What ain't there and ought to be.

[Petty Dwarf]

Very impressive post, Child.

Just some anthropological tidbits to toss out there: Burials and burial mounds are likely the most ancient form of funerary practice. In lesser-developed agrarian societies there are burials on the home premises or in the house itself. Honoring these nearby dead relatives probably gave rise to worship of household divinities.

Hobbits don't seem closer to ancestor worship than they do to postmortem cannibalism, but in lieu of Christian churchyards the idea of home burials seems fitting. Probably one place existed for entire extended families. If "The Stone Troll" is gleaned for insight into hobbit tradition, it gives us a "graveyard" of "bones that lie in a hole" belonging to a "father's kin".

But thinking about what else ain't there, again it's in the Shire. Again, the reasons for excluding both probably lie somewhere in-between keeping the Shire an ideal, or close to it, and necessities of a steamlined plot, or close to it.

Alcoholism Given the amount of beer hobbits consume, the frequent gathering at pubs and inns, and the later trauma of a foreign invasion (surely an occupation worse than the book describes) how likely is it that there are lots of alcoholics, if not lots of gout?

High Infant Mortality I've seen this suggested somewhere before, and it sadly seems like a topic that ought to be when considering the high rate of successful childbirths. Unless the prolific hobbits have some evolutionary advantage in childbirth, most hobbit-mothers would have lost a child, if not more.

[littlemanpoet]

Years and years of plentiful harvests have a direct effect on healthy childbirths, don't they?

And alcoholism seems worse in a land of want rather than plenty. Seems to me that hobbits, modeled after rural Westmidlanders, are probably healthy drinkers rather than over-drinkers. Although the gout would probably get them in the end, no matter the size of their feet or what have you.

By the way, if America is a land of plenty in terms of availability of food and drink and housing, it is a land of great want in terms of community and other things that make the soul healthy.

[Child of the 7th Age]

Thank you for your kind words, Gurthang and Petty Dwarf -

As Littlemanpoet has observed, the tightly-knit community of the Shire provides the kind of ties that make for healthy drinking rather than overindulgence. And good harvests mean good health and fewer untimely deaths. In the context of Tolkien's Shire, the omissions of alcoholism and child mortality make perfect sense. Yet, I feel impelled to voice a word of caution. I do think that Petty Dwarf has done us a service by pointing to the absence of alcoholism and high infant mortality as a simple reminder of the fact that the Shire has one foot in faerie and its omissions cannot be judged by normal "historical" or even literary standards.

Despite our temptation to think otherwise , Tolkien's Shire is not real--not even in its origins and roots. The author's memories of the West Midlands, on which he built the Shire of Middle-earth, were highly selective: the child remembered only what was near to his heart, not the larger picture. Accordingly, the Shire of Middle-earth was an idealized portrait that never existed except in the author's head and the hearts of folk like us who have fallen in love with it. In the real world of Edwardian England, there could be "close knit" communities in rural areas which could still have rampant alcoholism, crime, and abuse. See, for example, an overview of one study of crime in 19th century Herefordshire , which is part of the West Midlands. The chapter titles indicate the dimensions of these problems. Nor were such problems confined to the later period. There are a number of studies of 17th century England that suggest their widespread presence in this pre-industrial setting.

So, in one sense, Petty Dwarf is correct in saying that the Shire should have alcoholism and child mortality but does not. To those two items we could also add crime, child labor, grinding poverty, and a class system that would have prevented someone like Samwise Gamgee from ever becoming a mayor. It seems that, when Tolkien created the Shire, what he left out was even more critical than what he put in.

There is an obvious irony here. If we insist on adding all those negative things, we will end up with something that does not resemble the Shire in the slightest! Tolkien was certainly aware that the memories from his childhood were idealized, but he went ahead and built the kind of Shire that he wanted there to be. That does not mean it was perfect. We still have pettiness, greed for little things, parochialism and characters like Sandyman and the Sackville-Bagginses. Even in an idealized Shire, Tolkien wasn't about to forget that Men are fallen, and the Shire is fallen too. Yet, if I was given a choice between living in the Edwardian Midlands and in Tolkien's Shire, even leaving aside the rest of Middle-earth and its people, I would obviously choose the Shire as a much more optimistic and gentle place.

Tolkien was normally pretty pessimistic. His writings on the Legendarium through the mid-thirties were filled with examples of the "long defeat". Moments of eucatastrophe were rare. He did include 'bright' and victorious characters like Beren and Luthien, but only a few. There was the beauty of a place like Gondolin, but, like much else, that beauty was quickly brought to ruin. So why did he "leave out" so many bad things and create a place like the Shire, an essentially happy and thriving community even in the midst of a wider world that was falling under the shadow? And even more critically, how did he rise above the natural pessimism in his soul that had so dominated his earlier writings on Middle-earth?

I think there is one and only one way to explain this. He created it for his children, not on paper but from his head in bedtime stories. If Tolkien had initially sat down with pen to paper, I don't think The Shire would ever have seen the light of day. So thanks to the Tolkien little ones for giving their dad a "reason" to go beyond his normal pessimism. It's almost as if, until that point, Tolkien's writings had sprung out of the period in his life when he had attended college and gone to war. These writings in the Silm hold high tragedy and romanticism, tinged with tears. The Shire instead is tinged with laughter. It comes from his childhood, the period when his mother was still alive. The Shire is there because Tolkien reconnected with something from his early past, and he did that through his own children's lives.

Raising kids will do that for you. It will bring you down from the mountain peaks where you think you know everything and where you exalt in "naked emotion" or even art, and instead put you in the middle of everyday life where "small things" are the norm. So a tip of the hat to Tolkien's family and a tip of the hat to the master artist who not only knew what to put in his story, but also what to leave out.

***************

Littlemanpoet -

You once wisely pointed out the "animal like" characteristics of the hobbits. While you maintained that this was not the total sum of what Hobbits were, it was an important ingredient. I would say the same thing about the childlike nature of the Shire and its inhabitants.

