Halfling

Last updated
Halfling
Halfling Thief.png
An illustration of a halfling.
GenreFantasy
Other name(s) Hobbit

Halflings are a fictional race found in some fantasy works. They tend to be depicted as physically similar to humans, except about half as tall and not as stocky as the similarly sized dwarves. Halflings often have slightly pointed ears and feet covered with curly hair and with leathery soles. They tend to be portrayed as stealthy and lucky. The term is derived for the word used in Scotland, Northern Ireland, and Northern England for a child who is not yet fully grown. Halflings are found many fantasy novels and games, including as an alternative term for hobbits in J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth and as playable humanoid races in Dungeons & Dragons.

Contents

Description

The members of the fictional halfling race are often depicted as similar to humans except about half as tall, and are not quite as stocky as the similarly sized dwarves. Similar to the depiction of hobbits in the works of J. R. R. Tolkien, which are sometimes called halflings, they have slightly pointed ears, their feet are covered with curly hair with leathery soles, and they tend to be portrayed as stealthy and lucky.

Etymology

Halfling is a word used in Scotland, Northern Ireland, and Northern England for a boy or girl who is not yet fully grown; a youth, an adolescent, and formerly sometimes a boy or young man employed in a junior role in domestic, agricultural, or industrial work. [1] Halflin derives from the Scot word hauflin, which was used before both The Hobbit and Dungeons & Dragons [2] and has the synonyms hobbledehoy and hobby. [2]

Usage in fantasy fiction

Haflings are found in some fantasy novels and games. In The Lord of the Rings , J. R. R. Tolkien occasionally used the term "halfling" to describe hobbits, since they are beings that are half the height of men. For instance, when the hobbit Pippin Took appears in a royal guard's uniform in Minas Tirith, the people of that city call him the "Prince of Halflings". [3] The term has since been used in other fiction works as an alternate name for hobbit-like peoples inspired by Tolkien's legendarium. [4]

Halflings have long been one of the playable humanoid races in Dungeons & Dragons (D&D), [2] starting with the original 1974 Men & Magic, [5] where the term hobbit was used. [2] Later editions of the original D&D box set began using the name halfling as an alternative to hobbit [6] for legal reasons. [7] Besides licensed D&D novels, halfling characters have appeared in various tabletop and video games.

Some fantasy stories use the term halfling to describe a person born of a human parent and a parent of another race, often a female human and a male elf. [8] Terry Brooks describes characters such as Shea Ohmsford from his Shannara series as a halfling of elf–human parentage. 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. [9] In Clifford D. Simak's 1959 short story "No Life of Their Own", halflings are invisible beings in a parallel dimension who, like brownies or gremlins, bring good or bad luck to people.[ citation needed ]

Examples

An example of a noteworthy halfling character featured in a series of novels based on the Forgotten Realms , a D&D campaign setting, is Regis, a halfling rogue member of the Companions of the Hall led by Drizzt Do'Urden. While he behaves in the stereotypical manner of Tolkien's hobbits, Bricken from io9 noted that Regis "set himself apart a bit by carrying a crystal pendant he can use to charm people", though he also finds himself into dangerous situations and ends up saving the day in the final battle of The Crystal Shard (1988) in a manner not unlike Bilbo Baggins. [10]

Related Research Articles

<i>The Hobbit</i> 1937 book by J. R. R. Tolkien

The Hobbit, or There and Back Again is a children's fantasy novel by the English author J. R. R. Tolkien. It was published in 1937 to wide critical acclaim, being nominated for the Carnegie Medal and awarded a prize from the New York Herald Tribune for best juvenile fiction. The book is recognized as a classic in children's literature and is one of the best-selling books of all time, with over 100 million copies sold.

Forgotten Realms is a campaign setting for the Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) fantasy role-playing game. Commonly referred to by players and game designers as "The Realms", it was created by game designer Ed Greenwood around 1967 as a setting for his childhood stories. Several years later, it was published for the D&D game as a series of magazine articles, and the first Realms game products were released in 1987. Role-playing game products have been produced for the setting ever since, in addition to novels, role-playing video game adaptations, comic books, and the film Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves.

