Yavanna didn’t make Hobbits. She made Stoors, Fallohides and Harfoots which evolved into Hobbits.
It got me thinking, the reason why Yavanna made the Ents was to protect the earth, plus she helped make the Eagles.
We have Stoors, river-folk. Fallohides, forest-folk. And Harfoots, land-dwellers.
And Stoors were known and common friends of Humans, Fallohides of Elves and Harfoots of Dwarves.
I like to think that Yavanna made them all as protectors/nurturers of their domains, made to watch over the creations of the other Valar.
Also Fallohides were the taller type, lived in forests… maybe that’s why Treebeard didn’t know what Hobbits were because Fallohides migrated away centuries earlier.
Also, Merry and Pippin are Fallohide descendants. In fact most Tooks are which is explained as the reason for their ‘oddness’ but also noble standing.
Also Fallohides being generally 4 feet, something Merry and Pippin surpass after the Entdraught.
So this convo by @mai-komagata & @illegalcerebral about how JCB could also be a Harfoot, made me pause & think about the probability of it happening. Which then lead me to look up on the history of Hobbits a little & I think I've got a Tinfoil Hat Theory for the Harfoot & Gandalf storylines in Season 3!
Imo we're gonna meet the Fallohide hobbits & Gandalf is going to visit Greenwood in S3!!
(I know atleast 10 other people have already speculated about Gandalf in Greenwood for S3, this is just my own tin foil hat attempt at the same!! So let's goooooooo 🫣)
So according to the lore, there were 3 tribes of Hobbits & by S2 we've met two of them the Stoors & the Harfoots..
Now the show seems to have given a lot of lore Harfoot traits, like burrow digging to the Stoors of the show for some reason.. maybe as a way to make Harfoots a migrating community & use it as a call back to the Wandering Days of hobbit history from the lore since season 1..
And seeing as neither the Stoors nor the Harfoots in the show seem to have facial hair or an adventurous side as a whole community, I think these are the traits they're planning to give the Fallohides who we might meet this season!
Maybe on the journey back towards the Harfoots, the Stoors & our girls (Noppy & Co) for some reason will meet the Fallohides?!?
Now what I could gleam from the maps in the show, the lore & the path of Harfoot migration according to this Nerdist article, the position of most major players by the end of S2 seems to be this:
N is where Noppy & Co are leaving from (seeing as there were no rivers or water sources all through Gandalf + Noppy's journey in S2) also the Dark Wizard is also somewhere here
H is where the Harfoots migrate about usually
And T is where Theo & Kemen are in S2E8 along with U which is Adar's Uruk colony in Mordor (now orphaned :c)
C is Cirdan in Lindon or Grey Havens, wherever you want him to be & E is where all our elves are after leaving Eregion (RIP)
Sau is where Sauron is supposed to be wreaking havoc rn
I am guessing, Noppy & co will follow the Migration song & trace their steps back to Rhovanion & then follow the migration trail to try & reach the Harfoots.
Now with all the Numenorian deforestation, Mt. Doom eruption & Uruk spread near Mordor, it would mean the Harfoots probably won't be able to survive in this area anymore, so they must go West or North now.
So probably following the migration trail will be fruitless for Noppy & co now and atp maybe they might find some sign or clue left behind by the Harfoots for them, to hint where they must be going.
This can be a pretty nice point to introduce Noppy & co. to the community of Fallohides & explore them a little like they did with the Stoors in S2.. maybe somewhere on the banks of Anduin, seeing as Anduin & it's river valley is mentioned by name in hobbit history often
Now seeing as Noppy & Co are going to travel west from Rhun, Gandalf probably won't follow the same path (after that emotional goodbye, unless they wanna throw a Poppy reappearance at us again) so Gandalf probably is going to go North West towards Greenwood & bring Oropher & Thranduil into the show!
The Fallohides, the least numerous, were a northerly branch. They were more friendly with Elves than the other Hobbits were, and had more skill in language and song than in handicrafts; and of old they preferred hunting to tilling. They crossed the mountains north of Rivendell and came down the River Hoarwell. In Eriador they soon mingled with the other kinds that had preceded them, but being somewhat bolder and more adventurous, they were often found as leaders or chieftains among clans of Harfoots or Stoors. Even in Bilbo's time the strong Fallohidish strain could still be noted among the greater families, such as the Tooks and the Masters of Buckland.
- Fallohides, Fellowship of the Ring, Concerning Hobbits
“Before the crossing of the mountains the Hobbits had already become divided into three somewhat different breeds: Harfoots, Stoors, and Fallohides.” ~ Prologue, Concerning Hobbits, The Fellowship of the Ring (Art: “The Three Hobbits of Middle Earth”, by DarkLord105 on DeviantArt)
So, there’s been some announcements regarding the upcoming Lord of the Rings Amazon series, which has... pissed off a lot of Tolkien Purists to say the least.
