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.

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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.

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Tolkien March Extended into April

… 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.”

The Russian Hobbit, Part 6

I thought I was finished with this series, but there’s just too much good material, and a few book covers I overlooked. So let’s proceed.

First of all, it occurred to me I never included pictures of non-Russian hobbits to serve as comparisons. So here’s the first ever, drawn by Tolkien.

And isn’t it amazing how Bilbo bears a resemblance to the artist himself! An in-joke, maybe?

That said, it’s nicely drafted, but the sizes of the furniture aren’t consistent, and the whole hole (pun not intended) seems too large for tiny Bilbo, especially given how he’s in the foreground. That entrance would easily be six times his height. How in Arda would he light the lamp that’s hanging overhead or change the hands on that cuckoo clock to the right?

However, I can’t mock the artist too much, because figure drawing was never his forte. If we remove Bilbo (whose hairy feet we can’t see) we have a nicely rendered, personally conceptualized picture of what a well-to-do hobbit hole would look like.

Frodo from the Peter Jackson movies. Like it or not he’s the most widely known hobbit depiction these days. His large bare feet are furred on the top, most heavily over the arch. No fur creeping up his ankles and shins or hairy hands.

For a fantasy fan who was born prior to 1990, however, the animated Bilbo to the left would have been the  introduction to hobbithood. It’s from a 1977 TV special by Rankin-Bass.

With his rotund torso and woodland critter teeth, he’s not so far off from some Russian versions, is he?  But his feet are different: large, clean, and luxuriously hairy on the tops, like an icelandic sheepskin rug or the shag carpets popular earlier in the decade.

Rankin Bass used the same character type for their later animated special of Return of the King. The Two Towers was skipped because Ralph Bakshi held the rights at the time, leading to an awkward lack of continuity. Luckily I had read the whole of the trilogy before it aired so I was not confused. Meanwhile, Bakshi’s Two Towers went unmade.

So let’s talk about Bakshi’s hobbits.

Bakshi’s animated hobbits in his version of The Lord of the Rings went off in a different, more realistic direction that greatly influenced Peter Jackson. Bakshi’s hobbits are childlike, with big skulls and small faces. They have thick legs and feet that are hairy, but not excessively so — they are not caricatures as the Rankin Bass hobbits seen to be. Well, except for Sam, whose gapped teeth and big nose make him look like a country bumpkin.

A hobbit luncheon, courtesy of Ralph Bakshi. From left to right: Frodo, Sam, Pippin, Merry.

Bakshi’s film was released in 1978 and though it disappointed many fans it was immensely hyped and helped float along publishers’ interest in releasing new editions of Tolkien’s work. If you were a fantasy fan then it was an exciting time.

Now let’s do a 180. Here’s the first Romanian version of The Hobbit.

My fault for not including in Part 5. (The title threw me off. Romanian language is Latin-based so at first I took it for Spanish.) There’s a lot to analyze here — a wig-wearing, decorative Smaug, for one thing. But it’s Bilbo with his pointy hat — that has a useless buckle — and thick black sideburns that draws the eye and makes the experienced hobbit fan mistake him for Gandalf.

But as far as children’s book artwork goes, I like a lot, especially Bilbo’s cautious, trepidacious look that suggests he’s a thief and is invisible to Smaug, even though the viewer can see him.  Child me would want to read this book.

Russia made live-action TV versions of both The Hobbit and the complete LOTR trilogy. Both are available on YouTube to watch; they have been described as charming, atrocious, hilarious, and hallucinogenic. I’ll leave it to you decide.

The first ever broadcast, live-action Bilbo is portly and deadpan. He wears a knitted gray skullcap, a collared pink dress shirt, and knitted arm warmers. No hairy feet that I remember, but the quality of the videotape is not good.

The hobbit gang from the Russian Lord of the Rings. A somber bunch and certainly NOT childlike and carefree. Frodo stands at center holding a spittoon (?) with pipe-smoking Sam at his back wearing a peasant hat. Merry and Pippin to Frodo’s right and left, who look older than him and certainly not his peers. Eighties spiky-haired wigs on all of them. Frodo’s hair is red, which denotes the Russian ideal of the troublemaker, or the character that stands out the most. Their costuming is in line with Tolkien’s original drawing — that of the tweed-jacketed country gentleman.

