What ain't there and ought to be.

[littlemanpoet]

Sorry for the pun in the title.

Originally Posted by Lalwendë

...the farmers would also have been the butchers.

Yes, that was my initial thought from the get-go. I admit to using the the "butcher" topic as an almost good enough excuse to resurrect this thread.

Originally Posted by Lalwendë

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?

But it's intriguing questions like this that make bringing the thread back up worth having done. I'm not surprised at the revulsion. Nevertheless, any avid reader of Tolkien would have to admit that slaughtering of farm animals had to have occurred in the Middle-earth Shire, even if it was farmers who did it. Hobbits ate stew, did they not? with meat in it? But did Tolkien mean the Shire to be "perfect"? Perhaps it would be best to say that Tolkien intended it to be idyllic (I can't even bring myself to describe it as bucolic, as that has negative connotations for me!). What ever word you choose to use, the sense of intrusion would probably still be there, I take it? Maybe that has as much to do with us urban shoppers as it does with the act of slaughtering animals? After all, we're more disconnected from the earth than people were in Tolkien's time. The Machine!