Hi there, I'm Stephanie.

And I'm Lydia.

Come along with us as we explore and learn about the world of Tolkien through deep dives on lore, characters, beatalons and lafflons.

We are excited to have you as a new friend on this journey with us. Welcome to Speak Friend and Enter, a Lord of the Rings podcast. Hello, hello. Howdy. Welcome back. We are here for another deep dive and I'm excited about this one. This one will be really cozy, really nice. Of course, it's concerning the origin of Hobbits.

Which I think this came up in one of our previous episodes where we both sat there and thought, we don't know anything about Hobbits. Like, yeah, there's I've actually quite excited about this. I hope there seems like to learn.

There's a few things to learn. I will say I think Rings of Power has excited a lot of people's thoughts, especially season two. Yeah, yeah. A lot of thoughts around what is the origin of Hobbits, what's their history.

And by excited a lot of thoughts here, you mean to say something more like they've created a controversy by making all the wrong decisions. Some people don't love it.

Some people don't love like this older version of Hobbits.

I'm sure I would hate it. I'll have to investigate it. Yeah, we're going to have to do some content on that series at some point.

But OK, so as knowing nothing, I will basically baselessly accuse them.

Nice, exactly. I think I think that's totally fine. Other people have given their opinions off.

That's in line with what I would do. Yeah, exactly.

OK, so when I was looking at this, I was like, OK, concerning Hobbits, I bet there's like a whole bunch of history because we have in the Somerilian the history of the dwarves and how they were created. And they weren't necessarily like Children of the Louvitar.

They were they were done by someone else. The Somerilian is all about the Elven history. Yes. But even the dwarves, technically not children.

Technically, they're like grandchildren. They're like grandchildren, right? Because it's the adopted who makes them. Olle, Olle makes them. And then there's the first Children of the Louvitar, which is the elves. And then there's the second Children of the Louvitar, which is men. And so in my head, I was just thinking like, and Hobbits are going to have a really cool origin story that is somewhere. And actually, I don't know, maybe other people are able to find more.

But basically what I've been able to find mainly comes from the Fellowship of the Ring. Oh, actually. Yeah. So a lot of what I was able to find is from the prologue that is literally called concerning Hobbits.

That's interesting to me. Did Tolkin just run out of time? OK, you know, he was so distracted writing, writing the Elvish history. Or was it just assumed that like the Hobbits were English and therefore you should already know what was going on with them? Right.

OK, this is the thing. I know that Tolkin was writing the Cimmerillion and writing a bunch of stuff about his his world for decades. But then when he wrote the Hobbit, it was originally that story was originally for his children. And it was maybe kind of set in his world. I personally, my hot take is I don't think he invented Hobbits very prematurely to him kind of telling the story to his children and him writing the book.

I see. So you're saying he thought to himself, I need to write a good story for the kids. Yeah. Let's invent Hobbits. And he did it right then as opposed to when he did the Cimmerillion.

Something that was really like, oh, gee, of like, this is men, this is dwarves, this is elves. That's fair. And the reason I say that is because I was Googling, I was finding awesome stuff on like Tolkin Gateway. I was reading the Concerning Hobbit section chapter. And basically, there was a quote from Tolkin talking about like different books that he read that kind of inspired him to create Hobbits. And one of them is a children's book called The Marvelous Land of Snurks.

And it's a children's book about, I think these children

that are on a boat and they get in a storm and they get washed up on this island and it's a magical island with these little people. And so it's a children's book that you get the impression he read to his kids. So I think my hot take is there isn't as much of like an in depth. And this is when Louvatar created Hobbits. Because he was waning it.

Because he was winging it.

So for him, this is fun to see Tolkin branch out.

And honestly, you know, it's fascinating to me and maybe someone else will say, actually, he'd had this in his mind for decades. And maybe that's true. But I think it's incredible to me that he created this story for his children in the Hobbit. And then he created Lord of the Rings, where he was really like, OK, let's really incorporate all this stuff. Like let's incorporate Sauron.

Let's incorporate, you know, all of these deeper things from his world. And the Hobbits are the star of the show. Like, it's not like, oh, here are these little piddly things I created for my kids and the elves are going to be the main thing. Or here's this little story I created for my kids and the wizards and then

are going to be, even though it does have a great heart.

