The downfall of the hobbit-folk

[davem]

Originally Posted by Farael

Now that's an interesting point. As the third age comes to an end and the elves leave Middle Earth, the only ones in charge of keeping record of history are men themselves, who are banned from entering The Shire. Is it possible then that something else happened to the hobbits that we are not aware of because men did not know?

Possibly - though Hobbits were free to leave the Shire - Sam, Merry & Pippin certainly did, travelling to Gondor & Rohan.

[Farael]

Yes, but we know that those were the exception rather than the rule. I tend to think that even if the lands were completely safe (which probably was not quite the case) the hobbits would much rather stay in their shire than go off in adventures. After all, they didn't really know much about the world outside anyway during the third age and still they did not dare to leave their Shire

[davem]

There's also this passage from one version of Tolkien's unpublished Epilogue to LotR (downloadable here

‘No, dear,’ said Sam. ‘But he’s coming north again, as he hasn’t done since you was a mite. But now his house is ready. He won’t come into the Shire, because he’s given orders that no Big Folk are to enter the land again after those Ruffians, and he won’t break his own rules. But he will ride to the Bridge. And he’s sent a very special invitation to every one of us, every one by name.’

[narfforc]

Fareal I wasn't suggesting that The Fourth Age Age Hobbits instantly started to settle down and marry the Big Folk. It is said that Hobbits were closely related to Man in origin, what else can they be, some offshoot of The Druedain or a unreported union of Man and Dwarf. Tolkiens Origin of Species is quite informative, that is until we come to Hobbits. The Halflings are totally unnoticed until well into The Third Age, if by mutation a species of The Atani has become smaller, then by mutation it can grow larger ie: Ent Draughts. If you introduce things into a Gene Pool you can get Native American Indians with blue eyes, or Grass that we now call Wheat. Peoples can be traced in origin by language, Tolkien knew this, so what is the language stem of the Holbytla.

[Lalwendë]

There are several possible ways the Hobbits could have disappeared from the view of Big Folk.

Firstly, it could simply be as has been said that they reintegrated back into the larger human population either by means of evolution or by intermarriage. Yes, Aragorn may have set a ban on Big Folk entering The Shire, but Aragorn did not live forever, nor would all his descendants have been so scrupulous.

It is also possible that Hobbits simply left The Shire; presuming that those who left were the more enterprising and adventurous, that would leave only the parochially minded back home, and the society could have declined. That gives food for thought for the Big Folk on t'other side of the pond.

Or it could be that Aragorn's ban on Big Folk entering The Shire actually did cause the Hobbits to disappear from our perception and history. In this way they may have passed back into the realms of myth and legend and been forgotten, even if they did still (and do still?) exist. In some historic cases of aboriginal peoples being put into reservations ostensibly to protect them, this move has actually destroyed their cultures; the young see the poverty around them and instead choose to leave for the wider world and a life of opportunity, thus even further hastening the decline of those traditional cultures.

If you want to be pessimistic there are a lot of reasons why the Hobbits may simply have grown extinct. Yes, that seed was sown which may have destroyed their innocence. They did indeed have battles before the time of the WotR, but these were battles within The Shire, not events from that war brought into their little world. After Saruman and Frodo (because Frodo and Sam and Merry and Pippin also brought the outside world into the Shire with its 'fancy foreign talk and fancy foreign ways') would Hobbits ever be the same? No longer a parochial race, globalisation (trading pipeweed for Lembas like trading coffee beans for Coke?) had hit this corner of Middle-earth. It wouldn't be long before they succumbed to a more homogenised Middle-earth.

There is also the more poetic explanation that the world of The Hobbits simply disappeared from our sight. That idea has been inspired by reading Mists of Avalaon, where the world of the druids and descendants of Atlantis did not get wiped out but remains hidden behind the mists and is ready to find for those who wish to find it. That would mean The Shire is now in Faerie. In Mists of Avalon and a whole lot of other literature there are many references to little people who may or may not be remnants of older cultures, Picts, the Fir Bolg, Boggarts, Pixies etc. Tolkien was only building on the myth and legend of older peoples as many before him have done when he created The Hobbits. So from that point of view, the Hobbits are still there, are still living in The Shire, but you will only find it if you really really want to find it. You might catch a fleeting glimpse of a Hobbit out of the corner of your eye at the end of the garden, amongst the trees or you might smell tobacco wafting mysteriously from somewhere and not see a smoker. That might be a Hobbit.

I like the last one best but all those ideas are possible.

[Farael]

Well Lal, this thread started when I expanded on something you said and now I guess I'll steal from your ideas again.

Perhaps the hobbits have indeed retreated into the world of faerie, a world that is not quite the one we live in and at the same time not quite another one. In a way it makes me think of a Valinor for those of us who believe in "magic" or however you want to call it. Maybe some day we will be allowed to take "the straightest road" west and find ourselves among Hobbits in The Shire or Elves in Lorien or having councel with the mighty Valar. Yet until then we can only move along with our lives, paying attention to those little glimpses of the other, fairer (and faerier) world that we get from time to time.

Yes, I rather like that explanation. Much less sad than the hobbits becoming extinct and much more 'poetical' than the hobbits simply getting (re-)adsorved into mankind.

[Lalwendë]

There is a pronounced theme of the 'underworld' running through Tolkien's work. Valinor is unique amongst 'retreats' in Arda, other races and even some of the Elves seem to favour retreat to the underground places.

Hobbits live in 'hollow hills', so it is not a difficult thing to imagine that as the years pass by they seek the underground places as suitable hideaways from the Big Folk. Dwarves too seek out caves, and with the retreat of the Balrog, maybe Moria became inhabited again. Elves historically had a liking for underground realms, and the Wood Elves of Mirkwood still lived that way. Even Men, in the case of the dead men of Dunharrow, find a suitable retreat in the underworld.

There is also a significant theme running through Tolkien's work where entrance to the Underworld leads to actual or symbolic rebirth, e.g. Gandalf in Moria and Frodo in the Barrow. It is a place at once of both safety and peril. This is very true to the ideas seen in myths and folklore.

Tolkien's conceit that his work is a translation of an ancient history of our own world mirrors real world myth and legend that Faerie can be found in the underworld. I suppose it is a case of trying to find the right door to enter that world.

It is interesting that he also used the idea of a mythical Western land far out to sea in the form of Valinor. That is a very Celtic idea, having both the Western, lost land and the land within the land.

[Rhod the Red]

"he also used the idea of a mythical Western land far out to sea in the form of Valinor. That is a very Celtic idea, having both the Western, lost land and the land within the land." Never heard of that. That's interesting.

But we can only dspeculate what caused Hobbits to 'dissapear'. Unless Christopher decides to do a sequel to The Lord of the Rings, lol!