… because I’ve been having that much fun, that’s why.
Below, Saruman of the Many Colors, by Harold Jog. Known in some circles as “Saruman shows his Gay Pride.”
Apex Predators of Middle-earth
Simbakubwa kutokaafrika, or the Hyena-lion: the real Warg?
Though Tolkien described the landscapes of Middle-earth in great detail, he didn’t go much into its animal life, and when he did it was similar to what you’d encounter on a walk in the English countryside. With the addition of various fell creatures, of course. But these were met only if you wandered far and were out on an adventure.
Nevertheless, I thought I’d talk about what kind of ecosystem this Europe-sized piece of land possibly held. Who ate who, and who was at the top?
A Few Substandard Hobbits
Slavic nations certainly had some unusual Hobbits, but what of the rest of Europe? Let’s see.
This underground comix- inspired Bilbo is tied with this one as the most horrible Hobbit depiction of all time. It’s a J’ai Lu publication, which is par for the course. Is he fighting a troll? An aardvark? Who knows.
A German Hobbit in that very annoying late 1960s semi-abstract children’s book style which could be cranked out very quickly by the artist. I didn’t like it as a child, and I still don’t like it now. Not least because Gollum is just an amorphous mass and not a real being. C’mon, the artist wasn’t even trying.
Up, up, and away with a Gorilla-footed Bilbo who is wearing a t-shirt with his own name on it, plus suspenders! He looks like Jeremy Boob from the Beatles’ Yellow Submarine cartoon. To add to the 1960s feel the art director used a crazy daisy font for “Hobbit.” The Smaug isn’t bad, but he’s in a completely different style, and he’s crying! That’s not the Smaug from the book!
Then there’s this very weird Fred Flintstone Hobbit from Russia who has only three toes and four fingers, and a single tooth front and center. He looks more like an ogre like than a diminuitive Hobbit, towering over the dwarves to his rear. And I know Tolkien mentioned Hobbits had red, rosy cheeks, but Bilbo’s is all over red, like a devil’s.
A Middle-earth Music Festival
I wonder if the promoters got permission from the Tolkien Estate for this?
Frodo’s Journey
I had a long discussion with my sister about how many miles, exactly, Frodo and Sam traveled from their home in The Shire to the pits of Mt. Doom. Oddly, this information wasn’t readily apparent online, for all the Tolkien websites and maps and graphics out there. After some digging, I came up with this.
For those in the U.S., his trip began in Horton, Kansas, near the Kikapoo Indian Reservation, ended up in Fernandina Beach, Florida. That’s quite a walk, and transposable to a regular mileage map I guess. But I knew there was something better out there.
This site, courtesy of The Lord of the Rings Project, has an interactive graph showing you the days and miles walked per book. Much better!
To answer the question, it’s 1,800 miles. Those Hobbit feet must have been pretty calloused.
Worldbuilding Wednesday 4/16/25: Villain Lairs of Middle-earth
Gollum’s starkers! And Frodo faints at the hideous sight!
Tolkien’s work is full of evil fortresses, towers, and strongholds. My favorite among them is Angmar. Isn’t that an evocative name! It just oozes evil.
Others are Thangorodrim, Minas Morgul, Durthang, and Barad-Dur. Unpleasant-sounding names, all of them.
In that vein, here’s some evil place names that would fit very well into Middle-earth, all randomgenned of course.
Evil Places of Middle-Earth
| Idgarbad
Elgnar Minas Angmel Anskodar Mitharagrim Durlvar Nan Dimeld Gast Carn Boen |
Barad Morkast
Morgaul Birinsgor Orchast Cirith Gronang Rurdamang Barad Dolmen Nurgn Tor |
Beren and Luthien, Egyptian Style
Luthien Before Morgoth, by Cuarthol
One of the First Age tales in The Silmarillion is how Luthien, an elf, falls in love with Beren, who is human, and aids him in his quest to recover the three Silmaril jewels from Morgoth. This part of The Sil has a more fairy tale flavor than the rest of the book, involving overt magic use, transformations, and a structured quest. In one part of it Luthien, on facing the dark lord, performs an enchanting dance routine that puts him and all his entourage asleep, enabling her and Beren to steal back the jewels.
The artist above interprets the scene in ancient Egyptian style. Morgoth wears the three Silmaril atop his crown of cobras, while Luthien has bat wings because she’s snuck into Thangorodrim in the guise of a vampire. Vampires were only mentioned in this story and in the stanzas of a few Elven poems. They were not in The Hobbit or LOTR, at least as far as I can remember. I guess the use of this supernatural creature fell by the wayside as the author’s style evolved.
