The Wisdom of the Shire

Hobbits love to walk. They’ll march from one end of the Shire to the other to steal apples from a particularly good tree or to partake of an excellent beer. It’s a good thing they’re born with the perfect feet for tromping—big, leathery soles and covered with protective hair—because the heroic Halflings end up walking thousands of miles on their various journeys throughout Middle-earth.*

Before Frodo sets off to destroy the Ring of Doom, he’s become famous in the Shire for his broad wanderings. (He’d learned this love of “tramping” about with his uncle Bilbo when he was a lad.) Frodo would walk far from home, in woods and hills and under starlight, simply for the joy of wandering. And then the young Hobbit started wondering what lay at the edge of maps, and his explorations took him farther from home. Frodo began dreaming of high mountains—walking had kindled his inner life and desire for adventure.*

Anyone who has walked around Warwickshire, England, in the glory of summertime knows what the Shire might look like in real life—for this area of England was the childhood inspiration for Tolkien’s fantasy world. In “the Heart of England” as it’s called, there are public footpaths wending mile after mile through beautiful countryside: on the edges of fields where giant rolls of hay dry in the sun; up hills where lazy ponies munch the grass under ancient oaks; by old crumbling walls of dry-stacked stone; past small copses filled with birdsong and thence into a village with a welcoming pub. That’s what one of Frodo’s jaunts through his beloved country might have looked like to his Halfling’s eyes.

Many physicians agree: walking is one of the healthiest activities for humans. So how come we’ve all become slaves to our cars? The average American spends nearly an hour in their car to and from work every day. Most healthy people could manage to walk nearly four miles in that amount of time. But it’s difficult to walk safely in many areas where sidewalks don’t even exist—where pedestrian paths became casualties of urban planning and virtually disappeared from neighborhoods built after World War II. It’s one of the reasons Americans feel so vulnerable when we’re outside of our powerful engines on wheels.

The Hobbits live in a world that doesn’t have cars or trains or ludicrous transportation devices like the Segway. Horses are expensive to keep (even in the Shire) and mainly used for plowing or pulling carts. So the best way to get around is to walk.* It’s nothing for a Hobbit to walk fifteen miles or more in a day. Many of us have heard stories from our grandparents about how they had to hoof it several miles in each direction to get to and from school, and they were proud of the fact to boot! Walking great distances used to be the norm in our society.

For Hobbits the act of walking is a sort of art form. They have a style to their outings—a ritual. They usually carry a walking stick* with them (good for knocking apples off a high limb or keeping one’s balance when scrambling down a craggy hillside) and Tolkien tells us they like to hum when they stroll—usually when they are approaching home after a long day’s excursion and are getting excited about the prospects of a warm fire, a good meal and a cozy bed.*

When Frodo, Sam and Pippin are leaving Hobbiton for Crickhollow they hum an ancient “walking-song” that’s as “old as the hills.” Bilbo had written words for this tune, and Frodo sings it for his friends. The song describes the joys of setting out on a little walking adventure, and the excitement at discovering a beautiful sight in nature no one else has ever beheld before.

The Hobbits are not the only ones who roam around Middle-earth. Aragorn is known to the people of Bree by the name “Strider” because of his vigorous walking habit. The Ranger is perfectly capable of riding, but he goes on foot because he can detect things he would never see if he were on horseback. Everywhere I’ve traveled in my life I’ve kept this notion in mind. When I’m in a big city I go on foot as much as I possibly can. I’ve seen remarkable surprises in big cities like New York, London, Paris and Mumbai that I never would have witnessed had I been in the back of a cab, or on an underground train.*

Walking isn’t just an invigorating exercise that’s healthy for one’s body. It’s also a restorative for the mind and soul. When the eight remaining Companions (minus one Balrog-fighting wizard) arrive in Lothlórien after their terrifying ordeal in Moria, one of the things they do to recuperate is to walk amongst the sylvan woods, blissing out on the leaf-strewn paths that wend through the trees. Years before, when Aragorn was a young man, he’d been walking meditatively in these very same woods when he came across the ravishing Arwen Evenstar, also out for a little stroll. It was here that he fell instantly in love with the woman with whom he would eventually plight his troth. You never know what’s going to happen when you go for a walk in the woods!

Tom Bombadil is another famous Middle-earth walking fiend. In The Adventures of Tom Bombadil he’s described as spending his day walking about meadows, playing with bees and “chasing after shadows” in his high-top yellow leather footwear. After Bombadil saves the Hobbits from Old Man Willow, he takes off down the forest path so quickly even the stout-legged Halflings can’t keep up with him. And when they awake in the strange man’s house the next day, old Traipsing Tom is already back from his predawn hike across the hilltops, like some sort of ultra-marathoner out for his morning workout.

Gandalf is also a great walker. He’s known to the Elves as the Grey Wanderer—a renowned and unwearying rambler. Most of the time Gandalf is on foot with his walking staff clutched in one hand. The wizard is, in fact, out for a walk on the day he ambles up to Bilbo’s door on that auspicious morning he invites the perplexed Master of Bag End to go on an adventure.

Years later, when Frodo watches Gandalf leave Bag End he muses that although the wizard appears to be a bent old man, he has a surprisingly sturdy gait. Gandalf has kept himself fit for the long centuries he’s lived in Middle-earth by exercising his legs. He only tames and rides Shadowfax because he has desperate need of speed.*

For years I lived in a town in the foothills of the Siskiyou Mountains of Southern Oregon in a little cottage perched on a hillside. The town is called Ashland,* but my friend—a wizardy white-bearded carpenter I worked for—always referred to it as “Hobbiton” because it felt like the Shire. Ashland is located farther from any major metropolitan city than any other small town in America, and so it seemed protected and isolated from the outside world. People living there love to garden, and take long walks in the hills, and eat at one of the hundred or so restaurants in this tourist town (a Hobbit’s dream).

Often, I would go an entire week without driving a car in Ashland. I walked there more than I had in my entire life. My wife and parents and I would go on long perambulations nearly every day—step right outside our back door and head up into the hills on the old logging roads above the town, strolling for miles and miles. We felt incredibly healthy and happy. In the recent study of Blue Zones around the world (pockets of civilization where people live to be a hundred years old at ten times the frequency as the United States) walking is one of the keys to longevity. Walking builds bone density and encourages weight loss. It also clears the head.

When Bilbo himself sets out from Bag End for Rivendell in The Fellowship of the Ring, he sings “The Road Goes Ever On,” a ditty he’d composed upon his return home after the adventure with the Dwarves. He heads to the open road on this new adventure—now unburdened from the Ring—with “eager feet” and a song on his lips. Unless we all want to look like Fatty Bolger (the portliest inhabitant of Hobbiton) we need to stop driving everywhere and get walking like those illustrious Proudfoots of the Shire.*

The Wisdom of the Shire Tells Us …

“No matter where you live, whether it be city, town or countryside, let your eager feet lead you to wellness, peace of mind and adventure.”