"I'm a Harfoot, because JRR Tolkien, who was also from Birmingham, suddenly there were black hobbits, I'm a black hobbit, it's brilliant, and what's notable about this run of the books, its a prequel to the age that we've seen in the films, its about the early days of the Shire and Tolkien's environment, so we're an indigenous population of Harfoots, we're hobbits but we're called Harfoots, we're multi-cultural, we're a tribe not a race, so we're black, asian and brown, even Maori types within it."
Sir Lenny Henry, Actor for lord of the rings television series.
there’s been a lot of the usual internet reactions from both sides regarding the news about the ideas of multiethnic hobbits for the show, but frankly, if you need proof that the showrunners don’t give a shit about the actual history of the universe theyre portraying, you don’t need to get into the debate of race and all that comes with it.
Instead, you can point out the fact that the fact that the shire even EXISTS is complete bullshit.
This story takes place in the second age of Middle Earth, a period that spanned 3441 years. While the Hobbits have presumable been around for as long as men however, the Shire has not.
The Shire only officially came about in the THIRD age, more speciffically, in 1601 of the third age, well over one and a half millennia after the second age ended.
But let’s be fair to Lenny, and take his word that this is about the hobbits living in the lands that would one day become the shire. that still works right? Nope, not at all.
The backstory for the shire is that it was part of the Kingdom of Arthedain, which was one of the rump successor states to the kingdom of Arnor, both of whom were ruled by the ancestors of Aragorn.
When the hobbits emigrated westwards from the Misty Mountains, they came into a land that was incredibly fertile, and well suited for farmland, and they settled there.
Before the Hobbits arrived however, the land had formerly belonged to, and been settled by the Dunedain people, however in the period before the hobbits came, the province in question had been completely depopulated by a disease known only as the great plague.
Rather than fight the newcomers however, King Argeleb the second, choose to instead allow the Hobbits to settle the land, on the condition that they swear him fealty as their sovereign. They did so, and as such they became a part of the Kingdom of Arthedain, in the form of the province of the Shire.
The province would eventually go on to outlive the kingdom it was a part of, only to become a part of the reunited kingdom when Aragorn came to the throne as King Elessar I, as reunited Gondor and Arnor into one realm once more.
What does all of this mean? That hobbits, White, Black, or Maori, shouldn’t even be living around the lands of the Shire at all during this period. They would be exclusively found around the uppermost parts of the Anduin River.
THIS is the Hobbits “Native” Land. NOT the Shire. They didnt emmigrate westwards until well into the second age when Sauron established himself in Dol Guldur, LONG after the second age was ended.
So basically, the producers of the show either don’t know jack shit about the actual lore of the franchise they are adapting, or they just don’t care.
There is one thing that I keep coming back to when I look at the timeline over events in the history of Tolkien’s Middle-earth - and that is the arrival of hobbits in Eriador and the founding of the Shire.
SO. The idea was that they originally resided in the vale of the Anduin, along its northern reaches somewhere between the Gladden Fields and the rivers Greylin and Langwell (these rivers are... pretty damn far up on the map, too, like basically parallell with the very northern reaches of Mirkwood). The different “families” (or kinds, whatever, idek) resided in different areas.
The Fallohides - this being the group of hobbits that primarily the Tooks are descended from - lived in the very northern reaches around those two rivers I mentioned. It is thought that they were the ones who were first in contact with the Éothéod, the Northmen who were the ancestors of the Rohirrim, and that this is the origin of the legends about the holbytlan in Rohirric tales.
The Harfoots, who were the most numerous of the three groups and essentially the Standard Hobbits, apparently resided in the lower foothills of the Misty Mountains between the Gladden River and the High Pass (this being the mountainpass that Bilbo and the dwarves went through on their journey). It is noted that they preferred to settle in one spot for long periods of time rather than move about.
And the we have the Stoors - the group that the Brandybucks are most likely descended from. They preferred flatter lands and lived around the Gladden Fields, very close to the river. They apparently looked most like Men and were more friendly to Men than other hobbits.
ANYWAY
So here’s the thing. In the year 1050 of the Third Age, it is said that a “shadow” falls over the Greenwood, which leads to its inhabitants and the folk in the lands around it calling it Mirkwood. It’s around THIS time that the Harfoots - the HARFOOTS, mind you - abandon their ancestral homes and cross the Misty Mountains. Here appear the first ever tales of hobbits in Eriador. Not much is mentioned about it, but it was to them that the term Periannath (meaning Halflings) was first applied by the Dunédain of Arnor. What we do know is that they founded villages here and there as far as Weathertop, and that they were steadily migrating westwards throughout the years.
