There are many distinct races within Middle-earth, most of which seem extremely different from each other. Elves and Dwarves, for instance, have so many differences in both appearance and culture that it led to a big rift between them. Tolkien’s lore is expansive and often details the backgrounds of these different races, telling how they came to be. While there is lots of information on some, others are a bit more obscure and have less explanation behind them.
With Hobbits, for instance, there isn’t as much known about their origins as there is about some of the other people groups inThe Lord of the Rings. Men, on the other hand, have a bit more lore behind them, and more of an extensive history. Though these two races in particular feel so far removed from each other, they actually have a lot more in common than one might think - namely, ancestors. Do Hobbits really come from Men, and if so, what caused the race to offshoot into something so different from what came before it?RELATED:LOTR: What Would The Daily Life Of A Hobbit Be Like?
Where Did Men Come From?
Men were created by Eru Ilúvatar, who was sort of the supreme deity over all the others. They awoke in Hildórien, in the far east of Middle-earth, in the first year of the First Age after the Awakenings of the Elves and Dwarves. Because of this, the Elves referred to them as the “Afterborn”.
Men (referring in this sense to the race of Men, not just males) bear something that is called the “Gift of Men”, which is mortality, in other words. Men could age, and they would eventually die when their time came, whether it was from illness, disease, or natural causes. Other races, such as Elves, did not have this, as they were immortal and thus weren’t susceptible to aging, andsome Elves even coveted that Gift of Men. The Gift meant that the souls of Men were not bound to Arda in the way that the souls of the Elves were, and no one, save for Ilúvatar himself, knew what awaited Men after death.
How Were Hobbits Created?
Unlike Men, the Hobbits don’t have a clear history in Tolkien’s records. It’s unclear when they first arrived in Arda, but they are thought to have originally been from someplace near the Anduin River. They were an unknown people, as by the time the rest of Middle-earth learned about them, they had already been around for many generations.
The earliest group of Hobbits known to others lived in the Vales of Anduin between Mirkwood and the Misty Mountains, and there werethree different tribes of Hobbits: Harfoots, Stoors, and Fallohides. According to a line fromThe Lord of the Rings, they had forgotten any genealogical ties to “Big People” - aka Men - which implies that those ties were there to begin with.
Are Hobbits Related To Men?
Like a lot of Tolkien’s lore, it’s never made explicitly clear exactly how close Men and Hobbits are, but the general assumption is that they have a lot in common, and likely come from the same race. At the very least, Men are related to Hobbits much more than they are to, say,Elves or Dwarves, and Hobbits are the Middle-earth race that resembles Men the most. Tolkien said in his essayOf Dwarves and Men: “Hobbits on the other hand were in nearly all respects normal Men, but of very short stature”, which implies that Hobbits and Men come from the same race.
One of the main things fans wonder is if Hobbits were specifically created by Eru in their original form, or if they were a smaller breed of Men that came about over the years. Of course, both could be true if they were created by Eru Ilúvatar to be a small breed of Men. In most regards, they were considered to be close to men becausethey possessed the Gift of Men, being mortal.
However, because there is no confirmation, no one really knows whether Hobbits came into the world fully formed in the way that they are portrayed inThe Lord of the Rings, or whether they started as standard Men and became their own offshoot along the way. The general assumption, however, is that Hobbits were among the Young Children of Ilúvatar and came from the same act of creation that brought Men into being.
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