Sandheaver Family

The name of at least one family of Hobbits to be found in the Bree-land. This was one of many family names with similar origins found in Bree, and it may also have been used among the Shire-hobbits. Though no individual Sandheaver is directly described, it appears that such a Bree-hobbit was encountered by Frodo and his companions when they visited the Prancing Pony. It is unclear whether all the Sandheavers of the Bree-land dwelt in the town of Bree itself; most of the Hobbits of this region dwelt in the village of Staddle on the Bree-hill, and so the Sandheavers may have been more numerous there.

The name 'Sandheaver' appears to be an old one. It refers to the making of a Hobbit-hole within a bank or dune of sand, which in turn relates to ancient legends of Hobbit kind. In the stories remembered by the people of Rohan, the Hobbits were said to be found far away, and dwell in holes made in sand dunes. These stories came from a time centuries before the end of the Third Age, when the ancestors of the Rohirrim had lived in the Vales of Anduin, which implies that the Sandheaver family perhaps dated back into the ancient unrecorded past of the Halfling people.