Encyclopedia of Arda: The Fat

There are several characters in Tolkien's works whose defining characteristic is their girth. Perhaps the best known is Forlong the Fat, the Lord of Lossarnach who met his fate in the Battle of the Pelennor Fields. There were also two Hobbits who shared the title, Otto Boffin and Lalia Clayhanger. Otto the Fat was an important patriarch of the Boffins, and the ancestor of most of the members of that family named in The Lord of the Rings. Lalia the Fat (or, more politely, Lalia the Great) was the widow of Thain Fortinbras Took II of the Shire.

Forlong	The old Lord of Lossarnach at the time of the War of the Ring, said to have been grey-bearded and of immense bulk. He rode to the defence of Minas Tirith with two hundred of his men, and he died in the Battle of the Pelennor Fields.
Lalia Clayhanger	A famous matriarch of the Took family, the widow of Thain Fortinbras II, who managed the household of the Tooks for twenty-two years after her husband's death.
Otto Boffin	An important member of the Boffin family who lived in the thirteenth century of the Third Age (by the Shire-reckoning), Otto was the ancestor of many of the later Boffins, and great-grandfather to Lotho Sackville-Baggins.

Though only two Hobbits were explicitly given the title 'the Fat', Hobbits in general were given to a degree of portliness. This is reflected in other Hobbit-names and titles that express the notion of fatness in a rather less direct way, such as 'Bracegirdle' or 'Broadbelt'.

The Fat

A title of those famed for their rotundity

See also...