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>The implication in both books and movies is that most Hobbits spent their time either farming or enjoying leisure time, but this makes little sense, when one c

>The implication in both books and movies is that most Hobbits spent their time either farming or enjoying leisure time, but this makes little sense, when one considers what we know about premodern agriculture and what little of life and culture in the Shire. That's not even wrong. Medieval peasants in certain places like Italy had like half the year off as public holidays. And those of us old and rural enough to have seen pre-modern life in rural villages, known there was still a lot of leisure time going around. As for domestic chores, those were a couple of hours at max, intermingled with other work and leisure - and having the grandparents living close by meant more hands for helping with cooking, kids, and so on. In those villages there was (and still is, a little less so, but compared to modern city life orders of magnitude more) leisure time, people hang in the public square and cafes for hours on end, and it's not that different today. People from the city are often surprised like "wtf, is anybody working here?".

WalterBright 2y ago
I have serious doubts about such leisure time. For example, cooking with a fireplace is an all-day affair as it requires constant monitoring and a constant supply of wood. Next, making cloth and sewing it was a major time sink. The evidence for that was how valuable cloth was, such that it was recycled endlessly until it was more or less dust. Third, children were put to work in the fields as soon as they could walk. This does not suggest a surfeit of labor. Fourth, there was the daily feeding and maintenance of the animals. Fifth, have you ever tried sawing a plank with a handsaw? Building a house and a barn had to be a massive amount of hand work. Bone evidence from American colonist farmers is that they worked physically very hard, and did not live to be old. Getting enough food was a constant problem. They didn't grow very tall.
- coldtea 2y ago
  >For example, cooking with a fireplace is an all-day affair as it requires constant monitoring and a constant supply of wood. That's a modern urban misunderstanding. Tons of recipes they used to do (and we still do) just need a wood stove and the ocassional adding of woods every half hour or so (less if it's bigger). You put all the ingredients and let it cook (stews, potatoes and veggies, soups, the ocassional meat, eggs, greens, etc). And others just take a couple of hours. There's nothing about cooking with a wood stove (or a fireplace) that makes it a "full day affair" (huh?). Growing up in rural Europe we cooked with a woodstove primarily (this kind: https://stock.adobe.com/gr_en/search?k=old+wood+stove&asset_id=657714872 https://stock.adobe.com/gr_en/search?k=old+wood+stove&asset_... though less fancy) and it was never a problem for leisure time. We had a gas stove too, but the wood stove is what we cooked on 80% of the time. >Next, making cloth and sewing it was a major time sink.* You don't have to make clothes all the time. They didn't care for "fast fashion" trends back then. And you can sew while socializing even. >Third, children were put to work in the fields as soon as they could walk. That's because they were organically integrated into the family life and work. Everybody did some part. Doesn't mean they worked particulary hard, and even that was mostly not a thing in the 20th century, as rural kids still went to school just fine. >Fourth, there was the daily feeding and maintenance of the animals Which doesn't take that much, unless it's a larger for-profit business, which for the rural people it weren't - it was for their personal eggs, milk, and meat, and the ocassional exchange and gift. So small henhouses and such, takes next to no time. >Fifth, have you ever tried sawing a plank with a handsaw? Building