When I read The Hobbit and the early chapters of LotR , I see and sense the impact that his own family had on the way the Shire developed. The Hobbit wasn't just a book written for any children: it was a story that was told to his own children. That is a critical difference. And I have a feeling that their responses and preferences had a great deal to do with the way he shaped the story. This is different than writing with pen and paper for an audience of unknown children. That's why the Shire rings so true to me. I also think it's an important reason why he could never write the "sequel" to the Shire that Unwin wanted him to. His children had grown to the point that he no longer had a ready made audience for storytelling. Writing with pen and paper, his writing inevitably took a darker turn, just as the rest of the Legendarium had. But, thank goodness, he never lost that tiny reflection of childhood--the Shire--that he had earlier developed in tandem with his children, and a spark of it went on to enliven the later chapters of LotR.

[Sophia the Thunder Mistress]

Sorry if I'm dragging the thread back to the earlier questions, but I suspect there could be some tie between the lack of information on hobbit graveyards and the manner of the usual hobbit deaths. I agree with much that has been said earlier in this thread about the typical hobbit's lack of preoccupation with death, and I think the manner in which the typical hobbit died likely would play a role in that attitude.

Hobbits die of old age, and rarely of accidents. In a few very specific cases they die in battle or are lost away from the Shire (was Isengar Took ever heard from again?). But largely hobbits get old and die. There is no mention of chronic illness, or of the deaths of young children due to injury or disease. In fact, the only young hobbits to die non-battle related deaths I can think of were Drogo and Primula Baggins. There is no mention, even in passing, of plagues, childhood diseases like measles, wasting diseases, birth defects, even the kind of domestic or workplace injuries that result in disabilities. In all of recorded hobbit history there are no amputees or cripples (although Lalia Clayhanger was said to have been too fat to walk ) or invalids of any kind. Even most of the old hobbits seem pretty spry. Gaffer Gamgee, The Old Took, even Otho and Lobelia Sackville-Baggins enjoy very good health to the ends of their long lives.

What does this have to do with lack of preoccupation with death? The very stability of the pattern ("grow old gracefully and die of old age") makes death more a part of nature and less a fate to be avoided at all costs. Among Elves (who see death somewhat rarely, but always tragically) and Men (who see death frequently, and often tragically) death is something to be put off as long as possible, but always with the knowledge that it could come tomorrow. We see many tragic deaths in LoTR and the Silmarillion, many of these "innocent deaths": Miriel Serinde wastes away from grief, Nienor commits suicide and her sister Lalaith dies in childhood from a plague. Finduilas (Faelivrin) is slain by orcs, and her Gondorian namesake wastes away, Elured and Elurin were kidnapped and lost in early childhood. In light of this frequency of early death, survival becomes a goal in itself and life something to cling to at all costs. Without the threat, in a community such as the Shire, survival is barely a concern.

To use an analogy: people who have never experienced hunger rarely think about how long they will have food. They expect it, as a right. Similarly, hobbits who rarely experience tragedy expect longevity. They have no need to consider the lengths of their lives because longevity is nearly as plentiful in the Shire as comfort, pipeweed, and ale.

Child- this might tie in with your "childlike nature" of hobbits. Children rarely think about death either. But I haven't thought much about this yet.

Just a few thoughts.

Sophia

[Child of the 7th Age]

Child- this might tie in with your "childlike nature" of hobbits. Children rarely think about death either. But I haven't thought much about this yet.

Interesting Sophia! It's quite true that children do not normally focus on death, although they may do so if death strikes very near or in a violent way. Given the fact that Tolkien lost both his parents so young, I suspect he gave an unusual amount of thought to this subject even in childhood. As he stated in his Letters, "death" was the central theme of LotR. So he was not adverse to exploring 'death' in the context of his stories. Yet, even given this stated theme, the Shire and hobbits were, for the most part, curiously protected from premature death. Looking at the geneologies, I see only a few hobbits who did not reach at least 90 years of age. An enviable record!

Frodo and Bilbo were a little less lucky in this regard. Bilbo's father died at age 80. Frodo's father was 72, and his mother 60 when they experienced their "tragic" accident. But even Primula and Drogo would not be considered "young" by our standards. Also interesting, Tolkien makes Frodo an orphan but no mention is made of that fact by Frodo or the narrator. The only real commentary comes from hobbits having a discussion in the Inn. It almost seems as if one of the reasons the hobbits thought Frodo "odd" was that he was the son of hobbits who'd died too young and in an unusual way. Such strange doings were seen as outside the norm--another proof that an unusual or violent death simply wasn't part of hobbit culture.

None of this would be particularly remarkable except that death and tragedy so heavily overhung much that Tolkien had written up to this point. It was only in telling a story beside his own children's bed, that he could break out of this pattern and yet still remain within the Legendarium. Or was he actually within the Legendarium when he began crafting the tale and designing the Shire? Most likely the Hobbit tale was intially seen as something totally separate from Middle-earth. Only gradually was it (and the Shire) pulled inside. But the remarkable thing was that it was pulled inside, and that the idealization of the Shire remained basically intact, with the exception of a character like Frodo whose journey took him outside its bounds in more than one way.

It's a dangerous thing to try and deduce the answer for a puzzle like this from inside Tolkien's head. And the author would definitely not like it! But I can't help wondering if the Shire wasn't a kind of "safe haven"--a place where death was orderly (unlike the experience in his own life) and problems were small and manageable. All his life, Tolkien seemed to be struggling with doubt and worry. Given his pessimistic nature, what better gift could he give his children than a tale like this?

[davem]

Originally Posted by Child

But the remarkable thing was that it was pulled inside, and that the idealization of the Shire remained basically intact, with the exception of a character like Frodo whose journey took him outside its bounds in more than one way.

And yet once it was 'pulled inside' it was exposed to the inherent dangers of Middle earth - it (& its inhabitants) suffered from being a part of that 'greater world'. Saruman & his ruffians appear & drag it to the brink of destruction. Then there is death - on a 'massive' scale. There is 'battle & war', there are burials. Middle earth is a place of suffering, & nothing & no-one within it is exempt. Once the Shire & Hobbits find their way into Middle earth they are at risk.

