'There is a wholesome air about Hollin. Much evil must befall a country before it wholly forgets the Elves, if once they dwelt there.’

‘That is true,’ said Legolas. ‘But the Elves of this land were of a race strange to us of the silvan folk, and the trees and the grass do not now remember them. Only I hear the stones lament them: deep they delved us, fair they wrought us, high they builded us;...'

they love peace and quiet and good tilled earth: a well-ordered and well-farmed countryside was their favourite haunt.

Practically everybody living near was invited. A very few were overlooked by accident, but as they turned up all the same, that did not matter.
He gave away presents to all and sundry – the latter were those who went out again by a back way and came in again by the gate.

Could the hobbits have evolved their culture anywhere else in Middle-earth? Could we expect a similar Shire in Harad or Rhun, or in the middle of Gondor? Or did it lie at a unique wilderness juncture of protection by Elves, Rangers, and a Grey Wizard, enabling its people to prosper and indulge in pleasant pastimes?

Does this sound like Rivendell or Minas Tirith to you? Can you readily imagine all-day community birthday parties and fireworks in those places? (rhetorical) What does it tell us about hobbit priorities in life?

Do hobbits make sense in a Middle-earth where history is usually revered by the wise and ignored by the foolish? What could explain hobbits' disinterest in history?

Birthdays, parties, drinking, eating, gossiping, pranks: is this the uncouth land of Shire people who are lazy and lower class? Or is there something beyond class that comes to mind?

Does hobbit culture appeal to you? Is the Shire a great place to live, or just a nice place to visit? Are hobbits an ideal that readers should aspire to, or should we be more like Elves (serious and contemplative), or should we try to be both? Or should we be Riders or Rohan or Faramir or Aragorn--darn it, who should I be emulating in this trilogy?!?!

Why does Shire culture produce quest heroes like Bilbo, Frodo, Sam, Merry, and Pippin?

If Shire culture is so happy and successful, why isn't it emulated by the other peoples of Middle-earth?

If you were going to change anything about the Shire (which sounds blasphemous, so tread lightly, my friends), what would it be?

What else should we be discussing when we bring up general hobbit culture?

If the hobbits have mantle clocks that keep accurate time that’s advanced technology compared to the rest of Middle Earth. But do they really have mantle clocks? It’s hard to say.

Similarly, the hobbits have morning and evening mail, and long and complicated wills, suggesting they are highly literate. But are they really highly literate, or is this another anachronism?

Otho would have been Bilbo’s heir, but for the adoption of Frodo. He read the will carefully and snorted. It was, unfortunately, very clear and correct (according to the legal customs of hobbits, which demand among other things seven signatures of witnesses in red ink).

"I do take Sméagol under my protection," said Frodo. Sam sighed audibly; and not at the courtesies, of which, as any hobbit would, he thoroughly approved. Indeed in the Shire such a matter would have required a great many more words and bows.

Minor developments were added, such as the invention of the mainspring in the early 15th century, which allowed small clocks to be built for the first time.

At once the western Hobbits fell in love with their new land, and they remained there,

There are other forces at work in this world, Frodo, besides that of evil. Bilbo was meant to find the Ring, in which case you were also meant to have it. And that is an encouraging thought

In the Shire's case, I feel like the land could have lain fallow for centuries and that would have been okay, but it had a sort of agency, I believe, and embraced the hobbits' presence when they arrived, just as they embraced it as their home in a symbiotic relationship

Could the Shire have had a bit of assistance behind-the-scenes?
After all,

Quote

Was the Shire meant to be a safe haven? It did, after all, incubate an excellent Burglar and a group of heroes.

Call a Rabbit a Smeerp
A cheap technique for false exoticism, in which common elements of the real world are re-named for a fantastic milieu without any real alteration in their basic nature or behavior. “Smeerps” are especially common in fantasy worlds, where people often ride exotic steeds that look and act just like horses. (Attributed to James Blish).

