Tag Archives: trolls

To Bree (Part 1)

05 Wednesday Nov 2025

Posted by in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , ,

Welcome, as always, dear readers.

For me, one of the great pleasures of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings is that they are both so wonderfully imagined.  Consider the beginning of The Hobbit, for example, where the opening could just have been the bare line “In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.” Instead, it continues:

“Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat:  it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort.”

(JRRT)

And even this is not enough, as it continues:

“It had a perfectly round door like a porthole, painted green, with a shiny yellow brass knob in the exact middle.”

And it will go on for an entire paragraph beyond that sentence, listing rooms and even explaining why some are preferred.

Even with so much detail, I sometimes find myself wanting more—often more of the outside world.  In this posting, then, I thought that we might take a trip to Bree and spend some time sightseeing as we go.  Via the Great East Road, this is about 100 of our miles (160 km), according to the very useful website of Becky Burkheart (which you can visit here:  https://www.beckyburkheart.com/traveltimesinmiddleearth ).

Why Bree?  To quote The Lord of the Rings:

“It was not yet forgotten that there had been a time when there was much coming and going between the Shire and Bree.” (The Fellowship of the Ring, Book One, Chapter 9, “At the Sign of the Prancing Pony”)

If we use both The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings together, however, we’ll soon encounter some difficulties, as we shall see.

Our starting point for Bilbo is the Green Dragon Inn, in Bywater. 

(Christopher Tolkien)

Tolkien doesn’t describe the inn, but, using a real inn, we might imagine the Green Dragon as looking something like this–

(This is the White Lion in Barthomley, in Cheshire, built in 1614.  You can read more about it and about Barthomley here:   https://drive.google.com/file/d/1oeQEpGsXlN1A_4T8nOhUwpggDA_pEFTM/view )

Just to the south of Bywater is the spot where the Hobbiton road meets the Great East Road.  Again, Tolkien gives us no description, but there may be a hint as to this road in the original grant of the Shire by Argeleb II in TA1601:

“For it was in the one thousand six hundred and first year of the Third Age that the Fallohide brothers, Marcho and Blanco, set out from Bree; and having obtained permission from the high king at Fornost, they crossed the brown river Baranduin with a great following of Hobbits.  They passed over the Bridge of Strongbows, that had been built in the days of the power of the North Kingdom, and they took all the land beyond to dwell in, between the river and the Far Downs.  All that was demanded of them was that they should keep the Great Bridge in repair, and all other bridges and roads, speed the king’s messengers, and acknowledge his lordship.”   (The Lord of the Rings, Prologue I, “Concerning Hobbits”)

We’ll cross the bridge a little later in our journey, but we might start with the road.  That it’s sometimes called “the Great East Road” suggests that it’s more than a dirt path.

Could Tolkien have been thinking of the bits of surviving Roman road which crisscross England?  Most are now buried under modern roads, but, here and there some are still available on the surface, as here—

and perhaps we can use this as a model. As an ancient stone road, it would certainly fit in with the ancient stone Bridge, as we’ll see.

Just beyond the spot where the lesser road meets the greater, we see marked on our map, the “Three Farthing Stone”.  A “farthing” is a “four-thing”—that is, a quarter, and it marks the spot where three of the quarters, the four farthings, of the Shire meet.  This appears to be modeled on the “Four Shire Stone” in our Middle-earth

which you can read about here:  https://thirdeyetraveller.com/four-shire-stone-tolkien/ )

And, from here, we head eastwards—and meet our first difficulty.  Here’s the description in The Hobbit—

“At first they had passed through hobbit-lands, a wide respectable country inhabited by decent folk, with good roads, an inn or two, and now and then a dwarf or a farmer ambling by on business.”

That fits our Shire map:  we might be traveling through Frogmorton and Whitfurrows, villages which might look like this—

but then there’s—

“Then they came to lands where people spoke strangely, and sang songs Bilbo had never heard before.  Now they had gone on far into the Lone-lands, where there were no people left, no inns, and the roads grew steadily worse.  Not far ahead were dreary hills, rising higher and higher, dark with trees.  On some of them were old castles with an evil look, as if they had been built by wicked people.”  (The Hobbit, Chapter 2, “Roast Mutton”) 

The bridge is just ahead, but “dreary hills”?  “old castles”? 

And you can really see the difference here between the two books.  Tolkien had yet to discover much of the East Farthing and was simply penciling in something which we might think of as “travel filler”, to indicate that the expedition was riding eastwards, but the trip was already becoming more difficult.