But they can also grow. In the world of The Hobbit a hobbit may go off & have an adventure but he (or she) would remain what they were. A Frodo could only emerge once the Shire had been 'pulled inside' Middle earth. The world of The Hobbit is the world of eternal childhood & in LotR the Shire grows up & comes of age. I suppose there is a Hobbit funeral - a boat funeral - right at the end....

[littlemanpoet]

Once the Shire & Hobbits find their way into Middle earth they are at risk. - davem

But then the Ban of Elessar removes them again form the risk, and that after a flourishing like never before due to the gift of Galadriel the Eldar..... although how her gift resulted in a whole flock of little blonde hobbit lasses, I couldn't say!

[Lalwendë]

Originally Posted by Child

Tolkien's Shire is not real--not even in its origins and roots. The author's memories of the West Midlands, on which he built the Shire of Middle-earth, were highly selective: the child remembered only what was near to his heart, not the larger picture. Accordingly, the Shire of Middle-earth was an idealized portrait that never existed except in the author's head and the hearts of folk like us who have fallen in love with it.

The Shire is at once real and unreal. It is very much real to me because in creating it and its people, Tolkien drew on the elements of country life that are clear, vivid and most importantly of all, cherished. He took the gossips, gardeners, pubs and lanes and preseneted these to us as not only his lost idyll but our own. This is what makes The Shire real to us, we can recognise it at once.

But yes, it is also not real, because as anyone with a rural background will know, it's a harsh environment. In my childhood I saw an elderly couple living in abject poverty, sharing a room in a beautiful, yet almost derelict, farmhouse with the chickens; today the poverty might be exemplified by the fact that vegetables are harvested by asylum seekers who live in mobile homes because nobody else will do the work for such poor wages. Yet what is the real countryside to me? As did Tolkien, I left the rural community for an urban life and like him I yearn for the past, but it is always the idyllic past. It could only be that, as why would I yearn for a life that promised me no work and endless isolation?

In The Shire, Tolkien used his own yearning and nostalgia to create a place that was vividly real, that readers could recognise, yet a place that was real in terms of nostalgia, of something 'lost'. The Shire is like a 'myth' of the English village. Compared to the rural existence lived out in Thomas Hardy's works, which are often mistakenly seen as representing some rural ideal (when they are in fact unremittingly bleak in places) the Hobbits live in relative luxury.

It was essential, too, to have this perfect place which the Hobbits would return to, and which they could work to 'save'. Not only was it Tolkien's own perfect place, but it needed to be the perfect place on Middle earth we could both dream of and believe we too could live in. Tolkien also created mythical Elven realms which stun us and we yearn to see, but it is The Shire which in the end is protected and saved, while the Elven realms decline. It was The Shire which was Tolkien's own idyll, and the only idyll we could hope to aspire to, and that's why it is both real and unreal.

[Fordim Hedgethistle]

Aways back there I said that I found Elves to be a bit childlike in their relation to death, but was unable to elaborate on that. But I think, having had some more time to ponder, I know what I meant. . .

For Elves, the only kind of death they know is catastrophic and 'unnatural' -- that is, accident or murder. This is the same kind of death or mortality experienced by children: for a child, mortality simply is not something that applies to them -- the recognition of death, that one will die, is part of maturing into an adult. Elves never have to do this: so long as they don't fall from a great height (for example) or get killed in battle they will live forever.

For a species that experiences death only as a traumatic event, always unlooked for and unexpected, death would not be a 'part' of life in the same way as it is for say, hobbits, who know that it is coming as sure as luncheon follows second breakfast.

For Elves, death interrupts life; for hobbits (and humans) death is a part of life.

[The Saucepan Man]

While I would agree that the Shire is an idealised place and largely devoid of the negative aspects of rural life in Edwardian (and modern day) England, hardship was not altogeher unknown there. Many Hobbits would, no doubt, have suffered during the Long Winter of 2758-2759 which hit Eriador and Rohan particularly hard. And the Shire is specifically mentioned as having suffered badly during the Fell Winter of 2911, when it was invaded by White Wolves. Although historic, as far as Tolkien's Middle-earth writings are concerned, Bilbo would have been in his early twenties when the latter occured. And so, it was within living memory of some of the older Shire folk at the time that Lord of the Rings begins.

Also, with regard to those Hobbits who reached ages of 80 to 90, wasn't this relatively young for a Hobbit to die? I believe that 50 (the age at which Bilbo and Frodo set out on their respective Quests) was broadly the equivalent of 30 in human terms. Bilbo was old when he celebrated his eleventy-first birthday but, despite being "well-preserved", not unusually so in Shire terms.

Which all goes to say that, while their attitude to death may have been different to that of Men, I don't think that their experience of it was particularly so.

[littlemanpoet]

It just seems to me that we shouldn't assume that because someone's poor they're unhappy. Maybe people these days who are poor (at least in First World countries) consider themselves to be entitled to more. This was not so when Tolkien was a child. Poverty was not necessarily a direct road to unhappiness. Maybe poverty was something that Ronald, Hilary and his mother were unhappy about, and so with many others. But the correlation isn't one to one. Not in Oxfordshire, not in The Shire.

[Lalwendë]

Originally Posted by lmp

It just seems to me that we shouldn't assume that because someone's poor they're unhappy. Maybe people these days who are poor (at least in First World countries) consider themselves to be entitled to more. This was not so when Tolkien was a child. Poverty was not necessarily a direct road to unhappiness.

