Enemies

[davem]

With Men of normal stature they recognized their close kinship, whereas Dwarves or Elves, whether friendly or hostile, were aliens, with whom their relations were uneasy and clouded by fear. Bilbo's statement that the cohabitation of Big Folk and Little Folk in one settlement at Bree was peculiar and nowhere else to be found was probably true in his time (the end of the Third Age); but it would seem that actually Hobbits had liked to live with or near to Big Folk of friendly kind, who with their greater strength protected them from many dangers and enemies and other hostile Men, and received in exchange many services.

Tolkien's speculation on the final fate of the Hobbits is interesting.

The much later dwindling of Hobbits must be due to a change in their state & way of life; they became a fugitive & secret people, driven as Men, the Big Folk, became more & more numerous, usurping the more fertile & habitable lands, to refuge in forest or wilderness: a wandering & poor folk, forgetful of their arts & living a precarious life absorbed in the search for food & fearful of being seen; for cruel Men would shoot them for sport as if they were animals. In fact they relapsed into the state of 'pygmies'. The other stunted race, the Druedain, never rose much above that state.(quoted in Hammond Scull LotR Readers Companion)

The Hobbits 'relapse' into the state of pygmies - a state which the Druedain never 'rose much above'.

It seems to me that this whole idea of 'cruel men hunting members of the 'pygmy races' for sport as if they were animals refers back to what we are told of the hunting of the Woses by the Rohirrim. In fact what Tolkien states here about the Hobbits being dispossessed of their land, forced to try & survive in the wilds & being hunted for sport could be applied directly to the Woses. The Hobbits, in short, are driven back to the stone age by incoming Men.

It seems the Hobbits' survival was dependent on Men's protection (one could say the same about the Woses) & that if their ultimate fate was as Tolkien here speculates (of course, one cannot rule out the possibility that he wrote the above on a day when he was a bit depressed) the 'Big Folk of friendly kind' who defended them against 'hostile men' seem either themselves to have disappeared, or forgotten about them.

What we seem to have in Tolkien's statement about the fate of the Hobbits is another warning about the danger of judging by appearances. The Woses were hunted because they looked ugly & inhuman - & it seems that the Hobbits, once driven to the point of having to struggle to survive in the wilds, found themselves in the same position - they would have looked like 'animals' & they would have been hunted.