And then we come to the (here unnamed) bridge:

“Fortunately the road went over an ancient stone bridge, for the river, swollen with the rains, came rushing down from the hills and mountains in the north.”

As this is the first bridge mentioned, I’m going to assume that this is the “Bridge of Strongbows/Great Bridge” mentioned in Argeleb II’s grant to the original hobbit settlers.

(This is the Roman Pont Julien in southeastern France—over a bit drier patch than described in the book.  For more on this ancient bridge, see:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pont_Julien )

Once over this bridge, we’re in a different world.  We reach another river:

“Then one of the ponies took fright at nothing and bolted.  He got into the river before they could catch him…” 

Then, attempting to camp in the rain, Bilbo and the dwarves spot a fire, go to it, and find trolls.

(JRRT)

With the trolls dealt with by Gandalf, we move on to Rivendell–

(JRRT)

and suddenly we realize that:   there’s no Bree!

It’s at the crossroads of the Great East Road and what the locals call “the Greenway”, the old north/south road, now long overgrown,

but, somehow, Bilbo and the dwarves have not encountered it.  The reason is clear, of course:  just as the Tolkien of The Hobbit had yet to discover the East Farthing, so, too, he had yet to discover Breeland.

So, it looks like we have to turn around, back to the Green Dragon, stop for a pint, as any hobbit would,

and try again—in “To Bree (Part 2”).

As always, thanks for reading.

Stay well,

When approaching a crossroads, be prepared for anything—especially monsters with questions–

And remember that, as always, there’s

MTCIDC

O

Return to Horrors?

27 Wednesday Aug 2025

Posted by in Uncategorized

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Welcome, dear readers, as always.

Does this picture make your hands sweat?  Can you barely look at it?

How about this one—

Or this one—

Or—

Or—

Or—horror of horrors!—

It’s possible that all of these might have an effect upon you and, in which case, I imagine that you’re reading this hiding under your bed.

Why all of this phobic display?  Because, back in June, I read an article from the BBC about the 40th anniversary of Disney’s Return to Oz entitled:

“ ‘It has the appeal of an actual horror’: How Return to Oz became one of the darkest children’s films ever made”

(You can read the article here:  https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20250616-the-darkest-childrens-film-ever-made )

This is a film I own and have seen perhaps half-a-dozen times and I’ve never viewed it as the horror film which the article would suggest.  Granted, sensationalism sells the news, but, having read the article again, I’ve thought about how horror can be an element in a work—and a powerful one—without making the work as a whole into something like Bram Stoker’s Dracula.

(And, if you haven’t read it, I would certainly recommend it.  Here it is in the first US edition of 1897:   https://gutenberg.org/files/345/345-h/345-h.htm )

Think, for a moment, about The Hobbit.

Here, we go from the safety of Hobbiton

(JRRT)

to a world where there are trolls,

(JRRT)

goblin-infested mountains,

(Alan Lee)

wolves in large packs,

(Tove Jansson)

giant spiders,

(John Tyler Christopher—you can see more of his work here:  https://johntylerchristopher.com/ )

and, finally, an intelligent and vengeful dragon.

(JRRT)

But does the appearance of all these dangers make the book a horror novel, like one of Stephen King’s more forbidding works?

The article points to some potentially disturbing moments—and at least the first is certainly disturbing and, interestingly, is not in the two books upon which the film is based—The Marvelous Land of Oz, 1904,

and Ozma of Oz, 1907.  (For more on the combination and the scriptwriters’ changes, see:  “Chickening In”, 12 February,  2025)

The Kansas of the 1939 film was as bleak as a 1930s sound stage could make it, in sepia, suggesting photos of the Dust Bowl of the Great Depression era—

The 1985 movie showed us the real rolling hills of Kansas and the ruin of Uncle Henry and Aunt Em’s farm.

(This is at the end of the film, when the house has been rebuilt—early in the film, the house—which, of course, was ripped from Kansas and dropped on the Wicked Witch of the East—remains unfinished and Uncle Henry crippled from the twister.)

Dorothy, to Aunt Em, also seems somehow ruined, having reappeared after the tornado with stories about having been in a foreign land, Oz, but with no proof of it, and Em, having seen a newspaper ad for medical treatment by electricity, decides to take Dorothy to the clinic and its all-too-calm and rational Dr. Worley.

The treatment consists of running a powerful electrical current through Dorothy’s brain, (now called ECT—electroconvulsive therapy), which is supposed to erase Dorothy’s (supposedly false) memory of Oz. 

