In Tolkien’s Middle-earth, a “mathom” is any portable object for which a Hobbit has no immediate use, but is unwilling to throw away. The “mathom house” is a museum where the Shire’s antiquities, some of them of questionable value, are displayed. Individual Hobbit families keep their mathoms in studies, libraries, and cupboards—most Hobbits live underground and do not have attics.