In the philologist and fantasy author J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth fiction, a warg is a particularly large and evil kind of wolf that could be ridden by orcs. He derived the name and characteristics of his wargs by combining meanings and myths from Old Norse and Old English. In Norse mythology, a vargr is a wolf, especially the wolf Fenrir that destroyed the god Odin in the battle of Ragnarök, and the wolves Sköll and Hati, Fenrir's children, who perpetually chase the Sun and Moon. In Old English, a wearh is an outcast who may be strangled to death.

Hobbits are a fictional race of people in the novels of J. R. R. Tolkien. About half average human height, Tolkien presented hobbits as a variety of humanity, or close relatives thereof. Occasionally known as halflings in Tolkien's writings, they live barefooted, and traditionally dwell in homely underground houses which have windows, built into the sides of hills, though others live in houses. Their feet have naturally tough leathery soles and are covered on top with curly hair.

In J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth fiction, Man and Men denote humans, whether male or female, in contrast to Elves, Dwarves, Orcs, and other humanoid races. Men are described as the second or younger people, created after the Elves, and differing from them in being mortal. Along with Ents and Dwarves, these are the "free peoples" of Middle-earth, differing from the enslaved peoples such as Orcs.

Mithril is a fictional metal found in J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth writings. It is described as resembling silver, but being stronger and lighter than steel. It was used to make armour, such as the helmets of the citadel guard of Minas Tirith, and ithildin alloy, used to decorate gateways with writing visible only by starlight or moonlight. Always extremely valuable, by the end of the Third Age it was beyond price, and only a few artefacts made of it remained in use.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Drizzt Do'Urden</span> Fictional character from Dungeons & Dragons

Drizzt Do'Urden is a fictional character appearing in the Forgotten Realms campaign setting for the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game. Drizzt was created by author R. A. Salvatore as a supporting character in the Icewind Dale Trilogy. Salvatore created him on a whim when his publisher needed him to replace one of the characters in an early version of the first book, The Crystal Shard. Drizzt has since become a popular heroic character of the Forgotten Realms setting, and has been featured as the main character of a long series of books, starting chronologically with The Dark Elf Trilogy. As an atypical drow, Drizzt has forsaken both the evil ways of his people and their home in the Underdark, in the drow city of Menzoberranzan.

A half-elf is a mythological or fictional being, the offspring of an immortal elf and a mortal man. They are often depicted as very beautiful and endowed with magical powers; they may be presented as torn between the two worlds that they inhabit. Half-elves became known in modern times mainly through J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth writings but have origins in Norse mythology. A half-elf appeared in Lord Dunsany's 1924 book The King of Elfland's Daughter.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Catti-brie</span> Fictional character from Dungeons & Dragons

Catti-brie is a fictional character in the Forgotten Realms setting, based on the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game. The creation of American author R.A. Salvatore, she is primarily known as the love interest of the drow ranger Drizzt Do'Urden and has appeared in multiple media alongside Drizzt.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Takhisis</span> Fictional character

Takhisis is a fictional character from the Dragonlance universe. She is depicted as the main goddess of evil in the setting and head of the Dark Pantheon.

The word hobbit was used by J. R. R. Tolkien as the name of a race of small humanoids in his fantasy fiction, the first published being The Hobbit in 1937. The Oxford English Dictionary, which added an entry for the word in the 1970s, credits Tolkien with coining it. Since then, however, it has been noted that there is prior evidence of the word, in a 19th-century list of legendary creatures. In 1971, Tolkien stated that he remembered making up the word himself, admitting that there was nothing but his "nude parole" to support the claim that he was uninfluenced by such similar words as hobgoblin. His choice may have been affected on his own admission by the title of Sinclair Lewis's 1922 novel Babbitt. The Tolkien scholar Tom Shippey has pointed out several parallels, including comparisons in The Hobbit, with the word "rabbit".

Dwarf (<i>Dungeons & Dragons</i>) Fictional playable humanoid race

A dwarf, in the Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) fantasy roleplaying game, is a humanoid race, one of the primary races available for player characters. The idea for the D&D dwarf comes from the dwarves of European mythologies and J. R. R. Tolkien's novel The Lord of the Rings (1954-1955), and has been used in D&D and its predecessor Chainmail since the early 1970s. Variations from the standard dwarf archetype of a short and stout demihuman are commonly called subraces, of which there are more than a dozen across many different rule sets and campaign settings.

