The White Council

Re: Re Anduin (and now a side point on Hobbit Numbers)

Tolkien and Inklings Discussion

: : : Um, this would be the same Shire where Frodo, Sam, and : : : Pippin wandered for miles without coming across a town or : : : farmhouse, where Bilbo would go walking through the woods, : : : where the Tooks ambushed the Ruffians from the woods, where : : : Frodo, Sam, and Pippin met a company of Elves on a dark : : : country road with no one else (but the local Nazgul) around?

: : The Shire is primarily an agrarian/countryside area - you can : : walk through the Norfolk Fens in England for ages without : : seeing anyone, but its got a good population. Frodo did not : : want prying eyes watching him go - they kept to little used : : roads - otherwise they would have ploughed straight alone the : : Great East. 'Cross-Country'

: Frodo, Sam, and Pippin didn't walk through fens. They walked along a major road (it would not have appeared on the map otherwise) for much of their journey until they turned off on a short-cut.

Yes, this was just an example, I didn't mean to infer they did(although of course, they passed near the causeway over the fens at Rushey/Stock etc)

: And the hobbit towns weren't that large. The fact that Bilbo was able to accomodate the populations of Bywater and Hobbiton at The Party (which was held next to Bag End) shows that. So there wasn't that much need for farms. The Ruffians were spotted walking through open country just outside Bywater, which was on a major route (the East-West road).

No not large, perhaps around 1000 as I said earlier, Michel Delving the capital with a 'town' hall maybe 2 or 3,000

: And to sustain a family and provide a little extra food for income, a farm need only cultivate a few acres.

Depends on whether they used a self-sufficiency model. Hbbbits were the breadbasket of old Arthedain in the later years - implies large scale agriculture - the Dwarves refer to them as farmers too - seems a little more extensive than a veggie plot in the back garden to me.....

: [snip]

: : Remember, Hobbit society was developed enough to have lawyers, : : silver spoonware, craftsmen, millers etc etc - and they had : : 1400 years of 'relative' peace to expand.

: Yes, but they also depended on the Dwarves for some of their crafts, not because they couldn't make that stuff themselves, but because the Dwarves did it better and in exchange for food. Although trade with the Dwarves is probably what kept money in circulation in the Shire, the commerce indicates the Hobbits had few specialists of their own.

Yes agreed

: Also, it only took about 300 Ruffians to keep the Hobbits in line. Even a passive population cannot be too large, or it becomes unmanageable. How much the expanded Shirrifs were able to accomplish isn't clear, but Robin Smallburrow told Sam there were only hundreds, not thousands. Given that the Shire was essentially experiencing Martial Law, it seems unlikely there were more than 30-40,000 Hobbits.

Hobbits were almost wholly passive, not many had the guts to revolt. I'll just say the British in India here and we'll leave it at that.

: Buckland may have had 2-3,000 Hobbits. Probably correct, maybe a few more, but pretty much correct I reckon I still see about 100,000 as near the mark - if the towns on the map (and named elsewhere) have an average of 1000 hobbits each, and 3 times that number live in farms, villages etc. I think you'll come to about 100,000 maybe a few less, say 80-90k for the sake of argument Don Q