“It fell to P. G. Wodehouse to satirise the genre. In The Swoop (1909) the Germans land in Essex on the same day that, coincidentally, several other countries–from Russia to Monaco–also invade Britain. None of them meets with any resistance because the British army has been abolished by a socialist government in the name of equality: ‘They demanded that every man in the army should be a general.’ The consequence is instant capitulation. ‘England was not merely beneath the heel of the invader. It was beneath the heels of nine invaders. There was barely standing-room.’
Happily, one power remains capable of resisting this occupation. The Boy Scouts are still a force to be reckoned with, especially with the rapid promotion to chief Scout of fourteen-year-old Clarence Chugwater. Learning that the German and Russian generals have been employed as freak turns to tell their stories on the music-hall stage, he sparks professional jealousy between them, splitting their alliance. In any event, the foreign troops are growing restless, unable to cope with either the attitude of the conquered–‘the cold, contemptuous, patronising gaze of the Englishman’–or the weather: ‘The late English summer had set in with all its usual severity, and the Cossacks, reared in the kindlier climate of Siberia, were feeling it terribly.’
The result is a huge, mutually destructive battle between the occupiers, fought on Hampstead Heath ‘in the densest, yellowest London particular [i.e. a thick smog - NoWiz] that had been experienced for years’. Those who survive are easy prey for the Boy Scouts, armed with hockey sticks and catapults. ‘I am England,’ Clarence declaims to the German general, in triumph. ‘I am the Chief Scout, and the Scouts are England. Prince Otto, you thought this England of ours lay prone and helpless. You were wrong.’”

— Little Englanders: Britain in the Edwardian Era by Alwyn Turner

If there is one thing I love about the Shire chapters, more so those at the beginning rather than the end of the book, is that though its characters are all, essentially, little people with hairy feet, Tolkien creates a very viable and believable countryside environment. Anyone from, or who has spent time in, a rural area, will recognise the common traits here: a seemingly peaceful, easy-going populace, tightly interconnected by family and marriage with their own deeply held opinions of specific branches and nearby locations, no government of any consequence, literacy not even being all that required (Hamfast Gamgee notes that his son being “learned his letters” – which, in itself indicates the difficulty some in this society have with grammar – as an exceptional thing, though there are plenty of mentions of writing later). Magic and creatures from outside the borders are the subject of scepticism and suspicion. It is a populace who mark their lives by simple social gatherings and the like, and where the local pub is the usual place for discussion and debate of everything going on in the world. The Shire is both an agrarian anarchy and a libertarian fantasy, where people get by without much in the way of top down control, work hard and seem happy with their lot, with nary a sign of any serious social problems. Tolkien will keep this up in a lot of other locations: homelessness, serious poverty or class differences will never be a large part of the make-up in places like Bree, Edoras or Minis Tirith. There will be a stratification in those societies, but it’ll be rare that it is outlined in a really negative fashion: when the Gaffer tells his son “Don’t go getting mixed up in the business of your betters, or you’ll land in trouble too big for you”, it doesn’t seem as if he is putting a derogatory meaning behind “betters”.


I’ve mentioned it already, but I’ll do it again (sort of): the gossipy scenes in the pub (more in the next chapter) are a really good representation of country life, at least from my experience (my Mother’s family being from North Clare) where family history (a term often used to disguise basic gossip, which hobbits “have a passion for“) is a crucial topic, the oldest are treated as experts on nearly all things (namely Hamfast Gamgee here, holding forth), rumour and intrigue are rife, and outsiders are frequently despised and ignored (Tolkien, in a sign that he recognised the flaws in this kind of environment could sometimes write harshly of such things, describing the hobbits’ mindset as “a mental myopia that is proud of itself”). Even in the text here, Tolkien writes like a bystander instead of a unattached viewer, dropping references to people and characters, like “old Holman” for example, whenever he can. Places that would be considered down the road in other parts, like Buckland, are far away here, living next to rivers is “unnatural”, actually taking a boat onto one of them is asking for trouble and “decent folk“, like those in Hobbiton, would never dream of doing something so out of the ordinary.

