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. |
