Shippey often finds comparisons with Tolkien’s literature and Tolkien’s life, while remaining faithful to Tolkien’s emphasis that his works are not allegorical. Hobbits were a lesser known “form of spirits” before Tolkien wrote, “In a hole in the ground there lived a Hobbit.” His assessment of a hobbit immediately creates a history for a folk story’s unknown creature.
While some have drawn a comparison between rabbits and hobbits, Tolkien outwardly rejected the theory and I agree with the author. Hobbits seem very similar to stereotypical English farmers. While a farmer’s home might not be a literal hole in the ground, many have been considered such as a metaphor. Hobbits become scarce when the outside world comes blundering in just as many farmers are more concerned with crops and the green fields than worldly affairs. Shippey relates how England itself consists of a strict social structure and Bilbo Baggins falls into the bourgeois class. Bilbo has obtained wealth through the generations similar to how a countryside landowner would collect from the peasants and farmers who tend to the land.
Shippey relates how devoted to Norse and Anglo-Saxon folklore Tolkien was. Names such as Gandalf and the dwarfs’ stem from Norse mythology and even terms such as Middle-Earth, Ents, and dwarf are linked to Beowulf. Judging from the correlation of English folklore to Tolkien’s folklore, it is apparent that Tolkien was creating a mythology for England, inspired by England. Perhaps Tolkien felt he was linking all of England’s scattered myths together and relating it to the English. By writing about hobbits with pipes and railways he bridges the gap of time in the original folk stories to modern England. I find that with concessions such as modern instruments in a seemingly ancient tale, an audience can find themselves relating to the story.
Tolkien evidently draws upon the collective folklore of England to create a unified mythology that is not allegorical so much as it is influenced by English history.
