Q: How Many Independent Hobbit Countries Were There In Middle-earth?
ANSWER: Was the Shire the only “independent” Hobbit nation in Middle-earth? Were there other Hobbit homelands where Hobbits ruled themselves? Tolkien does not say explicitly where Hobbits might have lived under their own authority, although it would appear that Gollum’s people — the Stoors of the Gladden Fields — lived far enough away from the settlements of Men to have their own independent region. But Tolkien offers no details about how numerous they might have been or how many villages they might have held.
The Stoors of Dunland may be candidates for another independent Hobbit group; however, Stoors settled in Dunland around Third Age year 1300 and remained there until 1636, the year of the Great Plague. According to some of Tolkien’s notes Gondor still held sway over much of Enedwaith during this time, if only to support its garrison at Tharbad and to keep the North-South road open for communication (and perhaps trade) with Cardolan and Eriador. Hence, the Stoors of Dunland may have acknowledged the rule of the Kings of Gondor.
Prior to the great Hobbit migrations into Eriador they supposedly lived close by communities of Men in the Vales of Anduin, living apart but relying upon their neighbors for protection. Hence, it is fair to ask if the Hobbits of the Vales of Anduin had not accepted the rule or partial rule of the tribal lords of the Northmen. Perhaps some of them even acknowledged the overlordship of the Kings of Rhovanion — although the Fallohides and Harfoots entered Eriador before Vidugavia allied himself with Gondor (Circa. Third Age year 1248).
In The Peoples of Middle-earth, Volume XII of The History of Middle-earth, Tolkien hints that the Hobbits may have settled in the upper Vales of Anduin early in the Third Age. There is certainly no mention of them in any of his Second Age notes and essays. Hence, it may be that somewhere in the Second Age there was a Hobbit homeland (or several) in the distant eastern lands.
If you are writing fan fiction or developing a role-playing adventure there is plenty of room for imagination the farther back you go in Tolkien’s history. If you want to imagine a vast Hobbit homeland somewhere in the very distant east that is destroyed by war with Sauron’s forces in the Second Age, setting off a Hobbit Folk Wandering, well, there is nothing in the Tolkien writings to contradict such an idea.
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The Hobbits seem willing to acknowledge suzerains where the situation calls for it. After all, they got a pretty good deal on the Shire. No tribute, only voluntary military levies – it’s little wonder the North-kingdom fell!
The remarks about Outsiders, in ‘At the Sign of the Prancing Pony’, do hint there might be more hobbit communities in existence. After crossing the Redhorn Pass (Tale of Years), the Stoors are said to have lived “between Tharbad and the borders of Dunland” (Prologue). With their watery affinities I’d say it’s a possibility there are some still living in the Swanfleet marshes. Reeds for thatching could provide an economic base, sold via Tharbad while it lasted.
Incidentally Gollum’s Stoorish community is ruled by “a grandmother of the folk, stern and wise in old lore, such as they had” (‘The Shadow of the Past’). This may be an instance of the so-called “original matriarchy” which was a current idea in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It was seen as an undeveloped form of society and could be particularly associated with the Celtic peoples, to whom the Stoors seem related, and who according to the ideas of the time were more “feminine” than the “manly” Germanic peoples. The Celtic link may also explain the People of Haleth. (The theory has subsequently fallen into disrepute due to lack of evidence. Before any feminists weigh in may I add that my information is from Rosemary Ruether, a respected feminist scholar [Goddesses and the Divine Feminine, 2004].)
Perhaps Smeagol’s grandmother was an Entwife.
Hm. That would introduce an entirely new aspect to investigating Gollum’s family tree….
Sorry. It had to be said.
OTOH, Tolkien qualifies his use of the word matriarch in letter #214:
Interesting, and I agree Letter 214 is conclusive that Smeagol’s tribe wasn’t a full-blown matriarchy. Still, the idea with its generally negative associations (non-‘Western’, and in its original formulation non-Hellenic-Roman and also non-Judaeo-Christian) seems to have been present in JRRT’s mind, as the continuation passage demonstrates:
It is likely enough that, in the recessive and decadent Stoor-country of Wilderland, the womenfolk (as is often to be observed in such conditions) tended to preserve better the physical and mental character of the past, and so became of special importance. But it is not (I think) to be supposed that any fundamental change in their marriage-customs had taken place, or any sort of matriarchal or polyandrous society developed (even though this might explain the absence of any reference whatever to Sméagol-Gollum’s father). ‘Monogamy’ was at this period in the West universally practised, and other systems were regarded with repugnance, as things only done ‘under the Shadow’.
The First Age chieftainess Haleth is even described as “a renowned Amazon with a picked bodyguard of women” (PoME, ‘Of Dwarves and Men’). Amazons were part (an even more fanciful one) of the matriarchal theory, which was due to Johann Bachofen (1815-1887).