It's right that we shouldn't assume poverty equals unhappiness; I spent many years living hand to mouth, and I had endless time to indulge in reading, writing, walking, anything pleasurable, yet when the bills came in I couldn't count myself as anything approaching happy. Poverty can be bearable if we live in a society that is willing to help us without judging us (not calling us scroungers or making us jump through hoops to get anything), and if we have the imagination and creativity to cope, but in the developed world there is a deep shame attached to poverty; we see poor people and assume many things about them, as though their poverty could somehow 'infect' us. And it has always been the case that poverty is likely to lead to unhappiness. Thinking of my grandparents, just a little younger than Tolkien, they would not have said they were happy being poor. They might have expressed a certain inverse pride at just how far they coped with their poverty, but they would have been constantly on the brink of disaster without the safety net that those of us with more money have.

The Shire is idealised, and we cannot imagine anyone going without. I sometimes wonder what destitution lies behind the doors of those smials, but this is me reading into the story the things I know. Tolkien did not approve of certain political systems, and even posited that he might be something of an anarchist; this latter theory is not all about 'bucking the system', it is also about societies which work together co-operatively and peacefully and in so doing, manage without governments. I think that this is what exists in The Shire, a society where burdens are shared and little interference is needed.

[Bêthberry]

This has proven to be one of the most interesting threads here on the Downs, both in terms of littlemanpoet's original conceptualising of his question and in terms of everyone's responses here. I cannot remember a thread (other than that C-thread) which has drawn out the personal responses and points of view of so many of us. Fascinating all round!

Rather than respond to individual posts and comments, I would like to try to frame some ideas about The Shire. I greatly appreciate Child's very perceptive thoughts about the relation betwen the idealism of the The Shire and Tolkien's own emotional or psychological needs. Childhood trauma has often provided children with a key to enter the portal of fantasy and reading, so why shouldn't Tolkien's own losses be crucial in shaping his imagination? I think Child has done an admirable job in examining this "Biography is destiny" approach without turning it into a dogmatic requirement.

So, I don't doubt at all that Tolkien might have been inspired by his own children's imagination to tap into something in his own background. Yet I don't think that only one answer or one way is all there is to the creative life of a major author. Something lurks in The Shire and for me it is also the shaping hand of narrative structure, of remembered stories as well as biography, stirring in that great cauldron of story.

I think it was littlemanpoet who suggested that Tolkien's audience for The Hobbit had grown up, and he could never again go back to that original impetus or motivation. This is to me a fascinating idea, for it suggests part of the dynamic nature of inspiration, of author and audience.

But first off, I don't find The Hobbit to be so thoroughly and totally a children's story. Nor do I find LotR to be so solely a more mature work. But that perhaps is because I don't automatically dismiss children's literature as immature or simplistic. For me, some of the most profound truths of the human psyche are met and shaped by story, whatever age we are. We enter story to face or come to terms with experiences life either throws us or does not throw us--both extremes.

This is all my way of trying tosay things about the idealism of The Shire, of trying to find some 'reason' for it and its nature. I want to think of some literary impulses, perhaps like those which Fordim posits so often. The structure off the tale as tale or story.

One of the things which has always inttrigued me is where Tolkien puts his wildwood, his place of dark, elemental fear and darkness, of disoriented perception where both reader and character are thrown back into some kind of elemental , primal experience. This is the stuff of fantasy, of faerie, as critics and psychoanalysts and readers have remarked time and time again.

Tolkien does not begin with the woodland or wildwood. His Old Forest and then Fangorn Forest come later in his tale. They are there, and contain first a story of terror where the hobbits are nearly swallowed up by the trees, in the guise of Old Man Willow. This is the primal condition of learning how to read the signs and save oneself in completely foreign territory, where everything is unknown and the terrible reigns. Yet by the time Merry and Pippin reach Fangorn, they have learned to negotiate the wildwood. However dark and deep and mysterious is Fangorn, something different happens here: theiy quickly learn Treebeard is to be trusted. In terms of faerie, this journey is one of increasing self-command and self-knowledge over the terrain of the unconcious. But Tolkien does not begin here.

Yet Tolkien also wrote that he wanted at least initially to create a mythology for the English--note not an English mythology, but one for those people. Where is the wildwood in that culture? It in fact, predates legend.

Important forest tales for England are imported from Germany and France, if recent studies can be relied on, such as that of Francis Spufford. Hansel and Gretel and LIttle Red Riding Hood come from the woodland cultures of Europe and the tales of Robin Hood date to the Norman invasion. Yet biologists and other scientists have recently shown that even Roman Britain and Saxon England were dewooded landscapes. Apparently by 500 BC half the woodland was gone. Spufford argues that this puts "the death of the British woodland before recorded memory." In other words, there aren't even stories to be "garbled" as they are handed down by legend.

This scientific evidence off course post dates Tolkien's death, but the fact of the absence of wildwood in the old legends does not. What was there in the old Anglo Saxon legends for him to tap into? Old English literature is a literature of the managed hillside, the pruned coppice; most of the land is already farmed, in one way or another. (Apparently by the time of the Domesday Book in 1086, no wood was larger than four miles in any distance.)

Tolkien, then, began where the legends of ancient Britain allowed him to begin: with a countryside already brought under human agriculture and the wildwood brought down under the axe. Perhaps the hobbits lived in holes because they had learnt not to chop down trees and build homes with timber, but nonetheless they still lived in the kind of "garden" where the entwives would be happy, those creatures devoted to 'possessive love.'

It would appear there are both biographical and literary reasons for The shire to be so domesticated, so cosy, so idyllic.

[Child of the 7th Age]

Bethberry -

What fascinating stuff! I love how you've tied in Tolkien's process of creation with the actual history of the woodlands and managed hillsides. And I think you are right.

I am reminded of one other piece of historical evidence that supports what you are saying, if only indirectly. At one time historians saw the enclosure movement as reaching a peak in the eighteenth and early nineteenth century. More recent studies have pushed those dates back considerably, at least for certain parts of England. In the north, for example, where the enclosure movement was fueled by individual agreements between manorial lords and tenents (rather than the later Acts of Parliament) historians feel that the process was well under way by 1500. When it started is anyone's guess, but surely several hundred years before, as things like this take time.

