Farmer Giles of Ham
- 90
- Pages
- about 1.5 h
- Reading time
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Our view
“Farmer Giles of Ham” shows Tolkien at his most playful, in a short comic fable told with a wink. A farmer’s run-ins with a wily dragon lift him from obscurity until he can stand up to the king. Much of the fun lies in deliberate anachronisms, in an imaginary Britain of the Dark Ages. Ninety pages long, it rewards anyone who enjoys a fairy tale that refuses to take itself seriously.
The view of the BookRank editors, written from readers’ ratings and comments. It does not affect the score or the book’s place in a ranking.
About the book
Farmer Giles of Ham is a comic medieval fable written by J. R. R. Tolkien in 1937 and published in 1949. The story describes the encounters between Farmer Giles and a wily dragon named Chrysophylax, and how Giles manages to use these to rise from humble beginnings to rival the king of the land. It is cheerfully anachronistic and light-hearted, set in Britain in an imaginary period of the Dark Ages. It features mythical creatures, medieval knights, and primitive firearms.
Where the score comes from
The sources average 7.5 across 50 ratings — not yet many, so the reader vote carries 25% of the weight and the rest pulls toward the Rankings average of 7.8. That is how 7.8 comes out.
| Source | Average | Ratings | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| Open Library | 8.3 | 8 | 16% |
| Hardcover | 7.4 | 42 | 84% |
In this book
Themes this book shares with others — each leads to the best books on it.