And to tell you the truth, vampires don’t really “fit” into Middle-earth anyway, even as the creations of Morgoth which they are said to be. It’s their overt Christian tone. Even though Tolkien’s vampires are more like giant vampire bats who can change into humans, the name itself conjures images of Dracula and his anathema to crucifixes to most Western readers. (No Jesus in Middle-earth.) Not to mention bloodsucking, hypnosis, and sexual predation.
Another creature that doesn’t fit is the werewolf, though, again, Tolkien’s conception was different: these were evil spirits in the bodies of monstrous wolves. They differed from wargs, which were an evil race of actual wolves, the non-supernatural kind. Tolkien’s werewolves did not have an alternate human form, nor did they infect others with their bite or fall under the moon’s influence. Again he seems to have appropriated the name for dramatic effect, that of bolstering the bad guys’ evil.
Interestingly, fellow Inkling C. S. Lewis also threw in some werewolves when writing Prince Caspian, the second book of The Chronicles of Narnia. As in Tolkien’s tale it was a one-off. Werewolves were not mentioned in the later books and, to me at least, seemed out of place Narnia’s mythos. I think it’s likely the two writers indulged in some less high-minded pulp fiction together and took inspiration from that.
Real-life bats and wolves have received much-needed rehabilitation to their images in recent decades: wolves as intelligent, socially complex apex predators and bats as vital and versatile members of the ecosystem who work to keep destructive insect populations down. Not to mention being faster flyers even than birds and some species being insanely cute.
Worldbuilding Wednesday 4/9/25: Undiscovered Hobbit Types, Part 2
A cute but feral-looking Bilbo on the cover of a Czech edition of The Hobbit
Continuing on with this series.
Tolkien says in several places that Hobbits are more akin to Men than either Elves or Dwarves. If so, they share Men’s mortality in that they do not go to Valinor after death, but somewhere else (even though Frodo and Sam did.) However, their lifespans are longer than that of Men. How did this come about?
One could say that they are Tolkien’s favorite race and he couldn’t bear to give them any less. Remember his main heroic human character, Aragorn, also had an extended lifespan because he was descended from the Dúnedain. But I can also create my own reason.
Smaug the not so great and often terrible.
Today comes one the crueler parts of Tolkien March/April — mocking Smaug! Of The Hobbit fame.
He’s been depicted many times over the years, and in my judgement most of the artwork has been appropriate for the story and, in many cases, superlative. But many renditions fall short in depicting the giant reptile’s majesty and malice. Like these.
How threatening can Smaug be when he’s carrying a teapot and bunch of flowers??!!
This illustration is from a Russian omnibus of children’s stories, of which The Hobbit was one.
More like “Pleasure in Vomiting” to me.
I’ve referenced this goofy wig-wearing Smaug elsewhere. That’s Bilbo in the foreground.
This one, from the cover of a Hebrew edition, is really weird. Bilbo stabs a dragon tail on the ground while another dragon flies overhead? With an elephant trunk and antlers coming out of its neck? None of that happened in the book.
Even weirder is the Czech Smaug, who looks like a centipede. Perhaps the artist is paying homage to this little creature by Dutch artist M. C. Escher?
This Smaug, which I think is on the cover of a French-Canadian edition, looks like a reject from Terry Gilliam’s animation studio for Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Bilbo is either lecturing the creature or has been walking along and talking to himself — perhaps gathering his courage to enter Smaug’s lair — and been caught unawares.
This Smaug is… ummm… screaming “hack artist” to me. He looks like he should be standing on a solid surface, not hovering in mid-air. Plus something strange is going on with his tongue and the plume of fire coming out of his mouth. It’s like the tongue itself is creating the flames. This cover is from Indonesia, so I’m it was a mistake in translation, or with the European concept of fire-breathing dragons. Note that Bard looks very Indonesian though!
Worldbuilding Wednesday 4/2/25: Undiscovered Hobbit Types, Part 1
A Hobbit in Mordor (close-up of a painting by Gary Cook)
Nowhere in The Hobbit was it said that hobbits had oversized feet — just hairy ones.
After all the different hobbits on the covers of Russian and Slavic translations, surely there must have been more types in Middle-earth than just the ones in The Shire? After all, it’s a big place with plenty of room.