a house and a barn had to be a massive amount of hand work. Luckily they didn't do it that often. Once per family was enough, and they could build it in a month or so (usually bringing in some people doing construction work too for the more advanced ones). They also added rooms piecemeal if they needed more. And in our parts, those rural village houses were made with bricks and stones, and many still stand, even centuries later (heck, many are still used). >Bone evidence from American colonist farmers is that they worked physically very hard, and did not live to be old. Getting enough food was a constant problem. They didn't grow very tall. Sucks to be them.
  - WalterBright 2y ago
    Did you go out and cut the wood, too? Haul it home? Every day? > Sucks to be them. Consider why they had to work so hard, and still died young and malnourished.
    - coldtea 2y ago
      >Did you go out and cut the wood, too? Haul it home? Every day? I've cut tree branches with a saw but just for "gardening" maintainance. More often we used to do it with a chainsaw, but for special purposes, not cutting down trees to get the season's wood. In the village there were people who cut the trees and sold the wood. So didn't have to personally cut down trees. Probably that was the case in any larger village in the 19th century too. I've hauled wood though - the bulk storage happens a few times a year (and it's just offloading what the guy brought), but from the storage to the woodstove/fireplace happened every day. Not a big deal. And if you have a carriage, which they did or someone in their village did, the former is not a big deal either. >Consider why they had to work so hard, and still died young and malnourished. Another common misconception. Birth/Early childhood death aside, the life expectance wasn't that different than today. And some of these rural communities even are in the "too many live to be 100" blue zones. Depends on the place I guess. People in some midwestern half-desert like New Mexico or Arizona probably fared differently than people in places full of green, fertile land, and running waters, like in many areas of rural Europe. Or people under some nasty feudal lord working them to the bone, versus independent villagers. For those, the main thing that did did them bad, was adverse weather messing the crops some years.
      - defrost 2y ago
        I'm > 60 and still median age in a rural community filled with quasi retired farmers born in the 1920s and 1930s .. they variously sheared, split wood every day, got up at 3 am to take bullock carts to to the local well to bring home tanks of water daily, etc. The GP has some odd ideas about manual labour killing people - here it was principally the lack of antibiotics that filled the cemetries and orphaned a good number of the people still alive here nearly a century later.
samth 2y ago
This is just entirely false. As a counterpoint, I recommend this passage about the washing in the Texas Hill County. https://x.com/trainallday247/status/1796732464838160650 https://x.com/trainallday247/status/1796732464838160650
- coldtea 2y ago
  Nothing about it is false. In fact it's lived experience. Sorry, we cooked with wood most of the time, kept animals, and even washed clothes and such by hand (no washing machines until much later). It really wasn't that big of a deal. And we weren't even that rural (next to decent sized city). I'm sure they had it harder in Texas or Utah or Alaska. Not a universal thing.
- Jataman606 2y ago
  It is funny to see how person who clearly takes all their knowledge from books tells other person their actual experience couldn't happen, because that is what some book says. I'm not person who you replied to, but just from reading their comment I immediately knew they are talking from experience, because i partly saw, partly know from stories of my parents and grandparents, exactly the same kind of lifestyle. Should i now say that your source is "entirely false"?

