[littlemanpoet]

Gurthang:

...no ... large police force ...

Maybe not large, but there were the shiriffs.

Lalwendë:

Rohan for example does not appear to have a structure in place for trade, which may tie in with its feudal nature, but as Anglo-Saxon society had this, I would have expected to see it in Rohan.

Well, Anglo-Saxon society was technically not feudal. It may have had feudal aspects, but it was the Normans that brought thoroughgoing feudalism to England (another reason why Tolkien considered 1066 to be such a disaster?). Feudalism was a post-Roman Imperial economic and political phenomenon, whereas the Anglo-Saxon liege-earl relationship had its roots in prehistoric Nordic patterns. Heorot in Beowulf is the best exemplar of this. Anyway, a reader may assume that Rohan had everything that Anglo-Saxon society had, just as one may assume that the Shire had everything one might expect of 1800s Oxfordshire (including graveyards).

I'm with Kuruharan in thinking of cemeteries as not scary places. However, whereas Kuruharan mentions sadness, I like Child's reminder of the historic component of cemeteries. Monuments are built right into what a cemetery is, including dates. My wife and I often stop at a cemetery and walk around, just to get a sense of the names of those who inhabited the regoin, and their dates. The Hobbits' lack of historic depth is another "ain't there and ought to be", although the "ought to be" is debatable.

Child, The Hobbits' penchant for living is something I had thought of before I started the thread, but I wanted to see what others said.

They had no elaborate death rituals and the holes they built in the ground were for living and not for death. Hence, there are no cemetaries in the Shire. Interesting thought indeed, when one considers that JRRT's personal experience with a "hole in the ground" was that of the trenches of World War I, places of terrible evil, death, and destruction. Perhaps, in the years after the war, some part of his mind transformed these places of death into the Hobbit holes, which were essentially symbols of life, that we all know and love.

I would have to reply that your "perhaps" is too sieve-like. My own thought runs along the line that Hobbits are (in part) Tolkien's exemplars of humans who are at home being animals/animals who are at home being human. I can't think of a better way to put it. Tolkien calls them a sub-species of humans; these have furry feet, eat constantly, are quick and quiet (in order to avoid Big People), live in holes, and are largely oblivious to things beyond their own small realms. These are all characteristics of animals (and some humans!); and these "animals" are at home being human, loving their beer, baths, gardens, a clean front hallway, are millers, farmers, ostlers, etc. All of that to make the point that Hobbit holes have more to do with the character of hobbits as created by Tolkien than any subconscious reference to World War One trenches.

I do think that your point, contrasting Numenoreans's death-obsession with Hobbits' passion for life, is quite apt.

Perhaps it is more than that, and Hobbit history had to be forgotten.

Talk about seeing things from the author's point of view! I can't help wondering if this is overstated, though.

mark 12_30:

Aule got bored again and created more cave-dwellers, but this time made them cute and harmless so his wife would complain less.