Q: What Was the Significance of Height in Tolkien’s Stories?
ANSWER: A long-time blog reader submitted the following question in December 2020:
In Tolkiens writings there are a number people with a height that would seem unrealistic to me. So I’ve been wondering if this is Pengolodh associating importance and power with height. As in the more important the person is, the taller that person would be.
I’m mainly asking this because Elendil is reportedly 7.11 tall. Where the average woman, even among Numenoreans, would be much shorter. It seems rather unlikely to me someone that tall would find a wife. Even among elves women are considerably shorter than that. Galadriel was around 6.4 which was considered tall for a woman.
It feels to me like this is more part of a myth than it is actual reality.
What are your thoughts on this?
My opinion has long been influenced by a comment I read somewhere from someone who had (perhaps) written a biography of J.R.R. Tolkien. In 2016 I answered a similar question in What is the significance of height among Númenoreans?. There I wrote:
a very long time ago I read a critical book or essay that examined the apparent significance of height in Tolkien’s fiction…In the case of Tolkien’s use of height among his characters, however, there is a consistent pattern that the original essayist pointed out. All the very tallest characters tend to be the natural leaders.
I went on to connect this observation to that essay (as best I could remember it):
As I recall (and my memory may not be the best in this matter), the book or essay where I originally read this observation noted that the British Army recorded the heights of its soldiers during the First World War and some historian or sociologist had concluded that many of the tallest soldiers were descended from Norman, Scandinavian, or German families. In other words, British noble families and their closest relatives among the population are supposedly taller than average commoner families. This stereotype has been debated and challenged across many years but regardless of how J.R.R. Tolkien might have felt about it in real life, he seems to have found it to be a useful symbol in his literature.
And I also wrote:
The rise in stature occurs among Elves, Men, and Hobbits. They are tallest at the height of their cultural achievements and yet they dwindle as their gifts are withdrawn or their races somehow become diminished. This should not be treated as a sign of Ilúvatar’s displeasure. Tolkien doesn’t suggest that Hobbits experienced any kind of fall in becoming shorter today than they once were. Rather, the average height of the folk seems to reflect their circumstances in terms of culture, enlightenment, and resources.
I think now, 7 years later, that I was wrong to say this wasn’t a sign of Ilúvatar’s displeasure. I think the loss of stature among the Dunedain was intended to signify the “withdrawal of gifts” they experienced after the Downfall.
Christopher Tolkien published this note in Unfinished Tales of Numenor and Middle-earth:
The dwindling of the Dúnedain was not a normal tendency, shared by peoples whose proper home was Middle-earth; but due to the loss of their ancient land far in the West, nearest of all mortal lands to the Undying Realm.
The much later dwindling of Hobbits must be due to a change in their state and way of life; they became a fugitive and secret people, driven (as Men, the Big Folk, became more and more numerous, usurping the more fertile and habitable lands) to refuge in forest or wilderness: a wandering and poor folk, forgetful of their arts, living a precarious life absorbed in the search for food, and fearful of being seen.
Overtly the text simply says the Dúnedain became diminished because they were no longer dwelling close to Aman. But that was because they had been punlished by Ilúvatar for their rebellion. So even their previous hereditary stature had been due to the influence of their proximity to the holy realm of Aman, their exile to Middle-earth deprived them of that proximity and the removal of Aman from “the circles of the world” ensured they could never be close to Aman again. Also, at least in some of his late essays on Númenor, Tolkien wrote that the island itself seemed to nourish and protect the Númenoreans against disease. Even if they grew ill while visiting Middle-earth, returning to Númenor would (at least in their early days) help them recover. This seems to be part of the blessed nature of Númenor itself (at least in Tolkien’s later ideas).
So, yes, I think Tolkien was implying (at one time, at least) that the Dúnedain were being punished, or at least their previous rewards were being rescinded.
Great height was a sign of blessedness among Elves and Men. And apparently the Elves experienced a decline in stature – or never experienced a growth in stature – if they lived in Middle-earth and not in Aman.
So while the gradual diminishment in stature was not necessarily a punishment, it was a consequence of rebelling against or resisting the authority of the Valar.
See also
What Was the Significance of Height among Númenorreans?
Answers to Frequently Asked Questions about Tolkien Elves
Should Thorin Oakenshield Have Been Able to Wield Orcrist?
Did J.R.R. Tolkien’s Aragorn Use A Two-handed Sword?