It's the Hobbits. And I think they represent something to him. Else that I find interesting is I was just talking with some siblings the other day and Lord of the Rings came up and two siblings who should have read it by now have not.

And they both got stuck somewhere in the two towers. Yeah. And I'm trying to remember last time I read it, you know, it's been a minute, but and I did it on audio, which was probably not ideal for me.

I'm not a very, I'm not particularly amazing at listening to audio. But I remember being surprised because as a kid, I read it and I was like, oh, this is just a book. And now as an author, I'm like, oh, snap, look at this prose. And, you know, having seen more, I think. But we were discussing, you know, it's tough to get through the Lord of the Rings.

There's some difficult, not dry, but like very long passages. Yeah. And the Hobbit is the absolute opposite. It is fast. It is like, it's fun. It is. Well, yeah, it's very fun.

But just stylistically, the narrative is so much tighter. Even though he has 13 unnecessary dwarves, you can't get three, right? Do you know what I mean? Like he still had a large cast. But the narrative is super tight.

And it's obvious to me that he was super skilled as a writer, because when he decides I need to write something for children, it needs to be attuned to their preferences and taste. So we're going to name the dwarves all really funny, fun names. Yeah.

Bombo and Bombador, whatever his name is, the fat one. And he's funny. And they're going to make a little joke. And the kids are going to laugh. Like he wrote it to his kids. And then he goes to write the book of his heart.

And I'm like, Tolton, you got to have more narrative drives in the book of your heart. But it's fun to see that he can do it. So it is interesting to see Tolton when he's winging it and has not pulled everything from his Silmarillion into it.

He writes this really fast, tight story. And then when he does pull his Silmarillion, it is not the opposite. Exactly.

Yeah, it's not exactly the opposite, but it is hard enough to get through that two of my adult siblings who read lots of books and we've been working our way through some like really pretty difficult Greek history. So maybe they could do it now. But, you know, they got stuck for no real reason, right? There's no reason that they haven't finished that series other than there's probably some really long, dull passage somewhere in the middle two towers. But it's nice to know that like when he wants to write fast and quick and sharp, he can't. It's just he didn't want to write that book. So, you know, this is what we have.

And I think these are great. Really unique. It's hard to say unique, but having been reading a lot of Silmarillion with you, I think we can say that the Hobbits are a unique character, right? I think so. They're not the same as the characters he's writing in these grand ethics.

They feel like they were they feel like they're operating in a different genre. Yeah, yeah. Like men and dwarves and elves are operating in high drama, high tragedy. Yeah. Hobbits feel like they should be in some kind of comedy series. Exactly. Okay. You need that breath of like comedy and something that is filled with tension.

I on people call him like the father of what is it? Is that high fantasy? And I kind of argue in my head, I don't know if he would have this position. If it wasn't for the relatableness and the humor and the component of Hobbits. I think you're probably right. Because if he had just written about elves and men, I think we would have been impressed, but I don't know if we would have resonated. Yeah.

Cause you can't bear in there. There are so many men that are so much larger than life. All those characters are in so larger than life. But yeah, Barrett is sick. Can I relate to him as a person? Less.

And so I think it made Hobbits created something really unique in his writing. And okay, this is another hot take before I then dig into all the little itty bitty facts that I that I pulled up. But as I was reading about Hobbits and what they love and what their their tendencies are and their sociability and the things that happened to them, it made me think, I wonder if he thought about Hobbits as a representation of children or people who are childlike and have an innocence about them and are able to change the world in a way that often adults and bigger people overlook. And I don't know, there's a component there of like this innocence, this purity, and like loving the simple things in life. Anyways, I was just thinking about that.

But okay, what do I have? So basically we've talked about how the different races in Middle Earth tend to have like a very illustrious beginning, some kind of story about Aluvatar or Aluvatar love them especially.

And so he created them like this. Exactly. Are Hobbits like an accident that they grow out of like a tree?

So basically what what we're assuming, and I believe it says somewhere here also in the concerning Hobbit section is and typical Tolkien, we've talked about how we love this. He says, people aren't sure where they came from. Yes. Hedjubes. And so he's like, let's keep it.