Now I’ll look a quick look at Russian versions of Tolkien’s elves and dwarves.

Oh my god, this one is so bad it gives me secondhand embarassment for the fictional characters it depicts. The blonde pageboy haircuts on the elves! And their Robin Hood getups! That’s so wrong.

Not sure if the dwarf below was made by a Russian artist, but he certainly looks Russian or Slavic.

Truly a magnificent being.

Valinor

Valinor was where the gods, or Valar, of Middle-Earth dwelt; it lay far over the western sea. In the age of The Silmarillion, there were comings and goings to it all the time (by the standards of elves that is) but by the LOTR, it was only a legend to mortals.

This illustration by Michael Naismith emphasizes the land’s otherworldly nature. Only conifer trees grow there (some kind of arbor vitae, or cedar maybe) and the grass is very green. At the top of gigantic, needle-like Mt. Taniquetil lie the Halls of Manwe, the leader of the gods. Tolkien’s own Illustration of Taniquetil is below. Oddly it’s depicted as being on the coast, not inland as The Silmarillion says. He likely painted it while his conception of Valinor was still coming together.

Even the lands of deities can be mapped.

This map shows the far western continent of Aman where Valinor is situated. The two names may be  interchangeable; I’m not sure. Most depictions show this continent as crescent-shaped with the world-encircling sea lapping its western shores. That is, the sea that existed before Arda was made round. Then the continent was placed into a pocket dimension above and beyond the physical world, accessible only to the elves who sailed the “Straight Road.” At the continent’s northern tip it curves around and connects to the main continent of Middle-Earth, a sort of Bering land strait if you will. The map below goes into waaaay more detail.

Click to see larger

This map is gorgeously detailed, but I’m note sure if it was compiled from the whole of Tolkien’s work (which includes 10 volumes of his Histories of Middle-Earth!) or if it’s from an RPG or other online game.

Worldbuilding Wednesday 3/26/25: Some Words of Orkish, Part 2

As I mentioned in Part 1, Tolkien described orcs in racially stereotyped terms, in fact, he even admitted to it: ” squat, broad, flat-nosed, sallow-skinned, with wide mouths and slant eyes: in fact degraded and repulsive versions of the (to Europeans) least lovely Mongol-types.”

The above illustration by Tim Kirk, then a fan artist, adheres to this description. To my mind, though, his orcs don’t resemble any human race in particular  — they just look monstrous. They’re also full of personality, to point where a viewer can easily imagine what they’re thinking and feeling.

I admit I’m fonder of these boogeyman orcs than I am of the Peter Jackson ones. The orcs of both movie trilogies, and The Rings of Power which copies their look, are horrifying to the point of distraction: black, slimy, diseased, and deformed, with strange piercings and pieces of metal screwed into their skins. Perhaps it didn’t matter as much in the LOTR, where the focus was on the good guys and the orcs served as occasional shock value; but in Rings of Power the orcs are players in their own right, and one wants to look away from them. OK, we get they’re evil; but why hit us over the head with it?

(I was going to write a Why I Hate… post about it, but I think I’ve said everything I wanted to say.)

Anyhow, a few more words of Orkish.

 

A Few Orkish Words, Part 2

Kâzk A weapon of any kind. Kazku, sword; Kazkuz, spear; Kazku hai, broadsword.
Kikik, Kik’k Knife.
Khindrá Food of any kind. This is the polite, general word. Bodies of enemies eaten after battle are known as sklabinsch, or “Don’t waste.”
Lutgluk  Night. Literally means “good place.”
Náka Tattoo. Tattooing was held in much esteem by the orcs and one of the few ways they expressed themselves artistically. Some humans (and, it is rumored, dwarves) sought out the more peaceable tribes for this service.
Ra’ab A general word for raiding and plundering.
Skruk Asshole.
Sorzgal Beloved, or cherished one. Yes, orcs do love.
Vûlgrun “Coverings.” Can mean a tarp, a wrapping, a shroud, or even clothing depending on the context. Examples are Durbvulg, “foot-coverings” or boots/shoes; Angvulg, armor; Szikvulg, hair.