# How Tall are Hobbits?



## esrbl (Apr 21, 2020)

Are they taller or smaller than dwarves?


----------



## Erestor Arcamen (Apr 21, 2020)

According to Tolkien they are *2-4* feet or roughly *61-122 *cm.


> "For they are a little people, smaller than Dwarves: less stout and stocky, that is, even when they are not actually much shorter. Their height is variable, *ranging between two and four feet* of our measure. They seldom now* reach three feet; but they have dwindled, they say, and in ancient days they were taller. According to the Red Book, Bandobras Took (Bullroarer), son of Isumbras the Third, was four foot five and able to ride a horse. He was surpassed in all Hobbít records only by two famous characters of old; but that curious matter is dealt with in this book."
> Prologue, Concerning Hobbits, The Lord of the Rings


----------



## Elthir (Apr 21, 2020)

Generally speaking, shorter than Dwarves but taller than badgers.

Short answer (pun intended): in a late note JRRT explains that _at the time of the story_, the average height of male adult hobbit: Harfoots at 3 foot 6, Fallohides slimmer and a little taller, and Stoors broader, stouter, and a little shorter. 

In _The Hobbit_ it's noted generally that _"hobbits are smaller than the bearded Dwarves."_


----------



## Olorgando (Apr 21, 2020)

Those two Hobbits surpassing Bandobras "Bullroarer" Took were of course Merry and Pippin, who are said to both have reached four feet six inches.
That works out to pretty exactly 137 centimeters; that's very much jockey territory, and small jockeys at that. Hobbits might have had some issues with *weight*, what with six meals a day ...


----------



## Olorgando (Apr 21, 2020)

Elthir said:


> … Harfoots at 3 foot 6, Fallohides slimmer and a little taller, and Stoors broader, stouter, and a little shorter.


Where's that from, E(A)? In the Prologue 1 "Concerning Hobbits" JRRT states "The Harfoots were … smaller, and shorter …".


----------



## Elthir (Apr 21, 2020)

It's from a bit of 'new-er' stuff made public by Hammond and Scull. But going back to 1938 first, here's an extract from a letter apparently addressed to Tolkien's American publishers, and probably written in March or April 1938. Houghton Mifflin seems to have asked JRRT to supply drawings of hobbits for use in some future edition of _The Hobbit._

( . . .) "Actual size – only important if other objects are in picture – say about three feet or three feet six inches. The hobbit in the picture of the gold-hoard, Chapter XII, is of course (apart from being fat in the wrong places) enormously too large. But (as my children, at any rate, understand) he is really in a separate picture or 'plane' – being invisible to the dragon." JRRT, letter 27

Much later, in one note dated around 1969, as I read the following anyway, JRRT ended up describing full grown males at an average of 3 foot 5 inches. " . . . to this: Dwarves about 4 foot high at least. Hobbits were lighter in build, but not much shorter; their tallest men were 4 ft. but seldom taller. Though nowadays their survivors are seldom 3 feet high, in the days of the story they were taller which means that they usually exceeded 3 ft. and qualified for the name halfling. But the name halfling must have originated circa TA 1150, getting on for some 2,000 years (1868) before the War of the Ring, during which the dwindling of the Numenoreans had shown itself in stature as well as life-span. So that it referred to a height of full grown males of an average of, say, 3 ft. 5."

That's quoted in _The Reader's Guide to The Lord of the Rings,_ Hammond And Scull. Another contemporary note (same source) states that at the time of the story (as quoted already) the average height of a male adult hobbit: Harfoots at 3 foot 6, Fallohides slimmer and a little taller, and Stoors broader, stouter, and a "little" shorter -- the text says "somewhat shorter" here actually.

That quoted, as you keenly noted, in author-_published_ text "shorter" appears in the Harfoot description, and considering the fuller description, this seems an odd way to put things if Tolkien simply meant that the Harfoots were shorter than the Fallohides alone. I would be inclined to go with the Tolkien-published Prologue, including that the Harfoots were by far the most numerous and the most representative of Hobbit kind.

Would that impact the 3 foot 6 above, given specifically for Harfoots? I don't know, but there JRRT appears to think of them as in the middle with respect to height. Unless I'm reading it wrongly.


----------