As the audience, with its own memories of Oz, from the 1939 film, the many books, or both, knows perfectly well that Oz is real, as is Dorothy’s memory of it, and, as the article points out:

“…the power of these scenes lies in the fact that they are trying to silence Dorothy, to obliterate her memories of Oz”

Dorothy escapes the clinic (one might really says “asylum”, as it has that grim look of Victorian asylums for the insane)

(A real Victorian asylum—and not the grimmest, there being some real competition here)

and turns up in Oz, once more, where the article mentions other potentially disturbing elements:

the destruction of Oz and its citizens petrified,

its ruins haunted by the Wheelers,

the minions of Princess Mombi, who collects heads and wears them for different occasions,

and then there is the Nome King, who is the current ruler of Oz,

and is the destroyer of the Emerald City, the overlord of Mombi, and has enchanted Dorothy’s former friends, the Scarecrow, the Tinman, and the Cowardly Lion, turning them into inanimate objects.

For the sake of sensationalism, it seems that the article leans heavily on these—as if, I suggested above, one could do the same for The Hobbit, but this leaves out the fact that, although Dorothy’s first allies in Oz have been neutralized, she finds others, just as Bilbo has dwarves, Gandalf, Elrond, the Eagles, and Beorn, not to mention Sting and the Ring.

These include the caustic hen, Billina, who arrives with her from Kansas,

“the Army of Oz”—Tik-Tok,

Jack Pumpkinhead,

and the Gump.

I teach story-telling on a regular basis and a dictum I use is “No fiction without friction” .  Just as trolls, goblins, wolves, Gollum, spiders, and Smaug provide the friction in The Hobbit, so the clinic and its smooth-talking doctor, the Wheelers, Princess Mombi, and the Nome King, provide it in Return to Oz.  These plot elements supply the problems which must be solved before the ultimate goal of the story can be achieved—coming home safely (and much better-off) for Bilbo, coming home and keeping her memories of Oz for Dorothy (guaranteed for her when she sees Ozma, rescued from the Nome King, in her mirror in Kansas).

Disturbing moments—in both—what’s that riddle contest with Gollum if nothing short of harrowing?—but is Return to Oz just this side of a horror movie?  As always, I suggest that you see it for yourself, but remember “no fiction without friction” before you rank it with The Shining.

Thanks, as ever, for reading.

Stay well,

Pick a bed with a reasonable clearance,

And remember that, as always, there’s

MTCIDC

O

Bacon and Eggs, Etc.

08 Wednesday Jan 2025

Posted by in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Dear readers, welcome, as always.

When Tolkien admitted that he was a hobbit, he defined them—and himself—in part in this way:

“…I like gardens, trees and unmechanized farmlands; I smoke a pipe, and like good plain food (unrefrigerated), but detest French cooking… “ (from a letter to Deborah Webster, 25 October, 1958, Letters, 411)

This follows, of course, his description in “Concerning Hobbits” in the Prologue to The Lord of the Rings:

“Their faces were as a rule good-natured rather than beautiful, broad, bright-eyed, red-cheeked, with mouths apt to laughter, and to eating and drinking.  And laugh they did, and eat, and drink, often and heartily, being fond of simple jests at all times, and of six meals a day (when they could get them).”

And this is an extension of the description in the first chapter, “An Unexpected Party”, of The Hobbit:

“[they] have long clever brown fingers, good-natured faces, and laugh deep fruity laughs (especially after dinner, which they have twice a day when they can get it).”

This propensity for the consumption of comestibles—and for the reporting of and description of eating and all that might go with it—is more, in The Hobbit, than simply a fond look at a foible, however.  In fact, it is a theme which seems, at times to dominate the book—and we see this practically on the first page of the novel, not only in that mention of multiple dinners, but even in the fact that hobbit laughs are “fruity”.

The opening setting itself announces the theme:  “Bilbo Baggins was standing at his door after breakfast…” and soon Bilbo is resisting Gandalf’s proposal of an adventure by saying “Nasty disturbing uncomfortable things!  Make you late for dinner!”  (The Hobbit, Chapter 1, “An Unexpected Party”)

(the Hildebrandts)

There follows the rattled Bilbo’s invitation to Gandalf to come to tea (after which he consoles himself with “a cake or two and a drink of something”), and then the party from the chapter title, which includes not only a major depletion of Bilbo’s pantry (or pantries, as the narrator has already informed us that Bilbo’s house has “lots of these”), but even a kind of heroic catalogue of what’s called for and which Bilbo seems able to supply including:  tea, beer, seed-cake, coffee, scones, ale, porter, red wine, raspberry jam, apple-tart, mince-pies, cheese, pork-pie, salad, eggs, chicken, and pickles (and a single biscuit—that is, cookie, for Bilbo).

