XPost: rec.arts.books.tolkien   
   From: no.spam@no.spam   
      
   On 8/29/2011 8:41 PM, in "Re: Invisible Powers" Jerry Friedman wrote:   
      
    > --and even more mysteriously, hobbits start   
    > having beautiful blond babies.   
      
   Blondness and fair skin are genetic adaptations to life in northern   
   latitudes associated with the body's ability to synthesize   
   Vitamin D from exposure to sunlight. This accounts for Gollum's   
   craving for fish, a rich source of Vitamin D, because of his   
   avoidance of the "Yellow Face" and the resulting symptoms   
   of vitamin deficiency.   
      
   Ultraviolet-irradiated mushrooms are another source of Vitamin D,   
   explaining the Hobbits' fondness for them.   
      
   In fact, the Hobbits' short stature compared to normal Men   
   (from whom they differentiated "far back in the Elder Days that   
   are now lost and forgotten") was due to a mild but pandemic   
   Vitamin D deficiency among them resulting in a chronic impairment   
   of bone mineralization during their formative years. The Ent-draught   
   taken by Merry and Pippin while still in late childhood partially   
   reversed this trend as it was rich in Vitamin D2 having been filtered   
   through UV-irradiated fungi in Fanghorn Forest.   
      
   Blondness was a similar genetic adaptation, but remaining dormant   
   until the end of the Third Age. Why? Because bright yellow hair would   
   have made the Hobbits too visually conspicuous to predators in general   
   and agents of the Dark Lord in particular. With his downfall, the need   
   for the genetic inhibitors against blondness became obsolete.   
      
   With the removal of his baleful influence on the "Other Side",   
   to which we are all to some degree receptive ("Senses, too, there are   
   other than sight or smell") these inhibitors sensed the change and   
   automatically self-disabled, allowing the latent blond hair adaptation   
   to become manifest.   
      
   In the prologue to the _Lord of the Rings_ the author wrote:   
      
      Hobbits are an unobtrusive but very ancient people, more numerous   
      formerly than they are today...   
      
      It is plain indeed that in spite of later estrangement Hobbits   
      are relatives of ours: far nearer to us than Elves, or even   
      than Dwarves.   
      
      Those days, the Third Age of Middle-earth, are now long past, and   
      the shape of all lands has been changed; but the regions in which   
      Hobbits then lived were doubtless the same as those in which   
      they still linger: the North-West of the Old World, east of the Sea.   
      
   In other words, North-Western Europe. The question has been asked:   
   if Hobbits still live there, why haven't they been seen?   
      
   My answer: they have been! Once the Vitamin D deficiency problem   
   was resolved, Hobbits gradually regained the "natural" body height   
   and physique of Men and then mingled with us to the point where their   
   descendants are indistinguishable. Indeed it's doubtful whether anyone   
   of Hobbit descent is even aware of the fact.   
      
   Sean Quinlan   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)