In his other notes, Tolkien stated that Hobbits came into The Shire in the middle of the Third Age after leaving the Vales of Anduin on the east side of the Misty Mountains. The three different types — Harfoots, Stoors, Fallohides — came in three separate migrations and met on the western side, where they wandered a bit before settling in Bree and later founded The Shire. The Amazon series The Rings of Power shows a period even before that, when “Hairfoots” lived in the Rhunic waste as nomads and, for ancestral Stoors, in desert caves. Where might have they dispersed in the thousands of years since? What might they have evolved into?
Undiscovered Hobbit Types
| Brabbles | The Shire is not the only major settlement of Hobbits in Middle-earth. At the east end of the Iron Hills lies the domain of the Brabbles, who, like the Elves of long-forgotten Gondolin, live in a hidden city accessed through a narrow gorge. Within their city each family lives in its own stone smial carved into the rock in complexes nine or ten floors high. They once shared a close relationship with Dwarves who may have aided them in building their city; like them, Brabbles enjoy mining and metal crafting and their men often sport beards and mustaches.
Brabbles considered themselves very civilized and show characteristics of all three hobbit types. But they also have their own: their hair tends to be straight, and they grow short, stubby hair all over their feet and toes and up to their ankles. In demeanor they are reserved. They originate from a band of Hobbits who went north instead of crossing the Misty Mountains. |
| The Hessen | A group of Stoorish Hobbits who remained in Dunland instead of meeting up with their kin near Bree. Their settlements are set in the depths of the Dunland forest, well defended by a high wooden walls covered with poisonous briars. These Hobbits cultivate a variety of hallucinogenic plants with which they trade with Men, and over the centuries have become more warlike. Many of them have dark red hair and they are excellent archers. Purportedly they sent a small militia on ponies to aid in the defense of Gondor but were gently declined. |
| Sunfoots | Hobbits famed for having flowing, luxurious blonde hair on their feet no matter what the color the hair on their head is. Sunfoots are a subtype of Harfoot and famed for their weaving skills. They live far southeast of Erebor in several large villages, trading with the inhabitants of Dale and Dorwithien.
After the War of the Ring it was revealed that Gandalf the White had visited their land many times, looking out for them and protecting them. It is his opinion they had never moved west and lived a discrete existence in the hills before assuming an agricultural lifestyle. Sunfoots are very proud of the long hair on their feet. The girls and women plait it and wear it in braids winding around their ankles. |
| Umtallos | These hobbits live by the sea in long, tubular smials built into the sandy dunes, their entrances camouflaged with driftwood, seaweed, and other bracken. In build they are squat and very muscular, with sleek reddish brown skin and black hair worn in braids. They don’t seem to be related to the other three hobbit types and speak a language all their own, though they also knew Westron.
Umtallos depend on fishing and gathering shellfish from tidal pools. Unlike other types of Hobbits they have boating skills, utilizing outrigger-type canoes to move up and down the coast. However, once settled, they destroy the canoes and net fish from the shore. Not much is known of them by Men, but Cirdan has some familiarity with them. |
The Silmarillion [Review]
The Silmarillion
by J. R. R. Tolkien, edited by Christopher Tolkien
HarperCollins, 2001
(Originally published 1977)
Though a longtime fantasy and Tolkien fan I held off on reading The Silmarillion for many years. It seemed too dry, too complicated. But after I’d tackled the more recently published The Fall of Númenor I wanted more of the dusty pedantic history I’d been so fearful of, and it turns out, I needn’t have worried about it being boring. I loved The Silmarillion. In fact, when I finished it, I wanted more. That’s the mark of a good book.
Of course, The Silmarillion as it exists in published form was never released by Tolkien. It’s a book of compilations from his legendarium, the worldbuilding background of notes, legends, songs and poems, even bestiaries, he created over the years for Middle-earth. His grown son Christopher edited and compiled these into the current work, which was published in 1977 five years after his father’s death. As I’ve written before on this site, it was a Big Event in the fantasy world… comparable to someone today discovering a whole new trilogy Tolkien had kept sealed away in a bank vault for decades.
The book is split into several parts. The first part, the Ainulindalë, is about how Eru Ilúvatar, the One God, created the other gods, the Valar, and sang the world of Arda into existence. The next part, the Valaquenta, introduces these lesser gods and how one of them, Melkor, was a rotten tomato who corrupted what Eru and the other Valar made. Then comes the main attraction, the Quenta Silmarillion, which is about the Valar’s battles with Melkor and how Dwarves, Men, and Elves were created…and how one of those elves, Fëanor, forged the three Silmaril jewels that later led to so much strife and bloodshed.