The chapter ends with one last burst of food-talk as Bilbo offers bed and breakfast to the dwarves (as a way of seeing them off) and Thorin orders breakfast as if Bilbo were running an inn:

“But I agree about bed and breakfast.  I like six eggs with my ham, when starting on a journey:  fried not poached, and mind you don’t break ‘em.”

(Eggs and ham—those eggs will appear again, but with bacon, when Bilbo, more than once, yearns for them.  This is from a rather mouth-watering website called “The English Kitchen”, which you can visit here:  https://www.theenglishkitchen.co/2020/04/proper-ham-eggs.html  And, as, when you search for a useful image of ham and eggs, you suddenly find yourself surrounded by images of Dr. Seuss’ wonderful Green Eggs and Ham, you can it read here:  https://ia601502.us.archive.org/20/items/green-eggs-and-ham_202211/GreenEggs%20Ham.pdf )

And Bilbo goes off the bed annoyed not only at Thorin, but at all of the other dwarves, who have made similar orders.

After that opening, it’s not surprising that Chapter 2 begins with a still-annoyed Bilbo, faced with a mountain of dirty dishes, the remains of a breakfast he didn’t fix, but, cleaning up, he enjoys his own first breakfast and is starting on a second one when Gandalf appears and Bilbo is suddenly off on the adventure which takes up the rest of the book.

Food soon appears again as one of their ponies “got into the river before they could catch him…and all the baggage that he carried was washed away off him.  Of course it was mostly food, and there was mighty little left for supper, and less for breakfast.”  (Chapter 2)

But then the eating theme takes a different and disturbing turn:  trolls

(JRRT)

who, though currently munching mutton, have “…et a village and a half between yer, since we come down from the mountains” and soon, like amateur chefs on “The Great Goblin Bake Off”, are discussing how to prepare dwarf—will it be roasting?  boiling?  before the judge, one Gandalf, decides the argument by tricking them into being exposed to the sun and turned to stone.

(JRRT)

This is, in its way, a mirror to the original eating idea, in which the protagonists who do the consuming are at risk of becoming a potential article for consumption and we’ll see this repeated more than once with:

1. the goblins (Chapter 4):  “For goblins eat horses and ponies and donkeys (and other much more dreadful things), and they are always hungry.”

(Alan Lee)

2. Gollum (Chapter 5):  “He was looking out of his pale lamp-eyes for blind fish, which he grabbed with his long fingers as quick as thinking.  Goblin he thought good, when he could get it…” and there’s the possibility that Bilbo might be on the menu—if he loses the riddle contest.

(Alan Lee)

3. the spiders (Chapter 8):  “  ‘What nasty thick skins they [the dwarves] have to be sure, but I’ll wager there is good juice inside.’ ‘Aye, they’ll make fine eating, when they’ve hung a bit…’ ”

(and another Alan Lee)

4. and, of course, Smaug (Chapter 12):  “ ‘Let me tell you I ate six ponies last night and I shall catch and eat all the others before long…I know the smell (and taste) of dwarf…Girion Lord of Dale is dead, and I have eaten his people like a wolf among sheep…’ “

(JRRT)

On the other side (the eating, not eaten), however, there are:

1. supper with the Rivendell elves (Chapter 3)

(JRRT)

2. rabbit, hare, and sheep with the eagles (Chapter 6)

(JRRT)

3. meals with Beorn (Chapter 7)

(Ted Nasmith)

4. starving in Mirkwood while being tantalized by elvish feasts (Chapter 8)

(another elf king, in an illustration by A.W. Bayes, 1831-1909)

5. prison rations in the dungeons of Thranduil, the king of the forest elves (Chapter 9)—as well as food stolen by Bilbo

(a generic dungeon as, so far, I haven’t discovered a useful illustration of the original situation)

6. feasts in Lake-town (Chapter 10)

(JRRT)

7. a gourmet diet of snails (Chapter 11)

(Alan Lee)

8. and even the threat of siege and starvation (Chapter 15)—

(Alan Lee)

Given that so much of the text is handed over to eating and drinking, it’s surprising that the conclusion of the story doesn’t have Gandalf returning (with Balin) to tea some years later—

(Alan Lee)

could it be that even that academic hobbit is finally full?

As always, thanks for reading.

