Hobbit housing?

[skip spence]

Here are a couple of pictures from Castilla y Leon in Spain. No round windows, but still, it isn't hard imagining Don Hobbito lives here, no?



Edit: Another lesson learnt from Spain (although the locals would resent me for naming it Spain, and hey, I'm not taking sides in that conflict): The city Bilbao is "Bilbo" in the Basque language.

[The Might]

That does look very Hobbitish! Wouldn't it however be quite dark inside there?

[skip spence]

Originally Posted by The Might

Wouldn't it however be quite dark inside there?

Yeah, I assume they are used for storing food and such, and not for living in, as there are no windows. Yet there are chimneys, and on the picture on the right you can see a TV-antenna on the full size version. I know that in some parts of Southern Spain, like in Granada, people are accustomed to living in dug out caves in the hillside, much like Hobbit-holes.

[Estelyn Telcontar]

There could by skylights.

[TheGreatElvenWarrior]

Originally Posted by skip spence

Yeah, I assume they are used for storing food and such, and not for living in, as there are no windows. Yet there are chimneys, and on the picture on the right you can see a TV-antenna on the full size version. I know that in some parts of Southern Spain, like in Granada, people are accustomed to living in dug out caves in the hillside, much like Hobbit-holes.

In The Little House on The Prairie, weren't they living in a home that was dug out of the dirt. I twas in a mound, if I can remember rightly... This thread just reminded me or their semi hobbit-like home.

[Mnemosyne]

Originally Posted by TheGreatElvenWarrior

In The Little House on The Prairie, weren't they living in a home that was dug out of the dirt. I twas in a mound, if I can remember rightly... This thread just reminded me or their semi hobbit-like home.

Ehh...

I can only see a superficial relationship between soddies and hobbit holes.

The most obvious difference is that soddies were made because the American settlers were out on the Great Plains, where the land is flat as a pancake, because there were no trees; whereas hobbits had hills to burrow their way into.

For those unfamiliar with the concept, a sodhouse was made by chopping blocks of dirt (the very thick root system of the native grasses of the American Great Plains helped keep the sod together) out of the ground and then using them as bricks to make walls around the area you dug the sod from. So a sodhouse is slightly underground as you keep on chopping more chunks of dirt out.

Hobbit burrows may have started out more similar to this by being mere rooms dug straight into the earth (so you get dirt floors and walls), but the ones that we're familiar with managed to go past that by adding the amenities of wood paneling on the inside (if a Plains pioneer could afford wood, s/he would simply build a wooden house). Given Tolkien's introduction to holes as not being wet or smelly in The Hobbit it's safe to assume that there was some kind of civilizing interior added to most holes by the end of the Third Age; on the other hand when the hobbits dismantle Sharkey's inns and use the bricks to make some holes snugger or drier these methods couldn't have been foolproof, especially for the poorer families.

But there is one thing I've learned through studying the sodhouses: dirt is a great insulator, keeping the house (or hole) cooler in the summer and warmer in the winter. Which seems like just the right kind of logic that hobbits would like.

[TheGreatElvenWarrior]

Originally Posted by Mnemosyne

Ehh...

I can only see a superficial relationship between soddies and hobbit holes.

The most obvious difference is that soddies were made because the American settlers were out on the Great Plains, where the land is flat as a pancake, because there were no trees; whereas hobbits had hills to burrow their way into.

For those unfamiliar with the concept, a sodhouse was made by chopping blocks of dirt (the very thick root system of the native grasses of the American Great Plains helped keep the sod together) out of the ground and then using them as bricks to make walls around the area you dug the sod from. So a sodhouse is slightly underground as you keep on chopping more chunks of dirt out.

Hobbit burrows may have started out more similar to this by being mere rooms dug straight into the earth (so you get dirt floors and walls), but the ones that we're familiar with managed to go past that by adding the amenities of wood paneling on the inside (if a Plains pioneer could afford wood, s/he would simply build a wooden house). Given Tolkien's introduction to holes as not being wet or smelly in The Hobbit it's safe to assume that there was some kind of civilizing interior added to most holes by the end of the Third Age; on the other hand when the hobbits dismantle Sharkey's inns and use the bricks to make some holes snugger or drier these methods couldn't have been foolproof, especially for the poorer families.

But there is one thing I've learned through studying the sodhouses: dirt is a great insulator, keeping the house (or hole) cooler in the summer and warmer in the winter. Which seems like just the right kind of logic that hobbits would like.

Thanks for clearing that up, as I think I already said, I couldn't quite remember, it's been probably nine or so years since I read those... or rather had them sort of read to me (because my mum would read to me, but I'd be a page ahead of her because she was too slow).

[Eönwë]

Originally Posted by skip spence

Here are a couple of pictures from Castilla y Leon in Spain.

Wow, the second one looks very much like how I would imagine Hobbiton in a more arid climate.