'Hobbits are an unobtrusive but very ancient people'.

They love the Shire, with its well-tilled earth and well-ordered towns.

The Hobbits are a stalwart race, strong of fibre and deep of character. They live to an average of around 70 years, and remain hale until late in life.

They are small folk, smaller than dwarves and rarely over four feet in height. Hobbits dress in bright colours, wearing no shoes or socks on their hairy feet.

They are quiet-footed folk, silent in their movements and watchful of ‘The Big Folk’, especially since the troubles of 1419, when Sharkey’s men terrorised the Shire.

Still their relations with the Men are cordial, and some Hobbits even choose to live outside The Shire in Bree and other nearby towns, with the Big Folk.

"By some curious chance one morning long ago in the quiet of the world, when there was less noise and more green, and the hobbits were still numerous and prosperous, and Bilbo Baggins was standing at his door after breakfast smoking an enormous long wooden pipe that reached nearly down to his woolly toes (neatly brushed) Gandalf came by."

"We are plain quiet folk and have no use for adventures. Nasty disturbing uncomfortable things! Make you late for dinner! I can't think what anybody sees in them," said our Mr. Baggins, and stuck one thumb behind his braces, and blew out another even bigger smoke-ring."

"As they sang the hobbit felt the love of beautiful things made by hands and by cunning and by magic moving through him, a fierce and jealous love, the desire of the hearts of dwarves."

"Then something Tookish woke up inside him, and he wished to go and see the great mountains, and hear the pine-trees and the waterfalls, and explore the caves, and wear a sword instead of a walking-stick."

"'No!' said Thorin. 'There is more in you of good than you know, child of the kindly West. Some courage and some wisdom, blended in measure. If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world. But sad or merry, I must leave it now. Farewell!'"

The Hobbit