Stay well,

One slice of cake should do, I think, don’t you? Or maybe two?

And remember that, as always, there’s

MTCIDC

O

Orcked

22 Wednesday Nov 2017

Posted by in Economics in Middle-earth, Imaginary History, J.R.R. Tolkien, Literary History, Narrative Methods

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Welcome, dear readers, as always.

In our last, we discussed less familiar characters in The Lord of the Rings, the Corsairs of Umbar, and what we imagine they could look like.

In this posting, we want to look at much more familiar characters, Orcs—but from the viewpoint of Fangorn.

image1treebeard.jpg

He says of them:

“Maybe you have heard of Trolls?  They are mighty strong.  But Trolls are only counterfeits, made by the Enemy in the Great Darkness, in mockery of Ents, as Orcs were of Elves.”  (The Two Towers, Book Three, Chapter 4, “Treebeard”)

We’ve always been a bit puzzled by this.  “Counterfeit” makes us think, immediately, of counterfeit money.  Here are a pair of US 10-dollar bills:  can you tell the counterfeit (from Old French via a Latin compound, contra, “against” + facere, “make/do”—in Medieval Latin a contrafactio is a thing put against another, something in contrast, thus “imitation”)?

image2hamiltons.jpg

To be a successful counterfeit, normally, it’s necessary that the imitation be as close to the original as possible, as in the case of these two tens.  The US Treasury Department goes to a lot of time and expense to make counterfeiting as difficult as possible

image3anticounterfeit

but, if a counterfeiter is successful, he stands to make (in two senses) a lot of money.  He can also cause a great deal of financial damage, breeding distrust in a government’s ability to coin money and to stand behind it.  The more counterfeit money in the system, the more money the government has to back, which, in time, could lead to what is called hyperinflation and can bring a currency to collapse.  When a government does this itself it can cause havoc with a country’s economy, as happened in the Weimar Republic in 1921-1924.  At that time, for complex reasons having to do with paying off the German Empire’s war debts, the government began producing too much paper money and too rapidly.  This caused the money to lose value very quickly, rendering it almost worthless.

image4weimarmoney

It’s no wonder that the penalty for counterfeiting was usually the most severe possible.

image5tyburn

Treebeard’s use of the word “counterfeit”, then, would suggest that what Sauron was doing was trying to make nearly-exact copies of something, either Ents or Elves, in his creation of Trolls and Orcs.  So what do we find when we first see a description of Orcs?

“There were four goblin-soldiers of greater stature, swart, slant-eyed, with thick legs and large hands.”

(The Two Towers, Book Three, Chapter 1, “The Departure of Boromir”)

That’s not much to go on:

  1. “greater stature” would suggest that most Orcs were short
  2. “swart” means “dark-complexioned” (a term Sam uses to describe men from Harad, whom he calls “Swertings”—The Two Towers, Book Four, Chapter 3, “The Black Gate is Closed”)
  3. “slant-eyed”—for contemporary people this is a tricky term, even a racial slur, but JRRT probably meant no more than that these Orcs had epicanthic folds to their eyelids, which is not uncommon among many of the world’s peoples.

image6epicanth

  1. “with thick legs and large hands” suggests very stocky builds—like the “Trolls turned to stone” in JRRT’s illustration of the scene in The Hobbit.

image7stonetrolls

This is a start, but will our next view help?  Pippin and Merry are the prisoners of the Orcs and Pippin is listening to a quarrel between those of Saruman and those of Sauron:

“In the twilight he saw a large black Orc, probably Ugluk, standing facing Grishnakh, a short crook-legged creature, very broad and with long arms that hung almost to the ground.” (The Two Towers, Book Three, Chapter 3. “The Uruk-hai”)

Counterfeit Elves?  Of course we know—also from Fangorn—that perhaps Saruman was up to something more, as Fangorn says of him:

“He has taken up with foul folk, with the Orcs.  Brm, hoom!  Worse than that:  he has been doing something to them; something dangerous.  For these Isengarders are more like wicked Men.  It is a mark of evil things that came in the Great Darkness that they cannot abide the Sun; but Saruman’s Orcs can endure it, even if they hate it.  I wonder what he has done?  Are they Men he has ruined, or has he blended the races of Orcs and Men?  That would be a black evil!” (The Two Towers, Book Three, Chapter 4, “Treebeard”)

This might account for the size of the Uruk-hai, as well as for their ability to endure daylight, but what about the crook-leggedness and “long arms that hung almost to the ground”?

Perhaps here we should remember the end of Fangorn’s description:  “…in mockery of Ents, as Orcs were of Elves.”