If you stop and think about it, enclosure makes no sense unless you're talking about a countryside that has been largely stripped of trees. You need great expanses of fens, moors, commons and heath (to say nothing of arable fields and pasturelands) in order for enclosure to work--anything but dense forest. We generally think of the north as one of the "less tame" parts of GB, at least when compared with the southeast. Yet it's quite clear enclosure was proceeding apace in that part of the county during the medieval period: vast tracts of woodlands simply didn't exist.

It's interesting. When I lived/studied in Britain for a considerable chunk of time in the late 60s and early 70s, the Forestry Commission was throwing up connifers on every remote hillside, ostensibly to reforest and recapture the "old" landscape. The truth was that such areas were truly ugly. Miles and miles of a single type of tree hold absolutely no charm. There was nothing natural about it: it looked totally fake! I don't know if they still do this, but hopefully they don't.
I far preferred the "well tended gardens", country footpaths, and enclosed fields reminiscent of The Shire.

In the context of the Shire, it almost seems as if Tolkien could laud the individual tree like the party tree or the mallorn, yet still understand why the Bucklanders felt compelled to keep the wilder forest at bay. A forest like Fangorn or Greenwood or Lorien was a wonderful and mysterious thing....but it was still something to be kept on the other side of a well ordered hedge.

So I guess that's one more thing that's missing in the Shire: a truly wild wood. Of course there's Tuckborough and the Greenhill Country extending east to Woody End. But I never had the impression that this was anything more than a pleasant country woodland. It measures about 40 miles long but was no more than 10-12 miles wide. The Elves traipsed through it on their way west, so it was a special place in the Shire, but definitely not the wild wood that stood outside Buckland and in places like Greenwood.

[Lalwendë]

Bethberry and Child have prompted me into some 'mad' thinking again.

The wildwood of the UK had already started to disappear when people began farming, so the existence of an extensive wildwood is indeed well beyond the annals of history. Yet even now, 2% of the UK is said to be covered by 'wildwood', so it definitely exists, even if it is not as extensive, although it will rarely be a place of peace as it will be beset with pleasure seekers, as are the remnants of Sherwood today, sadly. But tales of the wildwood do exist, and this suggests that such tales must have been carried down through the ages.

When Tolkien claimed he wanted to create a mythology for the English he set out his stall very clearly, yet I always hope that when he made that impressive statement of intent that he meant a particular type of mythology, i.e. a written one. This is something which is lacking in comparison to some other cultures, but I hope that he did only mean this, as the English never have lacked a mythology. There is a wealth of myth and legend in England, much of it never written down, and which as a result has shifted over time through invasion, impositions of language (e.g. with the Normans, Latin was imposed for 'formal' use), religious oppression and change, and finally, early urbanisation in comparison to most other countries.

What myths already exist? There are the Robin Hood tales, which may not have been formalised until the medieval period, but we can say the same of tales about Arthur, and we accept that such tales must have existed orally before they were formalised. Robin Hood may have developed from a number of figures, who go by a variety of names including The Green Man, Cernunnos, The Horned God, John Barleycorn etc. Unfortunately, written tales simply did not exist, and so instead of a 'mythology', we have instead a 'folklore', the preserve of the ordinary people. One good source of older information might be found in folk song, which is particularly rich in images and was mostly untainted by the kind of religious or social impositions that might have restricted the kind of ideas presented in books or manuscripts.

The sense of the wildwood has never fully left English culture, even though it does not exist, and we can see this in how tales of Robin Hood, descended from those of the Old Gods, have remained popular to this day. Possibly, even the English obsession with gardening stems from a sense of something 'lost', that we all seek a little piece of wildwood of our own? On a small island, without much room for an extensive Wildwood, there are still some pockets existing today, and they are attractive to visitors, as anyone who has been in Sherwood on a Sunday will agree - though there is a deep irony in seeing queues of cars creeping along just to disgorge people who wish to visit the Major Oak and eat an ice cream as they gawp.

Yes, the English countryside had very definitely been 'tamed' thousands of years ago, but the stories remain to this day. And I do like to think that Tolkien knew this, and that he did mean he was creating, specifically, a written mythology. The evidence that he made use of 'the Old Gods' in his work is so strong that I cannot help thinking he was keenly aware that their stories had never been written down, that he wanted to include their stories in his work.

[littlemanpoet]

The thing that's tickling my brain now, based on the previous three posts, is that the Shire with its Hobbits, mediates Middle Earth to us. How could it (and they), unless it (and they) feel like where we are (like people we know of - if not ourselves)?

It's interesting (to me at least) that when I first read the account of Bilbo and the Dwarves passing through open, wild country between Hobbiton and Rivendell, my mind made an immediate connection between these wild forests, and those of continental Europe - Germany? The Black Forest?

So yes, I am intrigued by the "ain't there"-ness of wild woods, too. Bit of a ramble here.

[Fordim Hedgethistle]

It strikes me that perhaps in the descriptions of a wild and untamed forest we don't have a reflection of a much more modern European history: that of imperialism and colonial control. A recurring theme or motif in colonialist and imperialist literature is that of the "civilised" European entering into a landscape that in its sheer scale dwarfs the human. The "primitive" or "untamed" nature of such landscapes is a common idea in these accounts -- accounts which, of course, miss entirely the fact that these lands were not "untamed" or "wild" but very much in use by the inhabitants, just in ways and through methods that were different from the European models.

When the hobbits go into the Old Forest or Fangorn and see this foreign, frightening, and apparently uninhabited place, there is an unmistakable resemblance to the accounts of European travellers arriving in my own country way back in the day. The forests were thought to be 'unused' when, on the contrary, the native peoples had vast trading networks, large agricultural works and extensive hunting practices. They had not enclosed the land and subjected it to crop rotation, and so the Europeans saw it as "wild" -- by which they meant simply that it was different.

It's this same fear of difference or of otherness that really afflicts the denizens of the Shire. The Old Forest and Fangorn are inhabited, but they are inhabited by beings so different and "strange" from the hobbits that they are frightened by their "wildness".

