Character Bios
Pearl Took
Race/Species: Hobbit
Parents:
father: Paladin Took II, 31st Thain of the Shire
mother: Eglantine Banks
Siblings:
Pimpernel
Pervinca
Peregrin Took I (Pippin), 32nd Thain of the Shire
Description:
Pearl Took is the daughter of Paladin Took II, 31st Thain of the Shire, and Eglantine Banks, and the sister of Pimpernel, Pervinca, and Pippin, later Peregrin I, 32nd Thain of the Shire; she was also an attendant to Lalia Took, acting head of the Took family:
[Hobbit]... family names descended in the male-line...; also the titular head of the family was usually the eldest male.... If the master died first, his place was taken by his wife, and this included... the titular headship of a large family or clan. This title thus did not descend to the son, or other heir, while she lived.... It could, therefore, happen in various circumstances that a long-lived woman of forceful character remained 'head of the family', until she had full-grown grandchildren....
A well-known case... was that of Lalia the Great (or less courteously the Fat)... [She] ruled the Tooks and the Great Smials for 22 years, a great and memorable, if not universally beloved, 'matriarch'.... Her son, Ferumbras, had no wife, being unable (it was alleged) to find anyone willing to occupy apartments 1 in the Great Smials, under the rule of Lalia. Lalia, in her last and fattest years, had the custom of being wheeled to the Great Door, to take the air on a fine morning. In the spring of SY 1402 her clumsy attendant let the heavy chair run over the threshold and tipped Lalia down the flight of steps into the garden....
It was widely rumoured that the attendant was Pearl (Pippin's sister), though the Tooks tried to keep the matter within the family. At the celebration of Ferumbras' accession the displeasure and regret of the family was formally expressed by the exclusion of Pearl from the ceremony and feast; but it did not escape notice that later (after a decent interval) she appeared in a splendid necklace of her name-jewels that had long lain in the hoard of the Thains.
A superb strand of pearls, the name-jewels of Pippin's sister.
The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien, Edited by Humphrey Carpenter, Letter 214 to A. C. Nunn, 1958-59?
Notes
1 [Though] he became Thain Ferumbras III in 1380, [he] still occupied no more than a small bachelor-son's apartment in the Great Smials, until 1402.
The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien, Edited by Humphrey Carpenter, Letter 214 to A. C. Nunn, 1958-59?
Contributors:
Elena Tiriel 8May10
