Why do they have hairy feet

[Scott Anderson]

Did Tolkein or the estate ever address this? Where did the hairy feet thing come from?

[Malcadon]

Well... eh... When a Hobbit reaches a curtain age, their bodies goes through... em... Changes. Lots of changes... With it, they grow hair where there was not hair there before.

Yeeah.... Hobbit puberty is... Weird. Even by human standards.

[Falconer]

Feb 10, 2018 18:07:55 GMT -6 Scott Anderson said:

Did Tolkein or the estate ever address this? Where did the hairy feet thing come from?

The hair is suggestive of roots. Just one of many, many hints at their partial descent from the lost Entwives.

[geoffrey]

Feb 10, 2018 18:07:55 GMT -6 Scott Anderson said:

Did Tolkein or the estate ever address this? Where did the hairy feet thing come from?

I have never come across anything such as the following:

C. S. Lewis: Tollers, why did you give Hobbits feet full of hair?

J. R. R. Tolkien: I did that, Jack, so...

I had never thought about it, but it is a poser!

[DungeonDevil]

They're Italian? (j/k)

Lack of shoes = rustic/bucolic, unintellectual, naturophilic.

[Scott Anderson]

I only mention it because I came across a reference that would be a going concern at Tolkein's time: the phase "hairy at the heel." It is an English phrase from the early 20th century referring to a social climber of poor breeding. It comes from horse racing, where an ill-bred horse would have hairy ankles.

www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-hai2.htm

While hobbits are not social climbers, they are representative of commoners.

[randyb]

Feb 10, 2018 23:46:51 GMT -6 Falconer said:

Feb 10, 2018 18:07:55 GMT -6 Scott Anderson said:

Did Tolkein or the estate ever address this? Where did the hairy feet thing come from?

The hair is suggestive of roots. Just one of many, many hints at their partial descent from the lost Entwives.

I've never heard that suggested before, but it resonates. Do you recall any other hints? (I can think of a couple - Merry and Pippin "responding" to the ent-draught, and the direction the entwives went when they left.)

[Falconer]

This is all from memory (I don’t have my books handy; also, it allows me to fudge things a bit, heh!). But, yeah, it makes you wonder how tall Hobbits would grow if they drank ENT-DRAUGHT their whole life. (Are they indeed only “half” the height they should be?) When they do drink it, it describes their hair on their head and feet growing thicker and longer. (Would they grow beards?) I believe Treebeard mentions that Men and Elves can’t stomach the stuff.

At one point when he’s talking to them, Treebeard says something like, “Oops! For a moment I forgot who I was talking to, and thought you were Entings!”

At the beginning of LotR there’s all that business about a giant walking tree being spotted north of the Shire (an Entwife watching over her children?), and of course in the Old Forest there are Huorns (evil semi-sentient trees, eg., Old Man Willow; a force of them from Entwood wiped out the host of Isengard at the end of the Battle of Helm’s Deep).

Not to mention all the emphasis on gardening—the whole Shire is a freakin’ English garden—the exact thing the Entwives were into. In fact Treebeard says the Entwives would have liked the Shire.

Hobbits have an obsession with potatoes and mushrooms. They obviously have a very important connection to the soil.

At the end of LotR there’s that whole business about that soil that Galadriel had given Sam, and when he planted things all around the Shire and used a little bit of that soil with everything he planted, there was a huge baby boom in the Shire.

References abound to Hobbits being exceptionally “tough;” obviously the soles of their feet but also in general. (Gandalf in these situations is always muttering something like, “There’s more to them than meets the eye.”) Similarly, Treebeard describes that older Ents are not so bendable, but younger Ents are.

[ritt]

The hair absorbs and deflects magic and poison. Like little antenna. That's why Shire-sons have such good saving throws.


What? Why are you all looking at me funny?

[randyb]

Feb 13, 2018 21:00:21 GMT -6 Falconer said:

This is all from memory (I don’t have my books handy; also, it allows me to fudge things a bit, heh!). But, yeah, it makes you wonder how tall Hobbits would grow if they drank ENT-DRAUGHT their whole life. (Are they indeed only “half” the height they should be?) When they do drink it, it describes their hair on their head and feet growing thicker and longer. (Would they grow beards?) I believe Treebeard mentions that Men and Elves can’t stomach the stuff.

At one point when he’s talking to them, Treebeard says something like, “Oops! For a moment I forgot who I was talking to, and thought you were Entings!”

At the beginning of LotR there’s all that business about a giant walking tree being spotted north of the Shire (an Entwife watching over her children?), and of course in the Old Forest there are Huorns (evil semi-sentient trees, eg., Old Man Willow; a force of them from Entwood wiped out the host of Isengard at the end of the Battle of Helm’s Deep).

Not to mention all the emphasis on gardening—the whole Shire is a freakin’ English garden—the exact thing the Entwives were into. In fact Treebeard says the Entwives would have liked the Shire.

Hobbits have an obsession with potatoes and mushrooms. They obviously have a very important connection to the soil.

At the end of LotR there’s that whole business about that soil that Galadriel had given Sam, and when he planted things all around the Shire and used a little bit of that soil with everything he planted, there was a huge baby boom in the Shire.

References abound to Hobbits being exceptionally “tough;” obviously the soles of their feet but also in general. (Gandalf in these situations is always muttering something like, “There’s more to them than meets the eye.”) Similarly, Treebeard describes that older Ents are not so bendable, but younger Ents are.

I'm sold. And it's an awesome idea, to boot!

[Malcadon]

You can tell a lot about were a Hobbit comes from by their feet.

Here you have an old-school Hobbit:



Here you have a Brazilian Hobbit:



Here you have a Californian Hobbit:


And this is a "Tibboh" Halfling from Bizarro World:

[Deleted]

This thread is wrong and you are wrong and everything is wrong.

Forever.