Let's Get Nerdy

    How are Hobbits and Harfoots Different? – Let’s Get Nerdy!

    Ashley Victoria RobinsonBy 4 Mins Read

    This is a weekly Let’s Get Nerdy article series highlighting a different piece of Tolkien I think you need to know about!

    Tolkien fans, including myself, have definitely been guilty in recent years of explaining away Harfoots as “proto-Hobbits” or Hobbit ancestors. It’s a super easy phrase most pop culture enthusiasts can understand. Who doesn’t know Bilbo Baggins? Leonard Nimoy sang a song about him!

    Leonard Nimoy: The Ballad of Bilbo Baggins – Full Album Version

    Leonard Nimoy – The Ballad of Bilbo Baggins

    The reality is that’s not exactly as advertised. Yes, Harfoots are precursors to the Hobbits whose names we recognize easily (Frodo Baggins, Sam Gamgee, Peregrin Took, Merriadoc Brandybuck), and what makes them so special among the three subsection of proto-Hobbits is their settlement of Eriador.

    “Where’s Eriador, Ashley?” you ask.

    “You can’t picture a map of Middle-Earth with complete an accurate labelling in your head?” I retort.

    Just kidding. Gatekeeping is stupid.

    map of Eriador

    Eriador is in the Northern segment of Middle-Earth and includes The Shire – traditional home of The Hobbits as we imagine them. Harfoots, the smallest and the darkest of all the ancient Hobbits, were certainly the first, though not the only group of Halflings to settle in Eriador. They were eventually joined by the Fallohides. You could easily distill Third Age of Middle-Earth Hobbits to the result of interbreeding between Harfoots and Fallohides. 

    Hobbit husbandry, here we come!

    The resulting Hobbits were tall (for Hobbits, recall by the end of The Lord of the Rings trilogy Merry and Pippin stand 4’5” after drinking the Ent-draught in Fangorn Forest and are considered some of the tallest Hobbits in The Shire), or certainly tall for Halflings, diverse in complexion and hair colour, and less prone to nomadic living than their Harfoot ancestors.

    3 types of Hobbits by: Lidia Postma

    It’s worth considering, as with all things Tolkien, base root and origins of words: Hobbit.

    J.R.R. Tolkien, himself, charted the etymological history from Holbylta to Hobbit. Holbylta is based on the Old English word for “rabbit”. Most rabbits in the English countryside? Small soft brown furry creatures with large feet. Not unlike The Harfoots we know and love.

    In past articles I have answered the question: 

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    She/her. Canadian actress. Bi Queen. Canadian co-host of Geek History Lesson. Canadian comic book writer: Witchblade, Apollo IX, Jupiter Jet series, Science! The Elements of Dark Energy, Aurora and The Eagle. Award-losing: actor, writer, podcaster. https://linktr.ee/AshleyVRobinson

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