Let's keep it misty. But he says they believe they are more closely related to men than either elves or dwarves. And so we believe that they're some kind of branch or descendant of the younger children of Aluvatar. So that means they're more related to men.

I would argue. Potentially they have the gift of death, right? In the same way that men do.

That's what it says it would imply, right? That Hobbit spirits do the same thing as men where they are not tied.

Maybe they have a different way to go about it.

But yeah, that's cool. My my assumption is I feel like it's got to be like men and like some dwarf, right? Because if we're talking about these people, like they're between two and four feet tall in case you were wondering.

Yes, wait, hold on. You're right. We've got elves and we've got men and we know that we've got half breeds. And so who in this world is short? How can it have happened? How can it have happened?

And I think I think it's men and dwarfs. OK, I mean, this is a strong theory. I'm with you. That's my that's my opinion.

OK, what traits if true, what traits come from the dwarf other than the height? Because they actually seem to have almost a polar opposite quality in terms of greed or naturedness.

Right. They burrow. They burrow in holes. They do. They do. But not very deep. Not very deep, which is consistent with them only being half dwarf. OK, I'm liking this theory. I'm not.

OK, so to get to some content.

So it was that hot dwarf wife, you

know, oh my God, who was the dwarf? With the beard. Ghibli says. I must know.

I must know. This is why it's lost to the the depths of history. No one will come forth and say it was I. Oh my gosh.

OK, sorry. OK, that's amazing.

No, OK, so the origins, what I have is basically

they're supposed to be closer related to men. So we think they're from the younger children of Lutare. They're very ancient people. So they've been around for a long time, but historians in terms of elves or men haven't always noticed that they've been around. They've been very good at kind of like hiding and keeping to themselves.

I mean, you're literally diminutive and then you're not very populist. Like you're not powerful. You're not powerful. You're not doing anything important. You're not potentially infringing on anybody. Like who would even notice you?

Yeah, exactly. And so also it was mentioned in concerning hobbits that they are they were more numerous formally than they are today. So now they're down to just the Shire. There's a very small population of them. And so it sounds like they were more broadly spread out. But in terms of history, so we do have a little bit of historical content. I will say they start out by saying that not a lot of records were preserved by the hobbits

and it doesn't seem like something they would focus on.

Yeah, it highly reminds me of In the Simmerillion when men are created and then they come over the mountain range and they meet elves for the first time. And elves basically say, who are you? What's your history?

And the men are like, we didn't keep it. What do you mean? Like this is a snows here. Like what do you want to know?

I also really I think we said this when we talked about it last but I love that reaction from the elves at the first thing they need to know. Because they are they do think in such long time still. So they're like, I need to know about your origins as like a species. Give me your records.

Tell me about yourself. Yeah. And the men are like, well, this is my name. I'm here now, obviously.

The elves are like, you don't understand. This is the least interesting part of you.

It's so good.

And so back then that's like the origins of men. Oh, gee, right? But this is very much like the mindset that hobbits had, where it was kind of like we go on verbal stories and we're not writing stuff down. And so the earliest thing that Tolkien mentions is that the hobbits at some point came over the Misty Mountains. And so we get the impression that they were living on the opposite side of the Misty Mountains. So that would put them more closer to like the Lone Mountain, like the city of Dale kind of area. And then they came over the Misty Mountains and they were divided up into kind of three main groups.

There was the Harfuts, the Stores and the Fallow Hides. What's that last one? How do you spell it?

Fallow Hides, F-A-L-O-F-A-L-L-O Hides, H-I-D-E-S. And it's kind of fun. They have like slightly different, slightly different descriptions of them. So the Stores grew facial hair and they had affinity for water, boats, swimming.

It says that this facial hair theme is Diddy Meanie, like dwarf. Yeah.

Yeah. And the Fallow Hides were fair, tall and slim. They were a little more adventurous and friendlier. And then it says the Harfuts were more numerous. And they're the ones who kind of burrowed and I was kind of

you get the impression of the hobbits we know. The main type of hobbit. It does sound like the hobbits we know today are a mix of all these different types.