Hmm.  Trolls certainly don’t look much like Ents—

image8.jpg

image9leetreebeard.jpg

Is this the “mockery”?  It’s certainly not counterfeiting in the usual sense!

Should we understand the same for Orcs vs Elves?  Here are illustrations of Galadriel and Legolas (both by the Hildebrandts):

image10galadriel.jpg

image11legolas.jpg

Set those against any modern artist’s view of Orcs and, again, it’s not counterfeiting, in the strictest sense, so we suppose that we have to assume “mockery”—but with the added assumption that Sauron had a very twisted sense of humor.  (There’s also that nasty half-suggestion of Fangorn’s that, since Saruman’s Orcs are behaving more like men, Saruman has been performing genetic experiments, something even Fangorn doesn’t want to think about.)

image12mcbride.gif

image13lee.jpg

image14howe.jpg

Looking at all of these illustrations, by the way, we were struck by where we’d seen creatures like this before.  Could it be in the works of those strange Flemish/Dutch painters like Brueghel and Bosch?

image15bosch.jpg

Or Arthur Rackham?

image16rackham.jpg

Or the early 20th-century Swedish painter, John Bauer, who, in his depiction of forests was an influence upon JRRT?

image17bauer.jpg

And, more recently, considering P. Jackson’s Orcs,

image18orcs.png

image19orcs.jpg

their skin color and general look:  is there a suggestion here of the so-called “Bog People” (about whom we wrote a posting some time ago)—a whole series of bodies, at least one dating from the 4th century bc

image20tollundman.jpg

who have been discovered buried in peat bogs (a great preservative) in northern Europe?

image21peatbog.jpg

And, in their color and oozy look–not to mention that they seem to move in scuttly groups–is there something cockroachy about them?

image22cockroaches.jpg

But, just as there is a place Fangorn doesn’t want to go, it’s true for us as well!

Thanks, as ever, for reading.

MTCIDC

CD

PS

You probably spotted this (we have very intelligent readers), but it’s the top 10-dollar bill which is the counterfeit.

PPS

It has also occurred to us that JRRT more than once discussed the fact that Sauron, as a lesser deity-figure, could never originate, only copy and “subcreate”—perhaps suggesting another reason for making “mockeries”:  his anger at his inability to do original work?

What’s In a Name?

27 Wednesday Jul 2016

Posted by in Imaginary History, J.R.R. Tolkien, Literary History, Narrative Methods

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Welcome, as always, dear readers.

In this posting, we are interested in the use and danger of using names in the history of the Ring, as well as looking at a possible parallel from an earlier heroic story.  How dangerous can a name be?

In Chapter 5 of The Hobbit, Bilbo makes what is almost a fatal mistake—not for himself so much as for Frodo, and not at the time, so much as some 77 years later.

Confronted by the curious Gollum deep under the Misty Mountains, Bilbo has responded to Gollum’s, “What iss he, my preciouss?” with, “I am Mr. Bilbo Baggins.”

The Riddle Game

First, of course, he hasn’t answered the question. He was asked what, not who. And, from Gollum’s viewpoint, in which seemingly all animate things are potentially at least a snack, if not a full meal (“I guess it’s a choice feast; at least a tasty morsel it’d make us, gollum!” The Hobbit, Chapter 5, “Riddles in the Dark”), “What is it?” is the more appropriate question.

Second, depending on the culture, names can have a much greater significance than simply being social identifiers. If your culture has a strong belief in magic, then your personal name is a point of vulnerability: someone who wishes to control you can use it in summoning spells. This is probably why, for example, Circe, in Book 10 of the Odyssey, when she can’t turn Odysseus into a pig, as she had already done with part of his crew, says that he’s akaletes—literally, “uncallable by name”. Although the story as we have it doesn’t say so, we can presume that, as he does in another circumstance—which we’re about to discuss—he gives the enchantress a false name and therefore escapes her magic.

This is not the first time Bilbo has slipped, however. William, the troll, has already asked, “What are yer?” And Bilbo has replied, “Bilbo Baggins, a bur-a hobbit.” (The Hobbit, Chapter 2, “Roast Mutton”)

TN-Trolls_colour_sketch

(By one of our favorite Tolkien artists, Ted Nasmith)

Again, Bilbo has given the wrong answer (reminding us of a scene in the Marx Brothers movie, Horsefeathers, 1932, where Chico, as Baravelli, the doorkeeper of a speakeasy, demands of Groucho, “Who are you?” to which Groucho replies, “I’m fine, thanks. Who are you?”).

