The latest ‘Rings of Power’ episode gave the most beautiful nod to the Shire
Raise your hand if The Lord of the Rings made you want to live like a hobbit in the Shire. You’ll notice a few of the Stoors from The Rings of Power raising their hands too, because the show just gave us a beautiful origin story of the Shire with these new hobbit-like characters!
Spoilers ahead for TROP season 2 episode 4!
The Rings of Power season 2 loves filling in the blanks in the history of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle-earth with interesting interpretations of existing lore. You might already know that there are three kinds of hobbits as described by Tolkien—The Harfoots, the Stoors, and the Fallowhides. In season 1, we met the Harfoots, who can be assumed to be the ancestors of the hobbits of the Shire that we know and love. And now in season 2, as Nori (Markella Kavenagh), Poppy (Megan Richards), and The Stranger (Daniel Weyman) journey to the dessert land of Rhûn, we are being introduced to the Stoors, another early hobbit race.
In season 2 episode 4, Nori and Poppy are separated from the Stranger due to the sandstorm he created to drive off the Gaudrim sent by the Dark Wizard (Ciarán Hinds). While the Stranger finds Tom Bombadil (Rory Kinnear), the two Harfoot besties stumble upon someone exactly like them, which surprises them because what are Harfoots doing in Rhûn? They find out that his name is Merimac (Gavi Singh Chera), and he is a Stoor, which is pretty much like a Harfoot, and there is a whole settlement of them living within one of the canyons.
The Stoors live in holes that are dug in the stone, which surprises Nori and Poppy, who are a wandering folk and have never had a permanent home. But to us LOTR fans, these are easily reminiscent of the hobbits holes of the Shire! And if your first thought when you looked at how these Stoors lived was that they’re somehow going to influence the Harfoots’ living style, which years later would evolve into the hobbit holes where Frodo, Sam, and others used to live, well, you’re not wrong! The Rings of Power’s writers have actually found a beautiful way to connect the two!
When at first Gundabel (Tanya Moodie), the leader of The Stoors, meets Nori and Poppy, she wants nothing to do with them and believes they’re involved in some mischief with the Dark Wizard. She wants them out, which doesn’t surprise to Nori, because had a Stoor walked into their Harfoot camp like this, their leader, the late Sadoc Burrows (Lenny Henry) would’ve done the exact same thing. Nori says this out loud, and the name “Burrows” catches Gundabel by surprise, and she takes Nori to show her some drawings on one of their hole walls.
Turns out, long ago, one of the Stoors named Rorimas Burrows, left his people and travelled from Rhûn in search of a land of rivers and rolling hills with mud so soft that you could dig a hole in them within a day and start living in it. He called that land The Sûzat. Gundabel then proceeds to ask if Rorimas did indeed find The Sûzat and if Nori was one of his people who called such a land her home. Unfortunately, Nori gives her the sad news that Rorimas never really found this land, and then he and his people just kept wandering, which is how the Harfoots now live.
But this moment helps Gundabel recognise a kinship with Nori and Poppy and she lets them stay with her people. And it also confirms something that Nori had been saying for some time now and was laid plain by the fact that Poppy’s Walking Song was actually a map—the Harfoots had been to Rhûn before, and probably came from there to the Rhovanion in search of this bountiful land!
So what is The Sûzat?
Oh, you know this! The Stoors speak a language known as Westron, or the Common Tongue, and it could’ve had some local regional influences too. And guess what “Shire” is called in Westron? “Sûza” or “Sûzat” which would mean “The Shire!”
According to the lore, the hobbits that lived in the Rhovanion left it to move west of the Misty Mountains to the region of Eriador, and eventually in the Third Age, colonised the county that became known as The Shire. Now it is unclear if The Stoors will attempt Rorimas Burrows’ expedition again and journey from Rhûn, with Poppy the trailfinder assisting them, or if Nori and Poppy will return home to the Harfoots, taking the Stoor way of life and Rorimas’ dream back to their people, which begins the tradition of living in holes, and their descendants will be the ones that one day inhabit The Shire.
Either way, this was a nice little nod to this beautiful county that every Tolkien fan calls home!
Have a tip we should know? tips@themarysue.com