The Lord Of The Rings, Chapter By Chapter: A Long Expected Party

...
God! I will pack, and take a train,
And get me to England once again!
For England’s the one land, I know,
Where men with Splendid Hearts may go;
And Cambridgeshire, of all England,
The shire for Men who Understand;
And of THAT district I prefer
The lovely hamlet Grantchester.
For Cambridge people rarely smile,
Being urban, squat, and packed with guile;
And Royston men in the far South
Are black and fierce and strange of mouth;
At Over they fling oaths at one,
And worse than oaths at Trumpington,
And Ditton girls are mean and dirty,
And there’s none in Harston under thirty,
And folks in Shelford and those parts
Have twisted lips and twisted hearts,
And Barton men make Cockney rhymes,
And Coton’s full of nameless crimes,
And things are done you’d not believe
At Madingley on Christmas Eve.
Strong men have run for miles and miles,
When one from Cherry Hinton smiles;
Strong men have blanched, and shot their wives,
Rather than send them to St. Ives;
Strong men have cried like babes, bydam,
To hear what happened at Babraham.
But Grantchester! ah, Grantchester!
There’s peace and holy quiet there,
Great clouds along pacific skies,
And men and women with straight eyes,
Lithe children lovelier than a dream,
A bosky wood, a slumbrous stream,
And little kindly winds that creep
Round twilight corners, half asleep.
In Grantchester their skins are white;
They bathe by day, they bathe by night;
The women there do all they ought;
The men observe the Rules of Thought.
They love the Good; they worship Truth;
They laugh uproariously in youth;
(And when they get to feeling old,
They up and shoot themselves, I’m told) ...
Ah God! to see the branches stir
Across the moon at Grantchester!
To smell the thrilling-sweet and rotten
Unforgettable, unforgotten
River-smell, and hear the breeze
Sobbing in the little trees.
Say, do the elm-clumps greatly stand
Still guardians of that holy land?
The chestnuts shade, in reverend dream,
The yet unacademic stream?
Is dawn a secret shy and cold
Anadyomene, silver-gold?
And sunset still a golden sea
From Haslingfield to Madingley?
And after, ere the night is born,
Do hares come out about the corn?
Oh, is the water sweet and cool,
Gentle and brown, above the pool?
And laughs the immortal river still
Under the mill, under the mill?
Say, is there Beauty yet to find?
And Certainty? and Quiet kind?
Deep meadows yet, for to forget
The lies, and truths, and pain? ... oh! yet
Stands the Church clock at ten to three?
And is there honey still for tea?The Old Vicarage, Grantchester

Whatever evaluation we finally make of a stretch of land, however, no matter how profound or accurate, we will find it inadequate. The land retains an identity of its own, still deeper and more subtle than we can know. Our obligation toward it then becomes simple: to approach with an uncalculating mind, with an attitude of regard. To try to sense the range and variety of its expression -its weather and colors and animals. To intend from the beginning to preserve some of the mystery within it as a kind of wisdom to be experienced, not questioned. And to be alert for its openings, for that moment when something sacred reveals itself within the mundane, and you know the land knows you are there.

