Brown-skinned hobbits, part II

Silly me—the answer to the “brown-skinned hobbits” question was staring me in the face, in the Prologue to The Fellowship of the Ring. Hobbits are described as “rosy-cheeked”, which precludes having very dark skin, but later Tolkien explains the three hobbit sub-races: Harfoots, Stoors and Fallowhides. Harfoots are said to have browner skin than the other types of hobbit; they are also the most numerous and typical of hobbits, and the most likely to keep to their underground living habits. This makes it almost certain that Frodo was a Harfoot, and very likely that Sam was too, so they should have been somewhat darker skinned than they appear in the film (though given the rosy-cheeked criterion, we’re talking Mexican rather than Ethiopian here). As a Took, Pippin might be wholly or partly Fallowhide, which would give him pale skin and possibly blond hair (so Jackson got him right). Merry could have been anything, since Buckland has large numbers of Stoors and a few Fallowhides—he could even have had a bit of a beard, since the Stoors are closer to dwarves.