These three kind of categories seem to kind of end at some point as they all mingled together. I will also say that it's interesting because it said that the Harfuts, which were the ones that had the beards, I believe, know the Stores. The facial hair.

Yeah. But it says the Harfuts had much to do with the doors because they were, I think, a little bit more towards the mountains when they went over the Misty Mountains. And then they had the stores who lived on the banks of the river and the Fallow Hides were a little more friendly with the elves and they would they would hunt in the forest. So I'm seeing Gollum as coming out of the stores. God, yes.

That is I was about just about to say I was like, if we're talking about Gollum, who when we were chatting, was he 600 years old?

I'm not going to remember dates. I cannot remember any dates ever. Let me look how old he is again. I think so. Gollum, age and LOTR. How old was he again? Yeah, he was almost 600 years old. So if we're thinking about Gollum, where he was originating from before the Shire, because Bilbo told him Shire and he didn't have any recollection, right?

I'm thinking that he was probably a store who lived on the bank of a river. Yeah, that's cool. That's really cool. So that's kind of putting a time period for when these people came over the Misty Mountains, they were spreading out in different areas. And then it sounded like some of the things that we see happening in the Hobbit movies is as like prior to Bilbo's adventure, it started happening way, way earlier because they talk about like a shadow started falling on Merckwood. So the Hobbit started moving further west.

Things started happening. Basically moving towards the Shire as we know it. And something else that's interesting is we know that at the time there was also the Dunedain, which was the Northern Kingdom. So once the men came over from Numenor, that island had sunk, they had created Gondor in the south and then Arnor, the kingdom of Arnor in the north. And it sounded like basically Arnor was there and was existing. And there were like current battles going on between the Witch King and the men. So this is that period of like the Witch King of Aenmar being in charge of doing, of driving them out, right?

Exactly. And so basically Arnor, the kingdom is going through all of this and the Hobbits are kind of there and they're slowly merging closer, closer to the west, trying to kind of get away.

out. Yeah. Yeah. All of this stuff is going on. Okay. And so that's ultimately what kind of makes them settle into the Shire and they all kind of, they all kind of a group there. But what's fascinating is so we have the term Hobbit, which actually is old English. And it means whole dweller. So Tolkien kind of got that from there. But it is funny because in a letter, it says he commented on the pronunciation and he says, I'm sure many hobbits drop their ages like most rural folk in England. So he was picturing it. Hobbit. Hobbit.

I'm an hobbit. I'm an hobbit. So. It's funny.

Yeah. It is interesting that dropping of the age thing. I actually really, really enjoy my fair lady. Have you seen this? Yes, I love it. It is one of my favorite movies. It's so good. And the scene of her stuffing the marbles in her mouth and then going to the flame to try to make an H is terrible. Have you ever heard something in Hampshire? Have you ever heard in Hampshire?

Heterocains. Hardly. Happened. The first time she does it, she gets only one H and it's on the word ever. That's so good. Anyway, that show is great. That's interesting. So by the time, so does anything, so they basically leave that area because of the witch teams, armies and battles and basically the climate.

Shadows going over Merckwood, yeah, all of this stuff. So they're moving.

And then do they just stay and settle? And then it's like peace forever. Are there ever any like internecine wars? Is there drama amongst the hobbits?

It's super interesting. So supposedly when they were moving over the Misty Mountain, they were all kind of wandering. They call that like the wandering years where they had those these three groups and they were kind of trying to find a place.

And then they kept going as stuff happened and they found the Shire. And it says that basically they had chieftains, right? So they would have chieftains of their individual groups that would go over, be the management of where they would live. And then slowly over time, once they moved to the Shire, they started to have something called Thanes. And so Thanes would kind of be like these, not necessarily like a king, but kind of like a governor, like a lower level king.

I mean, that's kind of like a Norse word, isn't it? Isn't there literally Thanes? Thanes, let's see. Oh, no, it's Anglo-Saxon.

Okay. Thane. Yeah, cool. Okay. And so yeah, from the Kings exchange. Yeah, so that's kind of how their government was established. But then what's really fascinating, and I'm curious if this is how token would foresee a perfect government, I don't know. But slowly over time, like they got so settled into the Shire, land became very much like owned by landowners. And there, there ceased to be kind of like this over higher level government, and it became much more like different families, just interacting with each other.