<i>Streams of Silver</i>

Streams of Silver is a fantasy novel by American writer R. A. Salvatore. It is the second book in his The Icewind Dale Trilogy.

<i>The Halflings Gem</i> 1990 novel by R. A. Salvatore

The Halfling's Gem is a 1990 fantasy novel by American writer by R. A. Salvatore, the third book in The Icewind Dale Trilogy.

<i>The Crystal Shard</i> 1988 novel by R. A. Salvatore

The Crystal Shard is a 1988 fantasy novel by American writer R. A. Salvatore. The first book in The Icewind Dale Trilogy, it was his first published novel.

The fictional races and peoples that appear in J. R. R. Tolkien's fantasy world of Middle-earth include the seven listed in Appendix F of The Lord of the Rings: Elves, Men, Dwarves, Hobbits, Ents, Orcs and Trolls, as well as spirits such as the Valar and Maiar. Other beings of Middle-earth are of unclear nature such as Tom Bombadil and his wife Goldberry.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wulfgar (Forgotten Realms)</span> Fictional character

Wulfgar, son of Beornegar, is the barbarian hero of Icewind Dale in the Forgotten Realms campaign setting, and one of the Companions of the Hall along with Drizzt Do'Urden, Catti-brie, Regis the halfling, and Bruenor Battlehammer. He is the creation of R.A. Salvatore.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Middle-earth</span> Continent in Tolkiens legendarium

Middle-earth is the setting of much of the English writer J. R. R. Tolkien's fantasy. The term is equivalent to the Miðgarðr of Norse mythology and Middangeard in Old English works, including Beowulf. Middle-earth is the human-inhabited world, that is, the central continent of the Earth, in Tolkien's imagined mythological past. Tolkien's most widely read works, The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, are set entirely in Middle-earth. "Middle-earth" has also become a short-hand term for Tolkien's legendarium, his large body of fantasy writings, and for the entirety of his fictional world.

<i>Saga of Old City</i>

Saga of Old City is a 1985 fantasy novel by Gary Gygax, set in the world of Greyhawk, which is based on the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Character race</span> Role-playing game terminology

Character race is a descriptor used to describe the various sapient species and beings that make up the setting in modern fantasy and science fiction. In many tabletop role-playing games and video games, players may choose to be one of these creatures when creating their player character (PC) or encounter them as a non-player character (NPC). "People" is to be taken in the broader sense, and may encompass ethnic groups, species, nationality or social groups.

References

  1. ↑ Oxford English Dictionary. July 2023. halfling, n. & adj.
  2. 1 2 3 4 Tresca, Michael J. (2010), The Evolution of Fantasy Role-playing Games, McFarland, p. 36, ISBN   978-0786460090
  3. ↑ Tolkien, J. R. R. (1955) The Return of the King , book 5, ch. 1 "Minas Tirith"
  4. ↑ Tyler, J. E. A. (2014). The Complete Tolkien Companion (3rd ed.). Macmillan. p. 77. ISBN   978-1466866454.
  5. ↑ by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson (1986). Dungeons & dragons : fantasy role playing game : basic rules (3rd ed. / rev. by Frank Mentzer ed.). Place of publication not identified: TSR. ISBN   0-9511444-0-5. OCLC   152411087.
  6. ↑ Weinstock, Jeffrey, ed. (2014). The Ashgate Encyclopedia of Literary and Cinematic Monsters. Ashgate Publishing. p. 193. ISBN   978-1409425625.
  7. ↑ Langford, David (2005). The Sex Column and Other Misprints. Wildside Press. p. 188. ISBN   1930997787.
  8. ↑ Clute, John; Grant, John (1999). The Encyclopedia of Fantasy. St. Martin's Press. p. 447. ISBN   9780312198695.
  9. ↑ Vance, Jack (1983). Lyonesse: Book I: Suldrun's Garden. Grafton Books. p. Glossary II: The Fairies. ISBN   0-586-06027-8.
  10. ↑ Bricken, Rob (June 26, 2020). "Dungeons & Dragons & Novels: Revisiting The Crystal Shard". io9. Retrieved 2020-12-28.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.