras, had no wife, being unable (it was alleged) to find anyone willing to occupy apartments in the Great Smials under the rule of Lalia. Lalia, in her last and fattest years, had the custom of being wheeled to the Great Door, to take the air on a fine morning. In the spring of SY 1402 her clumsy attendant let the heavy chair run over the threshold and tipped Lalia down the flight of steps into the garden. So ended a reign and life that might have rivalled that of the Great Took.

It was widely rumoured that the attendant was Pearl (Pippin's sister), though the Tooks tried to keep the matter within the family. At the celebration of Ferumbras' accession the displeasure and regret of the family was formally expressed by the exclusion of Pearl from the ceremony and feast; but it did not escape notice that later (after a decent interval) she appeared in a splendid necklace of her name-jewels that had long lain in the hoard of the Thains. (Letters of J.R.R.Tolkien, (London: HarperCollins Publishers, 1995), pp. 294-5)

If Pearl was indeed negligent, and Lalia's death was a tragic accident, why was she seemingly rewarded? If her actions were deliberate, was she alone responsible, or were other family members involved in the plot?

[Formendacil]

While, obviously, there is no evidence beyond the text just cited, it is truly delightful to speculate. Three possible series of events strike me:

1.) It was deliberate--if not malicious (we are, after all, talking not only about Hobbits but about Pippin's older sister). Pearl gives Lalia an irritated push and down she goes. The family punishes her to be seen doing the right thing, but gives her the jewels afterwards when Pearl makes a stink about how any of them might have been mad at her.

2.) It was an accident. Pearl was simply careless and the family (as before) punishes her for causing the accident and then rewards her to show they aren't *really* sorry about losing Lalia.

3.) Pearl wasn't involved. Someone else of greater stature--perhaps Ferumbras, perhaps his heir-apparent Paladin, perhaps Paladin's wife--is with Lalia the day she dies and is responsible for her death. To protect this very prominent figure, Pearl is alleged to have been with Lalia the day she died since Pearl was a regular attendant to the head of the family. Pearl is excluded from Ferumbras' accession to encourage the rumours, but is rewarded with the jewelry for helping defend the family honour.

I'm sure other theories--more or less variants on the above--could be devised. Personally, I favour 3, but probably because it's the most salacious. It strikes me this would make for excellent fanfiction: Agatha Christie locked-room meets Tolkien.

[Faramir Jones]

I agree with you completely regarding 1-3, Formendacil, with 3 certainly being the 'most salacious'.

When I first read that story, I felt, like you, that it resembled something written by Agatha Christie. I then thought that a hobbit version of Miss Marple would work very well. Perhaps Dora Baggins, Frodo's aunt, who liked writing lots of letters full of good advice, would fit that role?

[Formendacil]

Originally Posted by Faramir Jones

I agree with you completely regarding 1-3, Formendacil, with 3 certainly being the 'most salacious'.

When I first read that story, I felt, like you, that it resembled something written by Agatha Christie. I then thought that a hobbit version of Miss Marple would work very well. Perhaps Dora Baggins, Frodo's aunt, who liked writing lots of letters full of good advice, would fit that role?

Dora Baggins as Miss Marple smacks of brilliance. Mind you, Tolkien set out to make the Shire quite "Edwardian England" and the Golden Age of Detective Fiction is very much "immediately post-Edwardian England." Going along with exploration of the same idea, it's very easy to see the Shiriffs as the stereotypical "bumbling police inspector"--though I'm not sure, under Shire law, whether they would actually have jurisdiction over a murder investigation. Their main duties seem to be border patrol and animal control.

Which raises the question perhaps of who DID have the legal authority to investigate a murder? The Mayor, we all know, is chiefly a ceremonial position. As head of the Shiriffs we might otherwise assume that the Mayor would have some authority (even if it were seldom/never exercised) to oversee such investigations.... but the aforementioned indications of what the Shiriffs actually do would suggest that the Mayor would not, in fact, have jurisdiction over criminal law. Rather, I would suggest that the Mayor's actual authority is more over civil matters--specifically the civil service. Although the Shire lacks any sort of a bureaucracy, the Mayor would more or less be the Head Bureaucrat, as overseer of the Shiriffs and the Post.

That leaves the Thain, who in any case would have assumed the full delegated authority of the Arnorian Kings. However, while murder cases would certainly be tried by the Thain, that makes him the judge rather than the police.

It is, any case, a moot point in the Lalia case, since the chief beneficiary of her potential murder was the only one with the authority to judge the case. I suppose, if there were enough pressure from outside, the case could be seen by the Master of Buckland, who held Thain-equivalent authority in Buckland (a territory not considered a legal part of the Shire in the 3rd Age)--but that wouldn't really fly; that'd be like trying a case in Canada because no one in Australia could do it...

One would either have to appeal to a higher authority or let the Thain's substitute fill in, both of which have problems. Regarding the substitute, we have no evidence that being the Thain was onerous enough to have any formally appointed deputies and even if he did, as a "royal family" of sorts, the obvious deputies are the Thain's own heirs, who are implicated in exactly the same situation he is--there is no suggestion at all that an unrelated Deputy Thain of Westfarthing (or something similar) existed.

