# Merry and Pippin's Height



## JPMaximilian (Feb 1, 2010)

In the prologue, Bullroarer is listed as 4'5" tall, and we know Merry and Pippin was taller than he, but where is it listed that they were 4'6"? Is that an inference? Page numbers or chapters would be appreciated.


----------



## Uminya (Feb 2, 2010)

I -believe- that the heights are given in the Appendices.

My book is not handy, however.


----------



## Bucky (Feb 5, 2010)

I think it's about 4'8", but I can't recall where I got that from, so research is in vain on my part.


----------



## JPMaximilian (May 30, 2014)

Sorry to dig up this old thread, but I still can't find a direct reference to Merry and Pippin's height.can anyone help?


----------



## Elthir (May 30, 2014)

Hello, as far as I'm aware there isn't an exact reference, made public anywhere, as yet anyway. I think it's just based on the description that they ultimately surpassed the Bullroarer, himself at four foot five. 'He was surpassed in all Hobbit records only by two famous characters of old; but that curious matter is dealt with in this book.'

Surpassed due to ent-draughts, I would say.

Of course you already knew all that. There are some relatively 'new' Tolkienian references to Hobbit height published by Hammond and Scull, but they are not specific to Merry and Pippin. 

Also, in reaction to a painting of the Fellowship [and some bad guys too] by Pauline Baynes, Tolkien wrote some descriptions, but not all of these have been published so far -- although I have no idea if he gets specific here about Merry and Pippin in any case, especially considering that they seemingly only surpassed the Bullroarer at some point after drinking the Ent-draughts.


----------



## Elthir (May 30, 2014)

Galin said:


> (...) There are some relatively 'new' Tolkienian references to Hobbit height published by Hammond and Scull, but they are not specific to Merry and Pippin.



Here's my longer look at Hobbit height in general. Not that you asked :*D


But it includes 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 seem to have asked JRRT to supply drawings of hobbits for use in some future edition of _The Hobbit._
(...) The feet from the ankles down, covered with brown hairy fur. Clothing: green velvet breeches; red or yellow waistcoat; brown or green jacket; gold (or brass) buttons; a dark green hood and cloak (belonging to a dwarf).

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 states that at the time of the story 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. 

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


----------

