Chapter 12. What Makes a Hobbit a Hobbit?

'Look!' young Faramir shouted, raising a hand to point to the line of distant hills rising ahead of them in the East.

'Hush!' Pippin-lad Gamgee chided him. 'Don't you remember? You are supposed to be escaping in secret, as your illustrious father said at least once to his cousin Frodo. Or perhaps he even said so more than once!'

'Did Frodo write of such a warning in the Red Book more than once?' Faramir asked in a lower voice. 'For you're the only one of us who has heard the book all the way through!'

Pippin-lad shook his head. 'It's an awfully long book,' he said. 'D'you expect me to remember every word?'

'At least you've heard every word,' Faramir grumbled. 'I think we ought to have a copy in the library at the Great Smials, but who listens to a teen, I ask you?'

'Or perhaps the book also tells of the older cousins reminding the younger to keep his voice down,' Ferdi contributed while keeping his thoughts to himself about how Pippin had listened too carefully to his young son. Else why were they on this long, tiresome (and, frankly, dangerous) journey?

'I must brush up my toes, I think,' Robin said. 'For that was a hint if I ever heard one!'

'That hill on the far right, standing a little separate from the rest, is Weathertop,' Pippin-lad said.

Haldoron was surprised. The Gamgee teen had not sat in on the planning sessions with his father and the others. But then, from what he'd overheard since leaving Bree, it seemed that Mayor Samwise had taken pains to familiarise his family with the events that took place during the War of the Ring. Aragorn had told him of Bilbo's fascination with maps. Perhaps the Gamgees had inherited the old hobbit's maps along with the Red Book left behind when two of the three Ring-bearers had sailed to the West.

'The Road passes near the foot of Weathertop on its south side, and that is where we will spend the night and refresh our supplies, two nights hence,' the Ranger-guide contributed.

'It seems so odd to think of outposts of Kingsmen where they walked through wilderness,' Faramir said in a low voice.

'But remember, Farry,' Pippin-lad objected, 'what Mister Bilbo taught my dad... not only is the Road "like a great river: its springs are at every doorstep, and every path is its tributary", but history runs deep as well as wide, with more layers than you can imagine!'

Robin Bolger spoke aloud the question that the Man was thinking. 'What d'you mean by that, Pip?'

The Gamgee lad tilted his head as he talked, as if forming a picture in his mind and then describing what he saw. 'We're walking in one of the layers, even now,' he said. 'And the Road, if we were walking it at this moment, would run along the same surface, with outposts of soldiers and messengers placed by the orders of the King; they – and we – would all be found in the same layer, if history were an onion and we were peeling it back to look at the layers...'

Trust Hobbits to turn any subject to food, Haldoron thought as he listened. Even layers of history and the years and Ages those layers represent!

'And those earlier Travellers, they walked upon another layer, laid down earlier (so we have to dig deeper to see them),' Pippin-lad continued. 'And on that layer, Gandalf fought the Ringwraiths atop Weathertop, amidst the ruins, and no settlements could be found between The Forsaken Inn and Rivendell, and Men no longer occupied the old kingdoms...'

'There were Men in the lands, still,' Haldoron felt prompted to say, even as he fought down a shiver at the mention of Ringwraiths at this late date.

The teen flashed him a bright smile. 'O' course!' he said. 'Rangers and ruffians! Let us not forget either... but what I meant to say was that on that layer of the onion, historically speaking, the farms and fortresses were abandoned, the buildings gone or reduced to tumbled stones. Mister Frodo even wrote about how, after crossing the Last Bridge, they walked beneath ridges bearing ancient walls of stone and the ruins of towers...'

'Built long before by Men who eventually fell under the shadow of Angmar,' said Haldoron, lost in remembering some of the legends and stories his Chief had recounted by a crackling fire in the wilderlands.

'And if you were to peel away another layer or three, you'd see those proud Men and the kingdoms they built and later threw away, and there, you might see the great watch-tower of Amon Sûl standing tall and fair...'

Haldoron stared in renewed surprise at this son of the Mayor's. Though he talked like a young scholar, Pippin-lad looked like an ordinary "common" hobbit of Bree or the Shire, as set apart by the Shire-folks' reckoning from the Great Families (by which the Shire-hobbits usually meant those who still evidenced strong ties to the Fallohides, such as the Tooks and Brandybucks and Boffins and Bagginses – and were more likely to be found among the higher ranks of Shire society).

In point of fact, the Gamgees were ordinary or "common" hobbits, though Elessar (and Haldoron himself) would have argued against applying such a label to one of the Ring-bearers. It occurred to the Ranger-guide that he knew so little of Shire society and history, including possible reasons why the Shire's upper classes comprised mostly descendants of the Fallohides! What had made that group stand apart from the others? Why had Stoors and Harfoots so often chosen Fallohides to lead them down through the years?

Was it any coincidence that the original party of Travellers had comprised mostly gentry and only one common hobbit? Were the Fallohides' successors bolder or more adventurous than other hobbits and thus more likely to accumulate fame and fortune? Were the Harfoots, wherein Haldoron suspected the Gamgees' roots lay, more inclined to loyalty and stubbornness and common sense than their more exalted counterparts among the gentry?

Was Pippin-lad both literate and knowledgeable because his father had been elevated in society to the position of Mayor of Michel Delving? Or was it because old Bilbo had taken an interest in a gardener's young son and taught him his letters? Had Samwise's travels outside the Shire awakened curiosity and wonder and a hunger for learning that he had taken pains to pass on to his children after him? Or had the ordeal of carrying the Ring somehow transformed him into something greater?

He glanced from one of his companions to another: the teens, almost bouncing along in high humour, and Robin, trotting along just behind the younger Hobbits at an easy pace that he'd proven himself able to sustain for hours, and Ferdibrand, trotting at his side.

'Is the pace too fast?' the Man asked suddenly.

'We're fine,' Ferdi answered. 'Just so long as the teens can converse without being out of breath.' He shook his head. 'Thus far today, they've managed to converse without ceasing! One might wish for a moment or two of peace and quiet, but I doubt such a wish will be granted, at least, not until the teens finally fall asleep when the day is done...'

Haldoron nodded to himself, though he continued to wonder. Pippin-lad was markedly shorter than the others in the party, all of whom were clearly descended mostly from the Fallohide clan. Yet if the Man were to close his eyes (a nonsensical thought when hiking on uneven ground), he'd be hard-pressed to tell the difference between his companions except, perhaps, that both teens spoke in higher voices than their elders.

What made one hobbit different from another? And how and why had Shire society become divided into different classes, while the Bree-hobbits had not?

In the back of his mind, Haldoron heard old Bilbo's laughter – he could see the hobbit's face shining with merriment, the finger pointing at him as the old fellow rocked back and forth, lost in delight. 'You know nothing of hobbits!' he'd accused, though he'd still been laughing when he'd said it.

You know nothing of hobbits, Aragorn had said to him before assigning Haldoron to guide these hobbits on this journey.

I know too little of hobbits and their history and their ways, Haldoron thought to himself. I'm not sure it would be accurate to say I know nothing!

But as they walked (or trotted or bounced) on, and young Pip-lad continued his discourse on the nature of history and the passage of time, the Man revised his estimate of himself. It's true, he thought in surprise. I know nothing of hobbits. And so Aragorn has the right of it: I must learn more.

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Author's note: This chapter reflects ideas drawn from 'Concerning Hobbits' and 'Flight to the Ford' in The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkien, as well as various musings about hobbits found in Tolkien's letters.

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