I am not suggesting that Tolkien meant by these episodes to reflect in any conscious way on the nature of history of European colonial encounters, but there is an interesting analog possible. . .

[davem]

Wasn't the Wild Wood always a place of danger & magic? It was never a safe, comfortable place. Its not a place characters live, its a place they go to, & have adventures . There shouldn't be wildwood in the Shire because the Shire is not a place where one has adventures. Adventures are what you find when you've left the safety of the Shire.

For me, Tolkien displays the proper respect for the wildwood by not giving it a place in his safe little Shire. When it appears it is always depicted as a place of power & magic. It is awe-full. No-one ever leaves it as they entered. They emerge transformed - as they should.

[littlemanpoet]

Here's a new one: butchers.

There are a few lists of various this's and that's in the Shire, some of which are types of employment. There are farmers, millers, gardeners, mayors, postmen, shirriffs, innkeepers, cartwrights, smiths, ropers, et cetera. But no butchers. See page 15 of FotR for an example of a such a list. Is this another example of Tolkien's overly idyllic Shire? Or is a matter of "it wasn't in the story so it wasn't in the story"? Or is it a matter of farmers being the butchers in the Shire?

[Celuien]

Originally Posted by littlemanpoet

Here's a new one: butchers.

There are a few lists of various this's and that's in the Shire, some of which are types of employment. There are farmers, millers, gardeners, mayors, postmen, shirriffs, innkeepers, cartwrights, smiths, ropers, et cetera. But no butchers. See page 15 of FotR for an example of a such a list. Is this another example of Tolkien's overly idyllic Shire? Or is a matter of "it wasn't in the story so it wasn't in the story"? Or is it a matter of farmers being the butchers in the Shire?

Dictionary.com...
butch·er. n.:

1.

a. One who slaughters and dresses animals for food or market.
b. One who sells meats.

2. One that kills brutally or indiscriminately.
3. A vendor, especially one on a train or in a theater.
4. One who bungles something.

[Middle English bucher, from Old French bouchier, from bouc, boc, he-goat, probably of Celtic origin.]

Perhaps it's the negative connotation associated with definition 2 that kept butchers out of the Shire. Even though we're clearly talking about the meat-seller definition, butcher isn't a neutral word when it comes to the connotation. I think it jars with the atmosphere of the Shire to introduce a word that could conjure up images of brutality. Hence, maybe butchers are left out of the Shire not because of an overly idyllic setting but rather because the word's associations don't fit with the portrayal of Hobbits.

[littlemanpoet]

Maybe it's also because the word is of Norman-French derivation. What would be the Anglo-Saxon cognate? Slaughterer?

[Anguirel]

Excluding Norman words would, I believe, do for farmer and most certainly outlaw mayor...

[Lalwendë]

Originally Posted by lmp

Here's a new one: butchers.

There are a few lists of various this's and that's in the Shire, some of which are types of employment. There are farmers, millers, gardeners, mayors, postmen, shirriffs, innkeepers, cartwrights, smiths, ropers, et cetera. But no butchers. See page 15 of FotR for an example of a such a list. Is this another example of Tolkien's overly idyllic Shire? Or is a matter of "it wasn't in the story so it wasn't in the story"? Or is it a matter of farmers being the butchers in the Shire?

I think, looking at how society is still organised on an informal basis in The Shire, that the farmers would also have been the butchers. This was very much the case in rural areas even into the twentieth century, butchers being mainly found in urban areas. I can in fact remember my father buying meat direct from the farmer, my grandmother making sausages and black puddings herself, and I was given a brace of pheasant from which I had to remove the shot, the heads and feet myself before I could cook it, so this is not quite so far out of memory anyway.

Possibly it wasn't an issue for Tolkien to have butchery as a specific trade in The Shire, if it was drawn from his own childhood memories; though being an urbanite, he would have been more used to the idea of butchers in his adult life.

Why was my first thought one of revulsion at the very thought of butchers being present in The Shire? Perhaps the thought of killing animals would intrude on the vision of The Shire as the perfect rural paradise?

[littlemanpoet]

Sorry for the pun in the title.

Originally Posted by Lalwendë

...the farmers would also have been the butchers.

Yes, that was my initial thought from the get-go. I admit to using the the "butcher" topic as an almost good enough excuse to resurrect this thread.

Originally Posted by Lalwendë

Why was my first thought one of revulsion at the very thought of butchers being present in The Shire? Perhaps the thought of killing animals would intrude on the vision of The Shire as the perfect rural paradise?

But it's intriguing questions like this that make bringing the thread back up worth having done. I'm not surprised at the revulsion. Nevertheless, any avid reader of Tolkien would have to admit that slaughtering of farm animals had to have occurred in the Middle-earth Shire, even if it was farmers who did it. Hobbits ate stew, did they not? with meat in it? But did Tolkien mean the Shire to be "perfect"? Perhaps it would be best to say that Tolkien intended it to be idyllic (I can't even bring myself to describe it as bucolic, as that has negative connotations for me!). What ever word you choose to use, the sense of intrusion would probably still be there, I take it? Maybe that has as much to do with us urban shoppers as it does with the act of slaughtering animals? After all, we're more disconnected from the earth than people were in Tolkien's time. The Machine!

[Lalwendë]

Originally Posted by LMP

Yes, that was my initial thought from the get-go. I admit to using the the "butcher" topic as an almost good enough excuse to resurrect this thread.

That could be called 'sneaking'...

Originally Posted by LMP

But it's intriguing questions like this that make bringing the thread back up worth having done. I'm not surprised at the revulsion. Nevertheless, any avid reader of Tolkien would have to admit that slaughtering of farm animals had to have occurred in the Middle-earth Shire, even if it was farmers who did it. Hobbits ate stew, did they not? with meat in it? But did Tolkien mean the Shire to be "perfect"? Perhaps it would be best to say that Tolkien intended it to be idyllic (I can't even bring myself to describe it as bucolic, as that has negative connotations for me!). What ever word you choose to use, the sense of intrusion would probably still be there, I take it? Maybe that has as much to do with us urban shoppers as it does with the act of slaughtering animals? After all, we're more disconnected from the earth than people were in Tolkien's time. The Machine!

