harfoot
 

What exactly is a harfoot? I've found no mention of them in any tolkien book that I've read.

Harfoots, Stoors and Fallohides, the three "breeds" of hobbits... each different in physical appearance, living style and choice of abode.

-red

The smallest and most common of the three original Hobbit-strains, who entered Eriador a century before the Fallohides or Stoors.

The Harfoots were also the first hobbits to be called "hobbits". They were called that by the Fallohides and Stoors.

OK! (Birdland jumping up and down) Where'd you find THAT! Chapter and verse, please. [img]smilies/biggrin.gif[/img]

"The Naming of Hobbits is a difficult matter,
It isn't just one of your holiday games;
You may think at first I'm as mad as a hatter
When I tell you, a Hobbit must have
THREE DIFFERENT NAMES.

...But above and beyond there's still one name left over,
And that is the name that you never will guess;
The name that no human research can discover-
But THE HOBBIT HIMSELF KNOWS, and will never confess.

(Apologies to T.S. Eliot)

[ February 06, 2002: Message edited by: Birdland ]

"The Lord of the Rings: the Fellowship of the Rings" Prologue: Concerning Hobbits. It's all there, my friend; everything you ever wanted to know about Hobbits and then some. (The history of pipe weed as told by Meriadoc Brandybuck was rather interesting.)

Geez, I must have read the prologue umpteen times, but don't remember the part about Fallohides and Stoors calling Harfoots "Hobbits". (Wonder if they originally meant it as an insult?)

It isn't in the Prologue, it's in Appendix F, part I.

Thanks! I'm reading the book cover to cover again, and saving the appendices for last. I'll check it out.

No problem! [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img]

I can just picture that. "Why you...you...you dirty Hobbit!" [img]smilies/biggrin.gif[/img] Poor Harfoots.

Ah, but insults have a way of sticking and loosing their sting... Look what happened to "Christian" (it was originally an insult to add "ian" to a word in the time just after Christ ascended).

Indeed. And the song "Yankee Doodle" was not meant as a compliment when the British first sang it.

Dig proudly, Hobbits! Those Stoors and Fallohides are just jealous!

"Hobbit" is a condensed form of the Rohan word "holbytla" which means "hole builder" This term was orginally given to the harfoots by the fallohides and stoors. Hobbits at one time spoke Rohan.

There are three "breeds" of hobbits: Fallohides, Stoors, and Harfoots. They often mix. Harfoots are browner of skin, smaller, and shorter, they prefer highlands and hillsides. ( Sam is 100% Harfoot)
Stoors are broader, heavier in build, lager hands and feet, prefer flat lands and riversides. (Smeagollum was a Stoor of the Gladden fields)
Fallohides are fairer of skin and hair, taller and slimmer than others, prefer trees and woodlands.

"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." that is why Gandalf describes mae as taller than some, fairer than most. I have Harfoot in me (Baggins) Stoor (Bucklanders have some Stoor in them, they are related th the folk of the Marish, which are rather Stoorish) and Fallohide (Brandybuck, Took, Bolger)
Sam looks really brown next to me.

[ May 06, 2002: Message edited by: Frodo Baggins ]

Harfoot-One of the three breeds or clans of Hobbits. They were the 'most normal and representative variety of Hobbit, and far the most numerous...the most inclined to settle in one place.' Harfoots also maintained the archaic habit of dwelling in burrows (or smials) for longer than other Hobbits. Most Shire-hobbits were of Harfoot stock.
-The Tolkien Companion
J.E.A. Tyler

Very useful book!