When Did Hobbits become Divided into Fallohides, Stoors, and Harfoots?
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Have you read our other Tolkien and Middle-earth Questions and Answers articles?
Height is definitely treated as part of the symbolism, though I don’t doubt that Tolkien when he provides the measurements he fully intends them to be ‘real’ physical feature and trait. There are numerous refernces to height of various peoples across different texts, there both especially tall races and those of diminutive size (Drugs/woses and Hobbits named by the Dunedan Halflings indicating their size, and obviously Dwarves were short). Even the physical forms of the divine beings are in various texts or notes noted to be of “awe inspiring height” (like in Parma Eldalamberon) or in the letter where Tolkien describes Sauron physical shape as “greater than human stature but not gigantic” and so on! Valar appearing as tall and powerful, the Numenoreans being “taller than the tallest of the sons of Middle-earth”
Dunedain enjoying their special reward:
“Thus the years passed, and … the Dúnedain dwelt under the protection of the Valar and in the friendship of the Eldar, and they increased in stature both of mind and body.”
…
“Therefore they grew wise and glorious, and in all things more like to the Firstborn than any other of the kindreds of Men; and they were tall, taller than the tallest of the sons of Middle-earth”
Elves were very tall and Thingol was tallest among them supposedly! Even among the Hobbits those of the Fallohides the bolder and taller than the rest and so they were most often leaders among the hobbit clans! Looking at it from the perspective of simple common sense and reasoning, taller people are physicall more imposing, height gives advantages, longer reach and impact 🙂 with greater mass, tall people are more likely to be considered attractive 🙂 hehe, jokes aside being tall is definitely also mark of the societies with greater health and strength and virile wiht better conditions of living, it is said that we modern humans are on average taller than our ancestors due to the fact we live in different conditions and indeed as Martin wisely noted there are examples of change of the state and way of life.
Although I think it’s fair to say that Tolkien utilized a heightist ideology (if that’s a thing), I’d also say that once he began writing about Hobbits in earnest he turned the tables on the whole height ideology.
This passage about the first Elves of Cuiviénen seems to suggest that the Elves lost height as they gained wisdom.
“In the beginning the Elder Children of Ilúvatar were stronger and greater than they have since become; but not more fair, for though the beauty of the Quendi in the days of their youth was beyond all other beauty that Ilúvatar has caused to be, it has not perished, but lives in the West, and sorrow and wisdom have enriched it.” (Silm, ch. 3)
I assume this was a generational development, with each new generation being shorter and fairer on the whole than the one before. I suppose it could be taken to mean that individual elves tended to become shorter as they aged. Though Círdan is described as being tall in the final chapter of Lord of the Rings.
“As they came to the gates Círdan the Shipwright came forth to greet them. Very tall he was, and his beard was long, and he was grey and old, save that his eyes were keen as stars.”
So far as the questioner’s assertion that someone 7’11” tall would not be able to find a spouse, I can’t imagine that to be true. In our world, there have been a handful of men and one woman who reached that height. All of them ended up marrying and had normal family life. I can’t see why Elendil would not also be able to make a relationship work, and unlike them, his height did not come with a sentence of premature death
I agree with Hanna. Although Elendil seems to have been taller than most S.A. Numenoreans, there’s no evidence that he was of abnormal height. In other words seven foot plus men might have been relatively as numerous as, say, six foot sixers are nowadays. And thus it’s reasonable to suppose that the average female height was greater than it is among moderns. We know Elendil did find a wife, because he had two “mighty sons” (who were very likely almost as tall and imposing as the man himself). Mrs Elendil may have been seven feet plus tall, for all we know to the contrary. In the end, it was up to Tolkien how tall his characters were.
A major factor when it comes to height is nutrition in childhood. Go to the Tower of London and you will find Henry VIII as a young man was a good foot taller than the average mainly due to a high protein diet. In WW1 the British Army had to reduce its standards to allow people of 5ft 3 inches to enlist.
@michael It's worth noting that Tolkien was not the only writer to use height to imply/signify nobility or special status.
In case anyone is curious, I’m testing a WordPress plugin called ActivityPub that allows a blog to publish its posts to the Fediverse. Any Mastodon user can follow this blog through @michael (that is, search for this profile in your Mastodon app’s search box).
I posted the previous comment from my own Mastodon profile (Cf. https://c.im/@michael@middle-earth.xenite.org ).