Well, to bring in the topic of A.N.Other thread which is popular right now, the idea of something as bloody as butchery would surely break the enchantment which The Shire holds for us? This is not to say that the concept of The Shire is not strong enough to include such basic human needs as meat (if that's not tempting a veggie to argue then I don't know what is, but I don't mean it that way), but I do think that seeing as The Shire also does not have other factors of rural life such as poverty, bad smells and negative insularity, then the absence of butchers is not surprising. Perhaps Tolkien knew well enough that The Shire was meant to be different, and so did not wish to include those things which might break the spell of its charm.

A perfect contrast of how writers see or have seen rural life can be found in literature, and that is the contrast between Tolkien's The Shire, and Thomas Hardy's Wessex (The Return of the Native and Jude the Obscure in particular portray a harsh reality).

Even when Tolkien was writing LotR people had become disconnected from their relationship with the earth. It was during WWII that widespread mechanisation of agriculture took hold, simply because it had to in order to get everyone fed, and it did not go away after the end of the war, it only intensified.

I often think that Saruman's rule over The Shire was emblematic of that change. Rather than drawing from the general industrialisation of England, which was already very much in force a century before Tolkien's birth, he may have been drawing specifically on the changes which overcame rural England, for example changes from small farms to agribusiness.

But I have to ask, why does bucolic have negative conotations?

[Celuien]

Slaughterer??? Definitely a disturbing thought.

It is obvious that slaughtering and meat preparation are necessary and take place, even if it's not specifically described. I tend to think a description is both not needed and would disturb the Shire's atmosphere by adding too much of the gritty side of reality. Then again, it could be a function of my urbanized lifestyle that I'm uncomfortable with the idea. Maybe if I lived on a farm a century ago where it was part of daily life, I wouldn't have the same reaction.

Here's an interesting thought; Sam cleans and dresses the rabbits that Gollum caught in Ithilien. Gollum, however, is the one who actually catches them. Is it significant that the unpleasant job of killing goes to Gollum rather than the Shire hobbits? Would we think less of Sam if he had been the one to hunt the conies?

[Bêthberry]

Originally Posted by Anguirel

Excluding Norman words would, I believe, do for farmer and most certainly outlaw mayor...

Just a small addition. The Old English word for mayor comes to us in our word "reeve", usually used (in my part of the world) in terms of 'reeve of the township'. The modern City council 'alderman' comes from the OE 'ealdorman' (not sure if that is the correct spelling and my books aren't near me now.)

[Child of the 7th Age]

You have a point. I do think the word was purposely excluded, perhaps for a variety of reasons. Bear with me. I am thinking out loud here, especially the last half of this post, and am wondering if I am way off base!

First, Lalwende is certainly right. The farmers of the Shire--and most hobbits were farmers--would have done their own slaughtering and offered things directly to their customers ("sanitized" hobbits like Bilbo, for example). It's one thing to do butchering as part of a vast list of farm chores: chores that are essentially life-giving. It's another thing to do only butchering: singling out the killing function as the sole reason for any job. Everything in the Shire is life-affirming, so to single out butchers would have been to go against the grain.

Secondly, just listen to the way the word sounds: B - U - T - C - H - E - R . Not very nice. Tolkien was acutely aware not only of the dictionary meaning of the word but how it sounded to the ear. And "butcher" does not sound very nice.

Lalwende: Why was my first thought one of revulsion at the very thought of butchers being present in The Shire? Perhaps the thought of killing animals would intrude on the vision of The Shire as the perfect rural paradise?

I don't think it's so much a matter of "revulsion" as simply being out-of-place. People have to do many things to survive that are less than pleasant: slaughter animals to eat, tend to wounds and illnesses, find some way to dispose of dead bodies, protect themselves from dangerous things. In one way or other, all these things have to do with staving off the eternal reaper: the onslaught of death. None of these things are present in the Shire, at least in the late third age. Either the tasks (like defense) are farmed out to others (the Rangers) or they are simply not discussed. This is quite different than early Shire history where there were migrations, plagues, harsh winters where people starved, and hobbits going off to battle. But all these things--things that bring about change-- have evaporated by the late third age. And isn't it interesting how our own discussion always focuses exclusively on the Shire of the late third age rather than the earlier periods, even though we have considerable detail on the latter?

Not only have the dangers disappeared by the late third age (except for those rumors of danger floating in from the outside) but, sadly, so have the oddballs and adventurers who make life far more interesting. No more hobbits running off to sea, something that Gandalf said was fairly common in the Took line earlier on. This can be seen from the family trees in the appendix.

Bilbo is the first "crack" in this ideal but bland Shire ("crack" - a word, I think, that was probably literally applied to Bilbo by his neighbors.) There is another hint of this "crack" in two very different characters: Lobelia and Ted Sandyman, who will side with the change represented by Saruman, at least intiailly.

So what's going on here? It's only with the reintroduction of death as represented by the Scouring that adventurous characters can again come to the fore: specifically those hobbits who stood up against the intruders. You can again have true change going beyond the cyclic rhythm of agricultural life: change that focuses on individuals. Merry and Pippin can emerge as leaders. Before, there was simply no need. You can likewise have an adventurous descendent of Elfstan Fairbairn go off with Elanor and found a new community in the Tower Hills. (Elfstan -- what a name for a hobbit! Very suggestive, I would say.)

So, in a strange way, death or at least its possibility represents not an end but a change for the Shire. The question is not whether death will occur. The hobbits have "grown up" so death is inevitable. The question is what that death will mean: will it be the demeaning deaths perpetrated by Saruman and crew, or will it be death with meaning as represented by those hobbits that gave their lives? In other words, change happens in the grown-up Shire, but will it be destructive or positive in nature?