As to appealing to a higher authority, I suppose anyone who felt a grievance on Lalia's behalf could wait until Elessar's court was set up in Annúminas, but that assumes someone would bring it up, that there would be any evidence beyond hearsay to discuss, and that Elessar would be considered unbiased enough to hear the case again Peregrin's sister in the first place.

I seem to have gone off on a tangent... but it has been a fun tangent.

[Galadriel55]

Originally Posted by Formendacil

Which raises the question perhaps of who DID have the legal authority to investigate a murder?

I think that murders happened sooooooo rarely in the Shire that there was no need to answer such a question. I think that the more minor legal issues were resolved by heads of families, and there were no major ones.

[Inziladun]

This is quite an interesting topic, and not something I can recall ever considering before.

A nice case: no witnesses or evidence, but possibly a motive. What was the ME equivalent of a polygraph? Perhaps being tied to a chair with a basket of mushrooms in front of Pearl would have loosened her tongue!

Originally Posted by Formendacil

One would either have to appeal to a higher authority or let the Thain's substitute fill in, both of which have problems. Regarding the substitute, we have no evidence that being the Thain was onerous enough to have any formally appointed deputies and even if he did, as a "royal family" of sorts, the obvious deputies are the Thain's own heirs, who are implicated in exactly the same situation he is--there is no suggestion at all that an unrelated Deputy Thain of Westfarthing (or something similar) existed.

I agree that the Mayor wouldn't seem to have a place in such an investigation.
As for the Thain, the question of partiality notwithstanding, he looks to my eye to be more of a military leader, organizing resistance to outside threats.
Hobbit-justice would seem to be a private matter in the books, for families to sort out themselves. Legal matters generally seem to be so: who decides when a will is "correct"? Or whether the sale of property is lawful? It appears to be the populace themselves. Bilbo needed no higher authority to approve of his adoption of Frodo.
Granted, that's civil matters against a possible criminal case, but still: criminal matters were so rare, maybe there just wasn't a pressing need for any higher authority to be set to investigate them.
On a related note, was the "accidental" drowning of Drogo and Primula Baggins afforded any general suspicion? I would think not, owing to the skepticism of the Gaffer to Sandyman's words in FOTR.

[Lalwendë]

What might the motive be though? Anyone who watches Morse/Lewis knows that barring madness, there must be a motive!

I can't think of one (it would take someone pretty nasty to commit murder to get her hands on a necklace), so it was likely accident, and if Pippin was a clumsy young oaf then it's likely his sister was too. No doubt it would cast suspicions upon her, and a large helping of shame upon the family too in the gossipping Shire, hence this might be why they would seek to bar her from big events and keep things hush-hush. Of course after a decent time she would be forgiven for making a tragic mistake and the jewels could even have been promised as part of a will. Was the gossip about them something which stemmed from the Tooks or from the general population?

And yes, they do have lawyers in the Shire - they were in the process of selling off Bag End at the very moment Bilbo returned!

Originally Posted by Faramir Jones

While Tolkien presented the Shire as a more idealised version of a village in the English Midlands c.1897, he cleverly did not present it as some kind of utopia.

Indeed, and one of the nastier aspects of village life is the ridiculous level of idle gossip, in fact it's one of the nastier aspects of British life full stop!

[Formendacil]

Originally Posted by Inziladun

I agree that the Mayor wouldn't seem to have a place in such an investigation.
As for the Thain, the question of partiality notwithstanding, he looks to my eye to be more of a military leader, organizing resistance to outside threats.

If I may make a sidebar of this, I would dispute that the Thain is solely a military leader. For one thing, there's no evidence that a Thain ever organized a military action after the fall of Fornost--the only military activity attested was directed, not by the Thain, but by his larger-than-life brother Bandobras Bullroarer. Admittedly, he may well have been exercising his brother's authority, but that's a side point.

My real evidence is that "Thain" is clearly to be equated with "thegn," the Anglo-Saxon equivalent (give or take--I'm hardly claiming to be either a medieval or Old English expert) of "baron." One has but to look at the "Thane of Cawdor" in Macbeth to see the parallel usage. If I remember aright, Ivanhoe's father is also called a thane, denoting his Saxon nobility, in post-Conquest England (though, of course, Scott is no historian; nonetheless, he illustrates the usage).

A thegn/thane therefore is a vassal in the feudal system of the king, and is lord over a portion of the kingdom. This describes well enough what we know of the Shire: it is a portion of the kingdom of Arnor and it is ruled by a Thain--but under the King. After all, the Shire has sayings such as "they have not heard of the King" and when a King finally does come, the Shire acknowledges his overlordship.

Granted, a thegn/thane/thain in a feudal system is obviously going to have a marked military character; one of his major duties to the king is to raise troops (such as the alleged Hobbit archers who went up to Fornost). Nonetheless, thain is not a military title but a noble title. What is more, the circumstances surrounding the appointment of the first Thain Oldbuck show that he was basically appointed with powers of Regent, not unlike the Stewards of Gondor--a parallel that shows that plenipotentary, hereditary regencies had precedent under the laws of the Dúnedain.

It is, of course, an entirely pedantic nitpick, and as Inziladun even made the caveat of "more of a military leader," it was perhaps unnecessary of me to make it. But that's the joy of this site.