WalterBright 2y ago

I have serious doubts about such leisure time. For example, cooking with a fireplace is an all-day affair as it requires constant monitoring and a constant supply of wood. Next, making cloth and sewing it was a major time sink. The evidence for that was how valuable cloth was, such that it was recycled endlessly until it was more or less dust. Third, children were put to work in the fields as soon as they could walk. This does not suggest a surfeit of labor. Fourth, there was the daily feeding and maintenance of the animals. Fifth, have you ever tried sawing a plank with a handsaw? Building a house and a barn had to be a massive amount of hand work. Bone evidence from American colonist farmers is that they worked physically very hard, and did not live to be old. Getting enough food was a constant problem. They didn't grow very tall.

coldtea 2y ago
>For example, cooking with a fireplace is an all-day affair as it requires constant monitoring and a constant supply of wood. That's a modern urban misunderstanding. Tons of recipes they used to do (and we still do) just need a wood stove and the ocassional adding of woods every half hour or so (less if it's bigger). You put all the ingredients and let it cook (stews, potatoes and veggies, soups, the ocassional meat, eggs, greens, etc). And others just take a couple of hours. There's nothing about cooking with a wood stove (or a fireplace) that makes it a "full day affair" (huh?). Growing up in rural Europe we cooked with a woodstove primarily (this kind: https://stock.adobe.com/gr_en/search?k=old+wood+stove&asset_id=657714872 https://stock.adobe.com/gr_en/search?k=old+wood+stove&asset_... though less fancy) and it was never a problem for leisure time. We had a gas stove too, but the wood stove is what we cooked on 80% of the time. >Next, making cloth and sewing it was a major time sink.* You don't have to make clothes all the time. They didn't care for "fast fashion" trends back then. And you can sew while socializing even. >Third, children were put to work in the fields as soon as they could walk. That's because they were organically integrated into the family life and work. Everybody did some part. Doesn't mean they worked particulary hard, and even that was mostly not a thing in the 20th century, as rural kids still went to school just fine. >Fourth, there was the daily feeding and maintenance of the animals Which doesn't take that much, unless it's a larger for-profit business, which for the rural people it weren't - it was for their personal eggs, milk, and meat, and the ocassional exchange and gift. So small henhouses and such, takes next to no time. >Fifth, have you ever tried sawing a plank with a handsaw? Building a house and a barn had to be a massive amount of hand work. Luckily they didn't do it that often. Once per family was enough, and they could build it in a month or so (usually bringing in some people doing construction work too for the more advanced ones). They also added rooms piecemeal if they needed more. And in our parts, those rural village houses were made with bricks and stones, and many still stand, even centuries later (heck, many are still used). >Bone evidence from American colonist farmers is that they worked physically very hard, and did not live to be old. Getting enough food was a constant problem. They didn't grow very tall. Sucks to be them.
- WalterBright 2y ago
  Did you go out and cut the wood, too? Haul it home? Every day? > Sucks to be them. Consider why they had to work so hard, and still died young and malnourished.
  - coldtea 2y ago
    >Did you go out and cut the wood, too? Haul it home? Every day? I've cut tree branches with a saw but just for "gardening" maintainance. More often we used to do it with a chainsaw, but for special purposes, not cutting down trees to get the season's wood. In the village there were people who cut the trees and sold the wood. So didn't have to personally cut down trees. Probably that was the case in any larger village in the 19th century too. I've hauled wood though - the bulk storage happens a few times a year (and it's just offloading what the guy brought), but from the storage to the woodstove/fireplace happened every day. Not a big deal. And if you have a carriage, which they did or someone in their village did, the former is not a big deal either. >Consider why they had to work so hard, and still died young and malnourished. Another common misconception. Birth/Early childhood death aside, the life expectance wasn't that different than today. And some of these rural communities even are in the "too many live to be 100" blue zones. Depends on the place I guess. People in some midwestern half-desert like New Mexico or Arizona probably fared differently than people in places full of green, fertile land, and running waters, like in many areas of rural Europe. Or people under some nasty feudal lord working them to the bone, versus independent villagers. For those, the main thing that did did them bad, was adverse weather messing the crops some years.
    - defrost 2y ago
      I'm > 60 and still median age in a rural community filled with quasi retired farmers born in the 1920s and 1930s .. they variously sheared, split wood every day, got up at 3 am to take bullock carts to to the local well to bring home tanks of water daily, etc. The GP has some odd ideas about manual labour killing people - here it was principally the lack of antibiotics that filled the cemetries and orphaned a good number of the people still alive here nearly a century later.

samth 2y ago

This is just entirely false. As a counterpoint, I recommend this passage about the washing in the Texas Hill County. https://x.com/trainallday247/status/1796732464838160650 https://x.com/trainallday247/status/1796732464838160650

coldtea 2y ago
Nothing about it is false. In fact it's lived experience. Sorry, we cooked with wood most of the time, kept animals, and even washed clothes and such by hand (no washing machines until much later). It really wasn't that big of a deal. And we weren't even that rural (next to decent sized city). I'm sure they had it harder in Texas or Utah or Alaska. Not a universal thing.
Jataman606 2y ago
It is funny to see how person who clearly takes all their knowledge from books tells other person their actual experience couldn't happen, because that is what some book says. I'm not person who you replied to, but just from reading their comment I immediately knew they are talking from experience, because i partly saw, partly know from stories of my parents and grandparents, exactly the same kind of lifestyle. Should i now say that your source is "entirely false"?