And to defend this, token was saying that basically, there was little greed, right? Like people were in a situation where they had been there for centuries. They had the land that they had, and they didn't need to expand.

And it worked for them enough, their populace was not so growing or so huge that it couldn't support it. It sounds like they don't have very many outside pressures because they had somehow moved past the front of all that turmoil. And so any, any pressure, any like nasty forces would be hitting the Dunedain and like, you know, the Numenorean descendants first and would be dealt with before it hit them. So when you don't have that kind of external force, you don't actually need somebody in charge of your army, right?

And yeah, exactly. And so it's so interesting because the only wars per se that Tolkien mentions is it says, I think this is really funny, that the hobbits start, oh, they started keeping time and history when they moved into the Shire conveniently. And they moved into the Shire like the beginning of the Third Age. So the beginning of the Third Age is when, the Third Age is when everything is happening for us, right? And it's the beginning of the Third Age that the hobbit settle into the Shire. So at that point, I think Arnor was still a thing. And they say that in their histories, they said that the King of Arnor asked for aid and they sent, they sent arrow archers. Dude, that's actually cool. But they said that the Duodine or the men don't have any records of it.

But they say that they sent archers. That is funny. Which I think is so funny that Tolkien made this like one side of thing where they're like, no, we sent archers.

We totally did. It really does sound like something that somebody would say in the pub over a couple. Exactly. That's what I love about.

And then the only other war I could see is they said at some point there was a series of orcs that tried attacking the Shire.

So somebody slipped through the net and they came through. This was like centuries before Bilbo. And there was, you know, they had the Thane or they had their leadership and they rallied and they charged the orcs and they drove them out. And since then, and it actually makes sense because Arnor fell, right?

And so a lot of the baddies kind of moved out of that territory. Right. They would have been driven, they would have been commanded to move to somewhere to attack next, right? Yeah, exactly. So they did peace when they're at war and they did peace when they're at peace. Because they're the least valuable target, I guess. The least valuable target.

And they're taking up such small space and they're little. And so, yeah, so basically after that, like for centuries, it's just been very, very peaceful. No war. Very interesting. No wars, no nothing. So that's kind of the history there of what's been happening prior to when Bilbo comes along. I will say, so it did have a lot of things like preferences and fun little things about hobbits. And this is this is the fun part. This is where I was like, man, I wonder if he was inspired by children.

I don't know, but it's cute. He said, they don't like machines, but they're very good at like all things useful, like spinning wool and milling grain and windmills and kind of all of that stereotypical stuff. And then he said, the cottage industries.

Yes. They said that they were shy of big folk. And so you wouldn't see them around typically. Like if you were walking or you were doing living your own life as a big person, you wouldn't see these little people.

They would kind of be hiding. And it gives me very strong fairy vibes. It gives me very strong like kind of this not mischievous, but kind of like watching you and then hiding and kind of name with the little fairies that come and do things for you.

Oh, yeah. And like a saucer of milk. Oh, right. Yeah, like the shoemaker and the elves, were those little shoelves?

Yeah, essentially, it does give that vibe. It is a vibe of like we'll do the theme will be very useful. But like, no, we cannot coexist in the same space. We will not see me. They're just the vibe of like actual children, like you said, because there are lots of kids who are shy and won't look at a new and too exciting adult, right? I won't look you in the eye. They're too cute, though. That's funny.

I thought it was cute. I thought it was cute. And I said, they're typically fat. And they're not and they're not in a hurry. He said they can, they can, they can disappear pretty silently and pretty swiftly.

But he said they're not magical. They're just very alert and very close to the earth. So they can be very, very mindful of their feet. He said they love bright colors. They don't wear shoes. They love to laugh, eat, drink, enjoy simple things, including six meals a day.

You know what? I look at this and I just think Tolton is writing all this tragedy, all this drama and he seems to himself, in this Middle Earth, somebody must be having a good time. Somebody has to be happy. They're going to have a good time doing this and that and this and that.

And eating six meals a day. Yeah, it's so cute.

And then he says they love parties and they love presents.

