Pipeweed and Hemp appearance

[Boraxxe]

I have a few Youtube videos that I like to play at night while I'm winding down from a bit of burglary and getting prepped for sleep.

The one I was listening to tonight is "Lord of the Rings Online Full Soundtrack 2020 Pt. 2" and it's 7 hours of Lotro game music.
There is a screen shot at about 1:21:00 (one hour and 20 minutes in.) that shows a horse grazing in what looks like a cultivated field of Pipeweed.
The in-game Pipweed that Farmers can grow looks exactly like this...well actually, almost all of the crops look the same...But anyway, I noticed long ago that these fields of leafy, flower-topped plants looked an awful lot like Hemp plants. I have noticed this before and that screenshot triggered that memory and got me wondering....

Did the hobbits use the whole plant? Flower-tops and all? Or did they somehow harvest a ripe crop and avoid mixing in the tops?
Did they use the tops for some of the "specialty" Pipeweed?

?

[Halphast]

The blurring of the lines whether pipeweed is tobacco or hemp has been around a long time- hippies in the 60s loved LotR because of pipe'weed' but Tolkien (if I remember right) found the idea abhorrent, and insisted that he only ever intended for it to be tobacco. That's probably pretty understandable since hemp had been so demonized by propaganda at that point.

As someone who views fiction becoming folklore and then mythology, it's a natural progression to move away from the author's original intent and over time his views matter less and less. So yeah, I'm inclined to think pipeweed is maybe a cousin of both tobacco and hemp, and that the hobbits probably created many different blends for different occasions, sometimes including buds and flowers for a special 'holiday blend.'

[Cordovan]

Obviously we are informed by substances of recent centuries but humans have been consuming burnable material for medical, religious, or other reasons for a long long time, so I've always assumed it was meant to be neither tobacco nor hemp but rather whatever the people of that time consumed, probably something - like - tobacco given the allusions to addiction and such associated with it in the text. Also speculation of course but yeah, I assumed that like most farming they'd use as much of it as they could, so the stalks and such were likely used for textiles, feed, and whatever else.

[Seregthol]

.. it's a natural progression to move away from the author's original intent and over time his views matter less and less.

Sounds like a job description for Amazon.

[Cherokeerose]

Sounds like a job description for Amazon.

Sure you can smoke hemp but it won't get you stoned like pot will.

[Boraxxe]

Here is a screeny of the horse and field mentioned above:

[Seglord]

Yeah, I'd like to point out that in the minas tirith wedding quests, that you smell smoke wafting down from the outer wall, and you are asked to investigate, where you find merry and pippin partaking. giggling and laughing, in sound and text. so they had to find an out of the way place to hide, and they are in an altered state, so your writers think it was more than tobacco

[Boraxxe]

Yeah, I'd like to point out that in the minas tirith wedding quests, that you smell smoke wafting down from the outer wall, and you are asked to investigate, where you find merry and pippin partaking. giggling and laughing, in sound and text. so they had to find an out of the way place to hide, and they are in an altered state, so your writers think it was more than tobacco

Yes...wink wink, nod nod.

[gildhur]

DDO is giving away formerly premium classes for free now for its 16th anniversary, so I imagine they have big things planned for our 15th.

[Boraxxe]

DDO is giving away formerly premium classes for free now for its 16th anniversary, so I imagine they have big things planned for our 15th.

Hmmm...a pipeweed thread and along comes a post about DDO...do they have pipeweed in that universe?

[TearMaker]

Did the hobbits use the whole plant? Flower-tops and all? Or did they somehow harvest a ripe crop and avoid mixing in the tops?
Did they use the tops for some of the "specialty" Pipeweed??

I assumed that like most farming they'd use as much of it as they could, so the stalks and such were likely used for textiles, feed, and whatever else.

I love it how after 15 years of living in this world in our spare time that the lines between reality and fiction become so blurred. And when I say I love it, I really mean that I love how we have all become so invested in our little part in this huge story that for those few hours per week - we really do worry about minutia of what the hobbits would have used the rest of the plant after harvesting what was needed for the pipeweed.

I always thought the different types of pipeweed were indeed not just varieties by maker like we see in different types of tobacco today from different suppliers but actually completely different plants giving different properties.

Take the "Old Toby" - I always took this to be a "special" smoke and not an everyday smoke. Remember Gandalf using "Old Toby" to calm Radagast after his encounter in DG.

EVen though I do not imbibe on either fronts - I couldn't think of a more jovial evening than enjoying a Hobbit feast and then watching the sun go down whilst enjoying a drop of the "Old winyards" and a toot on the "Old Toby" before retiring to my hobbit hole for a good rest and dream of breakfast.....

[gildhur]

Hmmm...a pipeweed thread and along comes a post about DDO...do they have pipeweed in that universe?

Woops! That's what I get for opening too many tabs.