Hobbit
Origins
According to a letter from Tolkien to W. H. Auden, one "probably .. unconscious" inspiration was Edward Wyke Smith's 1927 children's book The Marvellous Land of Snergs. Tolkien described the Snergs as "a race of people only slightly taller than the average table but broad in the shoulders and [who] have the strength of ten men."
Hobbit-7