"Take no heed of her...She reads a lot of books."
~Jasper Fforde


Monday, May 17, 2010

The Hobbit #1: What is a Hobbit?


For those of you who have not yet read Tolkien's The Hobbit, here is a quick little description of the race from the book...

"I suppose hobbits need some description nowadays, since they have become rare and shy of the Big People, as they call us. They are (or were) a little people, about half our height, and smaller than the bearded Dwarves. Hobbits have no beards. There is little or no magic about them, except the ordinary everyday sort which allows them to disappear quietly and quickly when large stupid folk like you and me come blundering along, making a noise like elephants which they can hear a mile off. They are inclined to be fat in the stomach; they dress in bright colours (chiefly green and yellow); wear no shoes, because their feet grow naturally leathery soles and thick warm brown hair like the stuff on their heads (which is curly); have long clever brown fingers, good-natured faces, and laugh deep fruity laughs (especially after dinner, which they have twice a day when they can get it). Now you know enough to go on with."

~J.R.R. Tolkien (The Hobbit)

5 comments:

  1. ok heres something you might like, however tenuous :) wile Tolkien was writing the lord of the rings he used to visit a college a few miles from where i live. the really fun part is that the town i live in, which back in the 30's would have been heavly industrialized and smog covered from the many chimneys belching smoke, sits under a solitary hill (it's quite big as far as hills go) thats famous for being dark and ominous and is linked with black magic. yes i like to think i live in the inspiration for mordor :P
    theres also other links that fit in like place names (mostly things to do with the shire)

    that aside (i know how you like old english language stuff) the name of the hill i mentioned
    is 'Pendle hill', three different languages all from different times which traslate to 'Hillhill hill'... yep all three syllables are hill.

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  2. Hobbits are wonderfully endearing, aren't they? Although in these parts of the world, we use hobbit as an insult:

    "Your children will probably all be hobbits!"

    And the like.

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  3. Those of you who have not yet read 'The Hobbit' are either too young to read or should not be mingling with the likes of a Devoted Bookworm, Passionate Bibliophile, Librarian-to be!

    What an enormously wonderful snipet! Makes me want to re-re-re-read it!

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  4. @Javmango...

    That's awesome! Thank you; I love all the literary trivia and tidbits!

    Hillhill hill, lol...that's really cute :D

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  5. @Steven Cain...

    *Hugs!* Aww...thanks, Steve! Your comment just made my day :")

    For those people who have yet to read The Hobbit, please do, not just because its one of my all-time favorite books, but because you are missing out on sooo much!

    Also, there is another blog on Blogger that is dedicated to the Inklings, a literary group which Tolkien belonged to. I'm putting up the link here:

    http://oxfordinklings.blogspot.com/2010/05/delightfully-imaginative-journey.html

    This is to their posting about The Hobbit, and the reason I decided to pick up the book for the nth time to read again :D

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