So when did the Fallohides and Stoors show up? Not until literally a hundred fucking years later.
Between the years 1150 and 1300 of the Third Age, the Harfoots are joined in Eriador by the Fallohides and Stoors. The Fallohides deserted their homes in 1150 and apparently crossed the Misty Mountains at the source of the river Hoarwell - give or take about 100 miles north of Rivendell. They travelled along the river and continued westwards, eventually settling in the area near Bree where they were quickly taken as leaders by the hobbits that already resided there.
Apparently the Harfoots just... really preferred to not choose a leader amongst themselves, and well, the Fallohides WERE a bolder breed...
Anyway, the Stoors took a rather complicated route. They remained in the vale of the Anduin for a long time, but sometime between 1150 and 1300, they began to migrate westwards as well. Whether a few tribes of the group left around the same time as the Fallohides or not is not known, but they’re noted in the timeline as having appeared in Eriador around that time.
Point is... They really took a strange road. They went through the Redhorn Pass, and once in Eriador, they apparently split up. Some went to the Angle - the wedge of land between the rivers Hoarwell and Loudwater south of the Trollshaws - and settled among the hobbits they found there. Others went south into Dunland and settled near Tharbad - and here is where it gets interesting for the Stoors.
The Stoors here came in contact with the Dunlendings, and via this contact, they developed their own dialect of Hobbitish. This is only described as them having picked up a few Dunlending words, but imagine the possibilities of what came with that.
SO. Onwards. In 1300, the hobbits settle around Bree (this is also around the time that the Witch-king appears in Angmar). It is also around this time that the three strains begin to mix freely to slowly but surely become the convoluted families we know and love.
Onwards yet again, now to three-hundred years later in the year 1601 of the Third Age! HERE comes the founding of the Shire.
In 1601, the two Fallohide brothers Marcho and Blanco leave the area around Bree with whatever hobbits would follow them and travel westwards yet a-fucking-gain. I can only imagine the Harfoots were pretty cross about it, since they preferred to stay in one place, but hey, 300 years is a long time for hobbits and perhaps it would be nicer to have a land that’s their own and not populated by Big Folk.
They reach the Brandywine and cross the Bridge of Stonebows (later called the Brandywine Bridge, you know, for simplicity’s sake). And they arrive in what is actually the hunting grounds of the King of Arthedain.
Now, Arthedain’s history is not something I’m going to go into here, but roughly speaking it is the MAIN off-shoot of the kingdom of Arnor that was split in three at one point - into Arthedain, Cardolan, and Rhudaur. Just an FYI.
Imagine crossing that bridge. Imagine finding this beautiful quiet stretch of land with rolling hills and forests - and everything that the different breeds of hobbits would wish for. And it’s not even settled or fucking USED (as far as they can tell). And they decided that they’ll settle right there.
It’s worth noting that king Argeleb II of Arthedain must’ve been very well aware of the presence of hobbits in his kingdom. I mean, they arrived in Eriador and began settling everywhere, and then they settled in Bree. But he knew of them and he knew they were no threat, and he actually did something pretty amazing. He granted them the lands that were once his hunting grounds, and gave them leave to found a little land of their own - the Shire.
But what happened to the Stoors in Dunland, you might ask? Well, when the Witch-king began to threaten the lands of Eriador, they kind of had to make a split-second decision - to leave their new homes yet again, or to stay and possibly be wiped out. They chose to leave.
The Stoors that lived in the Angle travelled south and met their kin from Dunland, although it is not outright stated whether they settled there for a time or if they just met their kin on the road. But the point is, the Stoors split up yet again. Some travelled north, and in the year 1630 of the Third Age they rejoined the other hobbits in the recently founded Shire. And some actually just decided that nope, fuck this place, and went back east across the Misty Mountains, back to their ancestral homes near the Gladden Fields.
Those that returned to Rhovanion became the river-folk that Sméagol was part of nearly 800 years later. It’s actually not known if there were still hobbits around the Gladden Fields at the time of the War of the Ring, or even in Dunland and in the Angle, but since Gandalf doesn’t seem to know of it and refers to the river-folk in past tense, they could well have diminished and eventually died out. Even Aragorn, who has travelled those lands hundreds of times, never says that he’s come across hobbits elsewhere.
So at the time of the War of the Ring, the Shire has literally existed for less than 1500 years. But hobbits have lived in Eriador for over 1950 years.
There’s actually no point to this essay other than me sharing facts I find interesting and extrapolating a little bit. Also pointing out that the Harfoots, although probably acting out of a spirit of “fuck this bullshit we out”, were the first to ever leave their homes despite being the most home-fast of them. I find that weirdly hilarious.