Password Scene

He has also complicated matters by almost saying “burglar” (he’s just tried to steal William’s purse, after all, which has, in fact, asked him “’Ere, ‘oo are you?”), but, by changing it at the last moment, he’s then created a new confusion, as the trolls simultaneously ask, “A burrahobbit?” and William adds, “What’s a burrahobbit got to do with my pocket, anyways?”

(We also ask, is there a very mild joke here—“burra” could easily sound like “burrow” and, since hobbits traditionally lived in tunnels…?)

Gandalf and daylight take care of the trolls,

img__Art-The_Three_Trolls_are_Turned_to_Stone,_by_JRRT

but Gollum is another matter. Bilbo, caught off guard, gives him his name. This, in turn, under torture, is passed on to Sauron, now aware that the Ring has (literally) resurfaced on Middle-earth. And, somehow, the names “hobbits” and “Shire” have been added to Bilbo’s name, as Gandalf tells Frodo (The Fellowship of the Ring, Chapter 2, “The Shadow of the Past”). To find out more, Sauron sends out his search team, the Nazgul, and the danger begins…

ellenkurkinazgul

(A wonderfully atmospheric watercolor by Ella Kurki)

Odysseus, whom we mentioned earlier, has also been involved with a large and menacing creature, Polyphemus, the Cyclops, in Book 9 of the Odyssey.

Head-of-Polyphemos-Captmondo-wikimedia-commons

Having a little more experience of danger and living in a world where magic may be anywhere, he is more wary, however, than Bilbo and, when asked his name, replies “Ootis”, which is Greek for “Nobody”.

Scholars have argued for a very long time as to why Polyphemus, who has a Greek name (“The Much-Spoken-Of”) and speaks perfectly good Greek, can be so easily taken in by such a transparent trick and there are lots of theories to explain it. Perhaps, however, the answer is simply to point to Bilbo’s trolls, whom Tolkien describes as “slow in the uptake”—that is, they are not very quick to assess a new situation. Is this the case with Polyphemus? Or, being as big as he is, and not fearing the gods (as he informs Odysseus), perhaps he ignores Odysseus’ reply as simply part of the guest ritual known as xenia, in which, it is clear from his behavior, he does not believe anyway?

Over and over again, in the Odyssey, we see this social pattern, called xenia, which means something like “guest-friendship”, enacted   In this pattern, a person comes to another’s house in need of food and shelter. There is then a ritual, in which:

  1. the potential guest appeals to the householder
  2. the householder fulfills that person’s wants
  3. in return the person tells his name and his story
  1. the host gives the person guest-gifts and sends him on his way
  2. should he—or anyone to whom he’s related—be in the guest’s territory in the future, he can claim the same hospitality from the guest—and this can be passed down through generations

In the case of Polyphemus, Odysseus and his men have come to Polyphemus’ cave and helped themselves to his food while he was absent, therefore immediately disturbing the pattern. When the Cyclops comes home, his response is to kill and eat two of Odysseus’ men, a grim parody of the custom, in which he should be feeding them, not feeding on them. The situation escalates, with more men eaten, until Odysseus formulates an escape plan which includes getting the Cyclops drunk

Cyclops-Homer

and putting out his eye,

cyclops2

then using a flock of sheep as an escape vehicle.

FrCyclopsEscape

In the meantime, however, Polyphemus has asked for Odysseus’ name, gotten the “Nobody” answer, and offered a guest-gift in return: the Cyclops will eat Odysseus last. The plan works, Odysseus and his surviving men escape (with the sheep), and get back to their ship, but then things go wrong again. Even blind, Polyphemus pursues them and, tossing mountain tops, almost brings them back to shore.

cyclops3

They do manage to row out of range, however, but then Odysseus, seeming to destroy completely his earlier “Nobody” trick, and much to his crew’s horror, shouts out to the Cyclops not only who he really is, but where he lives, as well. What’s going on here?

polyphemos

Bilbo has twice, inadvertently, provided others with his name, if not his address.  Although Odysseus may be more able when it comes to thinking quickly in a dangerous situation than Bilbo, he also belongs to what is called a “face culture”. This means that who you are is a public thing. You only gain credit if you do things publically and your name is attached to what you do. In Odysseus’ case, he has bested a monster and avenged the deaths of his crewmen and it is important that that monster knows who did it. Unfortunately, that monster is the son of the sea god, Poseidon, to whom he prays for revenge and, knowing Odysseus’ name and address, this is a bit more pinpointed than simply saying, “Get that guy who put out my eye, dad!”

poseidon.jpg

Bilbo blundered into the territory of Gollum and, through inexperience and surprise, brought trouble, in time, to Frodo. Odysseus, having concealed his identity successfully, then exposed himself because his society and his position in that society required it. In turn, he returns home alone and on someone else’s ship, having brought trouble on himself and his crew.  In answer to our initial question, “How dangerous can a name be?”  The answer appears to be, “Very.”