I think, I don't know if this is 100% true, but is it at the pace that on your birthday, as a hobbit, you give gifts to everyone else?

Oh, I think that might be a thing. They have a reverse gifting policy. Because they love it. They love giving gifts. Yeah.

And I actually really liked that. I also really enjoy giving gifts. But I think that's, I mean, that's not going to be the typical way that we do it, obviously, but I think that's a fun twist on it.

Yeah, they give gifts to others. Yeah. As a thanksgiving of friendships and service rendered, which is so cute. Also, I think it's so interesting because both of these, they love gifts, they love presents. Makes me think a lot of gollum is like, it was my birthday right?

Like it was a birthday gift. Oh my goodness. That's why he was like, give that to me. Because wait, wait, wait. No, no, no, it should be the opposite.

It was his birthday. Gollum should have been giving things out, right? Yeah, he should have been giving things out.

I think he might have been from a different era, but there is this thing about gifts. They love gifts. Yeah. Let's see here. So those are, so I just left six meals a day that blows my mind. They are, he also, it's so interesting too, because he was saying like, they have all of these merry and wonderful things about them, but he's like, but they're strangely resilient, right? Like there were a couple of droughts. There were a couple of things that happened over time in the Shire, but somehow they're able to get through hard things. Yeah.

I thought this was fascinating. This has to do with them, their housing situation. He said the hobbits that lived in the ground were either the poorest or the richest. And so he said the poorer ones would have just a very basic hole.

It's very easy to burrow. The richest would build like these beautiful hill mansions. And he said, but many hobbits, if there weren't hills available, they would just build typical thatch houses and they could live in those. So if you were kind of in the middle.

Yeah, I feel like the Shire, at least the Bilbo Badgen Street must have been pretty wealthy then. Those all look like pretty fine houses.

They were pretty good. There's a pretty hilly neighborhood.

And then, oh my gosh, this cracked me up. He has a whole section in his concerning hobbit thing called like pipe weed. I know.

I'm assuming this is marijuana?

Like is it weed? He said it was, no, he said it was like of the plant nicotine-ous almost or something. So then it's a variety probably of nicotiana. So I think that means it's a type of tobacco.

That's going to be tobacco, I would assume. It is interesting to think about the introduction of these sorts of, for lack of a better word, drugs. Like way back in the day, like the discovery of America, right? I don't remember everything that they came back with, but I'm pretty sure they came back with things like tomatoes, which are integral to like so much of cuisine, especially Italian cuisine.

They came back with things like tomatoes. And then I think tobacco also was a big discovery. I do, yeah. Obviously things like caffeine and chocolate and just like massive, massive cuisine opportunities were opened up. And I don't really understand the tobacco thing. And apparently everybody had it and like maybe everyone was dying early anyways.

So like it didn't cause any noticeable problems. But yeah, it's just really interesting that for so long tobacco was the thing you grew because you made money because people wanted it so bad. Yeah.

Well, it's so interesting to me too, because we talked about this before, I think, how hobbits in this world seem to be somewhere in like the 1800s. But yeah, everyone else seems to be living like, I think the elves are in the Renaissance and everyone else is in medieval something. Right? Everyone's living in a dark age, but the elves are living in the Renaissance and the hobbits are just over here with their 1800s with their chocolate and tobacco.

And so that's something going on. The funny is he actually mentioned he's like the hobbits were the first to discover tobacco and like it's slowly spread. Right? So it's actually that is interesting because then you see like how everyone's talking about pipeweed from the south far away. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Best pipeweed ever. And then you think, of course, it's the only pipeweed. That's why Saruman has some too.

And that's what's so interesting is because they said it's spread through the Rangers of the Dua Dines. So that's why when you see Eric Warren the first time he's smoking a pipe and it's spread to he said a very well known wizard acquired the habit very early and often.

And so it's Gandalf picks it up too.

But he goes everywhere and people are like, what's that?

Yeah, but it is fascinating because you actually go further south and you don't see it as much like no one in Rohan smokes. No one in God.

Such a bad guy though. Think about this. He's immortal. Smoking the sea that's going to kill everybody else.

Actually, I had an example, probably not the best advertising. But it is funny. It was kind of interesting. He had a whole section about that being part of their culture. That's very cool.