Arctic Dreams by Barry Lopez 1986

One evening (surely I was led by her)
I went alone into a Shepherd's Boat,
A Skiff that to a Willow tree was tied
Within a rocky Cave, its usual home.
'Twas by the shores of Patterdale, a Vale
Wherein I was a Stranger, thither come
A School-boy Traveller, at the Holidays.
Forth rambled from the Village Inn alone
No sooner had I sight of this small Skiff,
Discover'd thus by unexpected chance,
Than I unloos'd her tether and embark'd.
The moon was up, the Lake was shining clear
Among the hoary mountains; from the Shore
I push'd, and struck the oars and struck again
In cadence, and my little Boat mov'd on
Even like a Man who walks with stately step
Though bent on speed. It was an act of stealth
And troubled pleasure; not without the voice
Of mountain-echoes did my Boat move on,
Leaving behind her still on either side
Small circles glittering idly in the moon,
Until they melted all into one track
Of sparkling light. A rocky Steep uprose
Above the Cavern of the Willow tree
And now, as suited one who proudly row'd
With his best skill, I fix'd a steady view
Upon the top of that same craggy ridge,
The bound of the horizon, for behind
Was nothing but the stars and the grey sky.
She was an elfin Pinnace; lustily
I dipp'd my oars into the silent Lake,
And, as I rose upon the stroke, my Boat
Went heaving through the water, like a Swan;
When from behind that craggy Steep, till then
The bound of the horizon, a huge Cliff,
As if with voluntary power instinct,
Uprear'd its head. I struck, and struck again
And, growing still in stature, the huge Cliff
Rose up between me and the stars, and still,
With measur'd motion, like a living thing,
Strode after me. With trembling hands I turn'd,
And through the silent water stole my way
Back to the Cavern of the Willow tree.
There, in her mooring-place, I left my Bark,
And, through the meadows homeward went, with grave
And serious thoughts; and after I had seen
That spectacle, for many days, my brain
Work'd with a dim and undetermin'd sense
Of unknown modes of being; in my thoughts
There was a darkness, call it solitude,
Or blank desertion, no familiar shapes
Of hourly objects, images of trees,
Of sea or sky, no colours of green fields;
But huge and mighty Forms that do not live
Like living men mov'd slowly through the mind
By day and were the trouble of my dreams.

Wordsworth - excerpt from The Prelude, Book 1

“75. Bindweed … Delight?

THERE ARE GARDENERS reading this who are likely thinking that if I try to turn bindweed, that most destructive, noxious, invasive, life-destroying plant, into a delight, they will bind me and pour glyphosate down my throat. That might be overstatement. All the same, it is a cloying glass-half-fullness to wrangle bindweed into a delight, though I am going for it, shortly after having spent about twenty minutes pulling it from my newly planted mound of five sweet meat squash—yes, sweet meat; try to say that without smiling—out near the woodpile. Already coming up in that mound is all the buckwheat and clover I planted, which, along with the hopefully soon-to-be-thorough coverage of the sweet meat foliage, might crowd out the bindweed. You are right to observe in me the desire not to live with bindweed, which does not in the least negate or supersede my desire to make living with bindweed, which I do, okay.

I carefully pull the arrowheaded and somewhat reptilian plants from the soil, which if left to grow will quickly find something to ascend by wrapping, or binding, it. There is a lovely feeling to gently pulling the sprouts so that the roots slide unbroken and blanched from the soil, putting them in my pockets (I always have bindweed in my pockets), very careful not to drop any part, which, lore has it, will reroot and strangle your children as they sleep. I do this work, often, on my hands and knees, scanning my garden beds for bindweed, pulling the straw back over here, lifting the leaves of the collards over there. I notice the lettuces are untouched by critters, but the cabbages are getting nibbled. The parsley is starting to get thick. The potatoes need mounding, I notice, sliding a long strand of bindweed from the patch. The beans maybe got washed out from all the rain. And when I pull this sprout, breaking it at the stem, and dig some to get it all out, I notice the worms tunneling through the soil.

And if I think I’m in a hurry, or think I ought to be, and quickly walk by to peek at the beds, the teeny bindweed sprouts will sing out to me. “Stay in the garden! Stay in the garden!” And I often oblige, despite my obligations, getting back on my hands and knees, my thumb and forefinger caressing the emergent things free, all of us rooting around for the light.”

— The Book of Delights by Ross Gay

It [Bree] may be all that we could wish… but it is outside the Shire all the same.”

on friendly terms, minding their own affairs in their own way, but both rightly regarding themselves as necessary parts of the Bree-folk.”