After the Scouring, did the Shire simply go back to what it was in the late third age, or did change become part of the basic rhythm of life? I would say the latter, although in a limited way. There has been too much change generated by events to go back. You have hobbits born with golden hair, the physical presence of the mallorn in the party field, Bilbo and Frodo's books passed down through the Gamgee/Fairbairn family, the tales told by Sam to his children, the establishment of a far-western outpost, the scholarly studies by Merry, plus all those new trees and burrows. The one contrary fact is the continued isolation of the Shire -- something I've never felt comfortable with -- but Tolkien interprets this positively.


If the end of the war of the ring actually means the reintroduction of death/change into the Shire, then Frodo's leaving, his symbolic death, makes even more sense. He has "grown up" more than any other hobbit in the Shire. He can not go back to the "old" Shire. Not only has he changed, the Shire has also changed. Given that reality, he must inevitably move on. And given the fact that Tolkien says his main theme is that of "Death", the reintroduction of death in the Shire as an impetus for change would seem to make at least some sense. Perhaps "Death" is a gift in more than one way.

******************

Edit: My poor brain just figured something out. Someone else may have said this before, but it just clicked in my head. The true "burial" of dead hobbits isn't in a mound or under the ground. The true burial of hobbits was in the family pedigrees. A grave is an acknowledgement of death, and the family trees were a way to acknowledge death yet still affirm life on the same page. The hobbits had always published geneology but it wasn't till after the war that they appeared systematically as an attachment to the Redbook. Thus, the acknowledgement of the deaths could only come after the Scouring.

[littlemanpoet]

Originally Posted by Lalwendê

But I have to ask, why does bucolic have negative conotations?

I'm not sure I can answer why. I do know that I associate the word with barefooted, backwoods, ignorant, cabin-dwelling folk who live far back in the Appalachians or somesuch. Talk about stereotypes! But that's the association.

Originally Posted by Child

listen to the way the word sounds: B - U - T - C - H - E - R . Not very nice.

What about: S - L - A - U - G - H - T - E - R ? That seems reminiscent of "cellar door", don't you think? Unless you aspirate the "gh", I suppose...

Child, thanks for the reflection on the Shire and death and change. I agree with you about the isolation of the Shire in the Fourth Age seeming, well, out of place.

[Eruanna]

Just to put my two penn'orth into what has been an extremely fascinating thread to read:

"Bilbo was too weak to help, and anyway he was not much good at skinning rabbits or cutting up meat, being used to having it delivered by the butcher all ready to cook" From 'The Hobbit': Out of the Frying-Pan into the Fire.

As 'not nice' as the word is, it's there and it's an accepted part of Hobbit life. I think that sometimes, we perhaps look on the Shire as being 'perfect'. Sanitised and squeaky clean, the town-dwellers ideal of a country life. It is, though, a real place and Hobbit society is not primitive or basic. They would have had trades folk of many descriptions, just because we don't notice them in the story doesn't mean that they aren't there.

[Lalwendë]

Eruanna - well spotted! That goes to show that not all of us always consider what it says in The Hobbit!

It's interesting too to note that Tolkien mentions butchers here in context. He does not mention them because he wants to tell us about The Shire and its society, but to illustrate something about Bilbo. Tolkien could quite easily have spent several chapters of LotR telling us all about The Shire, how it operates and what the Hobbits do for a living, including butchers, but he does not, he gets into the story quickly. Perhaps it is due to his having already written one substantial novel about Hobbits, or maybe he thought to wrap this kind of information up in the prologue.

[littlemanpoet]

Hmmmm..... I may have to see about introducing a butcher hobbit into the ongoing The Green Dragon over in rpg's. After all, how can a Shire inn survive without meat?

[littlemanpoet]

Planning the "Assigned to Mordor" rpg has suddenly raised to consciousness yet another "somethin' that ain't there and oughta be": coins, currency, or any monetary valuations.

It's kind of funny that Lalwendë even brought up poverty (or the lack thereof) and money in one of her posts, but this still didn't occur to me.

In fact, not only is coinage, currency, and monetary valuation missing in the Shire, it's missing absolutely everywhere in Middle Earth! What's going on here? Care to speculate? Or produce hard evidence to the contrary? Or discuss what was up with Tolkien for not including it?

Or is there not ever supposed to be something as crass as the means of determining economic value in Fairyland?

[Aiwendil]

Littlemanpoet:

In fact, not only is coinage, currency, and monetary valuation missing in the Shire, it's missing absolutely everywhere in Middle Earth!

Not quite. From I.11:

Bill Ferny's price was twelve silver pennies; and that was indeed at least three times the pony's value in those parts. It proved to be a bony, underfed, and dispirited animal; but it did not look like dying just yet. Mr. Butterbur paid for it himself, and offered Merry another eighteen pence as some compensation for the lost animals. He was an honest man, and well-off as things were reckoned in Bree; but thirty silver pennies was a sore blow to him, and being cheated by Bill Ferny made it harder to bear.

Of course, this one instance of talk about currency only makes its absence elsewhere more curious.

We must note, though, that while very little is made of the concept of money, the concept of wealth does come up quite often in Middle-earth. It's just that one's wealth or poverty is reckoned in terms of things other than currency. Consider, for instance, the value placed on Smaug's hoard by Elves, Men, and Dwarves alike - not to mention by Smaug himself. The hoard of Glaurung with which Hurin "paid" Thingol is another example.

[littlemanpoet]

Very astute post, Aiwendil. Thanks!

And thanks for pointing up the exception, which as you said, makes the general absence the more glaring. I await others' comments on this interesting theme....

[Gurthang]

I don't have the Hobbit with me right now, but is there anything in there describing Smaug's hoard as having coins in it? I know it's gold and jewels, but is the gold in monetary form?

But also there must have been money in the Shire, because Bag End and everything in it were being auctioned off when Bilbo returned from his adventure. It wouldn't make sense that they traded something for Bilbo's possessions, as the whole point of the auction was to liquidate all the assets. Surely money is implied in this situation, if not exactly said to be.