Yeah. And then I think he had something called the ordering of the Shire. And this is where he went into the Thames that there's not much government. It's ruled by families and they're not that greedy, right? So they're able to be in a pretty cohesive neighborhood situation.

And he says there's the four quarters of the Shire which keeps it very clean and very easy. I'm trying to see if there was anything else that kind of I'll have to.

I haven't committed to doing this yet, but I will be doing a reread of Lord Ruins at some point. And it's been long enough that I don't really remember much of the raising of the Shire or the scouring of the Shire, how do they say it? Yes. Yeah. And I'm kind of excited to read that again because I remember really liking it and it's not fresh in my memory at all. So I'm like, I find it very gratifying that you get to the end.

And yes, the stakes are lower. It's not Saruman. It's just Saruman. And it's a reduced Saruman at that. But it is really, it's like what you said, it's an example of how they are resilient and they get to prove their worth at the end of the book and prove that they are in fact the main character of the book because the book can't end without this event.

And it's just you. I'm excited to read that again for, you know, either we'll get to it or I'll read it before then. But at some point it'll be fresh in my mind again. And I'm kind of hyped for that now.

Yeah, I'm excited. Honestly, all of this, it wasn't very like, I don't know, I feel like untypical of Tolkien. It wasn't very super deep, right? It's not like he's like, let me tell you everything about that.

He's sort of like cursory details, less lore, no mention of Louvatar.

More like they like parties, they like presents. Yeah, that is true.

I think some aspect of that has to be because they're supposed to be English, right? Like, you know what the English are. And here's a little twist. They give presents instead of receive. Yeah. I guess he's like almost making a pastiche of here are the English at their best when the English are at their best, they are like this. And I really like that as a way of him to characterize his own people. Yeah.

And I think it's, I don't know, I think it's very much like he's adding in virtues he would love to see because he talks about like those cottage industries and how they're very close to the earth. And I think industrialism.

This is like the ideal world that he would like to envision, right? Exactly. Like not something he was loving at the time. So I don't know. I think you see a lot of really interesting things where it intersects a little bit with the history of Middle Earth. And you have some things going on, which is like, oh, it's kind of cool that, you know, the duodane are going along and Arnor is a kingdom at the same time as they're kind of moving into the area and all this stuff is happening.

Oh, also my last comment, I think is fascinating. So Hobbit is actually, they would say the old English that maybe like a Rohirrim might speak, but then they said halfling is what the dunedane called them. So the Numenoreans that started the kingdom of Arnor. And I specifically remember in the movie, the that's what Erdogan calls them.

The Erdogan Erdogan calls them halflings. And then in the movie, the writers, the black writers, he speaks to Arwen, I think, and he's like give up the hand over the halfling. And I actually think it's really interesting because you could say that the the writers were from, they spent a lot of time in Arnor, right? So they were working with a lot of men from that Gondor Numenorean heritage and descent. And that's how they refer to them. So there's just that little patch of dialect, that choice of words. I like that. That's really cool. Yeah, so kind of interesting there.

But yeah, honestly, this one's super short, super sweet, but it's just fun to hear a little more about it. And yeah, yeah.

Get on the hobbits for only having boring history and not living in interesting times.

Well, and having having fun along the way, right?

They don't have super sad ballads. They don't have all the things that Tolkien loved to sprinkle in. He just they just have a lot of really great characteristics. So I love that for them. May they have many years of peace. Many years of peace and happiness and parties and six meals a day.

There is a really funny like, I guess you'd call it like a blessing. I don't know. Have you ever seen Firefly? Do you know the show? Oh, I think I have seen a few episodes. Yeah. Yeah. So there's an episode where one of the characters says, may you have hundreds of fat babies or something like that. It's something like that. And I just die every time I hear it. Because like on the one hand, yes, that would be fun on the other hand.

Do I want that? Do I want to have that? Hundreds of fat babies. Anyways, I wish that upon the hobbits. And yes, and different that they're all fat anyways, that will surely come true for them. Yes.

Excellent. Okay. Well, thank you everyone for joining us for this fun episode and we'll catch you next time. Yep. See you next time. Bye.

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