Halfling

Halfling is another name for J. R. R. Tolkien's Hobbit,[1] a fictional race found in some fantasy novels and games. They are often depicted as similar to humans except about half as tall. Dungeons & Dragons began using the name halfling as an alternative to hobbit[2] for legal reasons.[3]

Originally, "halfling" comes from the Scots word hauflin, meaning an awkward rustic teenager, who is neither man nor boy, and so half of both. Another word for halfling is "hobbledehoy" or "hobby". This usage of the word pre-dates both The Hobbit and Dungeons & Dragons.[4]

Some fantasy stories use the term halfling to describe a person born of a human parent and a parent of another race, often a human female and a male elf. Terry Brooks describes characters such as Shea Ohmsford from his Shannara series as a halfling of elf–human parentage. This kind of character is elsewhere called a half-elf and is distinct from the fantasy race known as halflings. In Jack Vance's Lyonesse series of novels, "halfling" is a generic term for beings such as fairies, trolls and ogres, who are composed of both magical and earthly substances.[5]

Halfling characters have appeared in various tabletop and video games. The halflings have long been one of the playable humanoid races in Dungeons & Dragons.[4]

Music

Comic horror rock band Rosemary's Billygoat recorded a song and video called "Hobbit Feet", about a man who takes a girl home from a bar only to discover she has horrifying "hobbit feet". According to lead singer Mike Odd, the band received over 100 pieces of hate mail from angry Tolkien fans.[6]

In science

Main article: Homo floresiensis

The skeletal remains of several diminutive paleolithic hominids were discovered on the Indonesian island of Flores in 2004. These tiny people, named Homo floresiensis after the island on which the remains were found,[7] were informally dubbed "hobbits"[8] by their discoverers in a series of articles published in the scientific journal Nature.[9] The excavated skeletons reveal a hominid that (like a hobbit) grew no larger than a three-year-old modern child and had proportionately larger feet than modern humans.[10] The original skeleton, a female, stood at just 1 meter (3.3 feet) tall, weighed about 25 kilograms (55 pounds), and was around 30 years old at the time of her death. Further analysis of the remains using a regression equation indicated that Homo floresiensis was approximately 106 cm (3 ft 6 in) tall — far smaller than the modern pygmies, whose adults grow to no more than 150 cm (4 ft 11 in).[11] Thus far, nine skeletons of Homo floresiensis dating from approximately 38,000 to 13,000 years ago have been excavated, suggesting that these "hobbits" would have shared the island with dwarf elephants, giant rats, and Komodo dragons.[12]

Whether the "hobbit" skeletons represent a species distinct from modern humans has been a subject of scientific debate. In addition to their small size and big feet, the skull and arm bones of Homo floresiensis differ from those of modern humans.[13][14] Critics of the claim for species status argue that these differences were caused by pathologies of anatomy and physiology. In contrast, a 2009 article in the Journal of the Royal Statistical Society noted that “attempts to dismiss the hobbits as pathological people have failed repeatedly because the medical diagnoses of dwarfing syndromes and microcephaly bear no resemblance to the unique anatomy of Homo floresiensis.”[11][15]

References

  1. ↑ Tyler, J. E. A. (2014), The Complete Tolkien Companion (3rd ed.), Macmillan, p. 77, ISBN 1466866454.
  2. ↑ Weinstock, Jeffrey, ed. (2014), The Ashgate Encyclopedia of Literary and Cinematic Monsters, Ashgate Publishing, Ltd., p. 193, ISBN 1409425622.
  3. ↑ Langford, David (2005), The Sex Column and Other Misprints, Wildside Press LLC, p. 188, ISBN 1930997787.
  4. 1 2 Tresca, Michael J. (2010), The Evolution of Fantasy Role-playing Games, McFarland, p. 36, ISBN 0786460091.
  5. ↑ Vance, Jack (1983). Lyonesse: Book I: Suldrun's Garden. London UK: Grafton Books. p. Glossary II: The Fairies. ISBN 0-586-06027-8.
  6. ↑ Koudounaris, Paul (January 16, 2013). "Rosemary's Billygoat: A Big Hairy Kick in the Behind from Hobbit Fans". LA Record.
  7. ↑ Morwood, M. J.; Soejono, R. P., Roberts, R. G., Sutikna, T., Turney, C. S. M., Westaway, K. E., Rink, W. J., Zhao, J.- X., van den Bergh, G. D., Rokus Awe Due, Hobbs, D. R., Moore, M. W., Bird, M. I. & Fifield, L. K. (October 28, 2004). "Archaeology and age of a new hominin from Flores in eastern Indonesia". Nature. 431 (7012): 1087–1091. doi:10.1038/nature02956. PMID 15510146.
  8. ↑ Zimmer, Carl (20 June 2016). "Are Hobbits Real?". New York Times. Retrieved 21 June 2016.
  9. ↑ Brown, P.; Sutikna, T., Morwood, M. J., Soejono, R. P., Jatmiko, Wayhu Saptomo, E. & Rokus Awe Due (27 October 2004). "A new small-bodied hominin from the Late Pleistocene of Flores, Indonesia". Nature. 431 (7012): 1055–61. doi:10.1038/nature02999. PMID 15514638.
  10. ↑ McKie, Robin (21 February 2010). "How a hobbit is rewriting the history of the human race". The Observer. Retrieved 8 January 2011.
  11. 1 2 "'Hobbits' Are a New Human Species, According to Statistical Analysis of Fossils". Science Daily. 19 November 2009.
  12. ↑ Morwood M. J.; Brown, P., Jatmiko, Sutikna, T., Wahyu Saptomo, E., Westaway, K. E., Rokus Awe Due, Roberts, R. G., Maeda, T., Wasisto, S. & Djubiantono, T. (13 October 2005). "Further evidence for small-bodied hominins from the Late Pleistocene of Flores, Indonesia". Nature. 437 (7061): 1012–1017. doi:10.1038/nature04022. PMID 16229067.
  13. ↑ "'Hobbit' skull found in Indonesia is not human, say scientists". Daily Mail. 7 May 2009. Retrieved 8 January 2011.
  14. ↑ "Homo floresiensis and the evolution of the hominin shoulder" (PDF). Journal of Human Evolution. 14 June 2007.
  15. ↑ Jungers, William; Baab, Karen (2009). "The geometry of hobbits: Homo floresiensis and human evolution". Significance. 6 (4): 159–164. doi:10.1111/j.1740-9713.2009.00389.x.
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