Hobbits are something between a half and a third of the stature of Men; but are often imagined, and usually depicted, with feet that are (compared with Men) disproportionately large - sometimes horrifyingly so (see above).
But the same size-exaggeration must also apply to their hands.
In both The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings, hobbits use Men's long knives as effective swords; to do this they must surely have had similar-sized hands.
Furthermore, the legendary hobbit ability to throw stones would seem to imply that their hands were significantly larger than Man-children of about six-eight years old, who are of similar height.
And (H/T to Philip Neal in the comments!) The One Ring apparently fits hobbit fingers as snugly as the hand of Isuldur: a Man of exceptionally great stature.
Gollum (a proto-hobbit) is imagined and depicted with relatively-large hands - although this might be regarded as an effect of possessing the One Ring; but textual evidence suggests that the same ought to apply to normal hobbits.
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Acknowledgment: The core idea is due to my son Billy, with the additional point about throwing coming from my wife. Such are our meal time conversations...
5 comments:
And when you think about it, the Ring fits as snugly on hobbit fingers as on Isildur's. Thank you! Some things are obvious once they are pointed out.
@Philip Neal - That's an excellent point, which I shall add to the post!
I don't think the case is that strong, though I have always thought they had larger than proportional hands too.
The knife haft argument I find strongest.
But, the stone throwing ability argument surely depends on the size of the rocks? The known victims of hobbit throws are small animals, birds, spiders and goblins, none of whom would require a large rock to be menaced.
Then for the ring, well we know the ring can slip off fingers, and the implication is it changes size to do so. Also it fit Sauron before Isildur, and Sauron was larger than Isildur I believe.
A 4th argument for large hands is Biblo pinching a troll's purse with I assume one hand, and troll purses are said to be very large. Large hands or very strong hands make that act plausible.
@Lucas - You seem to be operating from the prior assumptions of hobbit hands in proportion with Man stature - and starting from that assumption you are trying to refute it: prove that it can't be correct. The deck is stacked in favour of the prior assumption as default.
But I don't see any reason why we should assume that hobbit hands are in the same proportion as with Men, and therefore hands smaller than men.
But, surely, this is an open question and there is no reason for a prior assumption - and therefore when any evidence points at hobbits having the same sized hands as Men, and nothing goes against that - then the above argument seems perfectly sufficient to prove the point?
Interesting point about Sauron, though. My memory is that he was implied to be about the same size as a Numenorean Man (or the Eldar), i.e. about 6ft 6 inches; and therefore Sauron probably had the same sized hands as Isildur - and therefore as a hobbit.
Yes, the ring can loosen and fall off when it wishes, but that isn't the same as the gross change in diameter that would be needed for a large Man's ring to fit an 8 year old's hand.
Note: we need to distinguish Morgoth from Sauron. Morgoth (one of the Valar) was much bigger than Men or elves; but Sauron is a Maia - like Gandalf, Saruman, Radagast - so probably Not of huge stature - he lived and worked alongside Celebrimbor and the Noldor, in their forges.
Perhaps the impression that Sauron was of massive size (troll or ent sized, or even a giant) comes from the movie depiction, not the books?
That's a good point about proportion.
I wasn't thinking Sauron troll sized, rather only about 7 or maybe 8 feet tall at the time he lost the ring (only!) . He had lost his 'fair' body which I think is the form that was directly compared with men and elves and had to remake himself. I thought he would chose a size that would be more intimidating to large men and elves, since at that point he was open about his ambitions.
And there could be some movie influence there, it's hard to get rid of that.
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