Thanks, as always, for reading.

MTCIDC

CD

 

Terrifyingly Funny? (Part 1)

13 Wednesday Jul 2016

Posted by in Artists and Illustrators, Fairy Tales and Myths, Imaginary History, J.R.R. Tolkien, Language, Literary History, Narrative Methods, Villains

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Dear Readers, welcome, as always.

This is going to be a two-part posting because– well, it began as one thing, and then became another. We were thinking about Gollum, not as the grim and tormented figure we know from The Lord of the Rings, but rather as the muttering, riddling cave-dweller of The Hobbit. We were wondering if we could see Gollum not only as menacing, but as comic, as well.

Gollum_Render.png

Then, however, we began to think about other such figures, and one of us said to the other, “What about the trolls in The Hobbit?”. The other replied, “we see them before we see Gollum. Maybe we should start with them.”

And so we shall.

It’s clear where Tolkien got his trolls– they’re all over the fairy tales he had been reading since childhood, and they form a component of the traditional Scandinavian literature in which he had been interested for nearly as long. They are commonly large, and not terrifically bright, and often possess an anxiety about daylight. One of our favorite illustrators of such creatures is John Bauer (1882-1918), who, among other works, contributed illustrations to an ongoing series of volumes appropriately titled Among Gnomes and Trolls. Here, for example, is one of his depictions of the latter.

John_Bauer_1915.jpg

And, because we can’t resist– can we ever? Here are a couple more illustrations by Bauer.

bauer5.jpgJohn_Bauer07.jpg

Even before The Hobbit, however, Tolkien had produced a literary troll. In 1926, he wrote the first version of a poem to be sung to the folk song “The Fox Went Out”, called “Pēro & Pōdex”(“Boot and Bottom”). It survives  in a later version in chapter 12 of Book 1 of The Lord of the Rings, beginning “Troll sat alone on his seat of stone”.

In The Hobbit, the trolls are grouped around a fire, drinking and eating and immediately recognizable:

“But they were trolls.  Obviously trolls.  Even Bilbo, in spite of his sheltered life, could see that:  from the great heavy faces of them, and their size, and the shape of their legs, not to mention their language, which was not drawing-room fashion at all, at all.”  (The Hobbit, Chapter 2, “Roast Mutton”)

tumblr_m6wyygQDLc1ru50yro1_1280.jpg

Douglas Anderson, in his invaluable The Annotated Hobbit, says that “Tolkien presents the Trolls’ speech in a comic, lower-class dialect” (70). In fact, we wonder whether, as in the case of the later orcs in The Lord of the Rings, we are not seeing a reflection of the speech of some of the Tommies whom Tolkien had commanded in the Great War.

roads_bef1914.jpg

” ‘Mutton yesterday, mutton today, and blimey, if it don’t look like mutton again tomorrer,’ said one of the trolls.

‘Never a blinking bit of manflesh have we had for long enough,’ said a second. ‘What the ‘ell William was a-thinkin; of to bring us into these parts at all, beats me – and the drink runnin’ short, what’s more,’ he said jogging the elbow of William, who was taking a pull at his jug” (The Hobbit, Chapter 2, “Roast Mutton”).

Besides what sounds like a reference to a line in Through the Looking-Glass (1871), “The rule is, jam to-morrow and jam yesterday – but never jam to-day,” with their “blimey” and “blinking”, the trolls are immediately labeled by their speech as lower-class, potentially thuggish, and certainly not people invited to a formal drawing room like this–

drawingroom1890ssmall.JPG

Of course, we might ask ourselves, why should trolls talk like that anyway? And we might then reply, because Tolkien is mixing language for comic effect. Bilbo, Gandalf, and the dwarves speak in non-dialect standard English. Therefore, there’s an especially strong contrast here. As well, what the trolls are saying can be funny in itself, as when William says to the discontented other trolls,

” ‘Yer can’t expect folk to stop here for ever just to be et by you and Bert. You’ve et a village and a half between yer, since we come down from the mountains. What more d’yer want?’ ” (The Hobbit, Chapter 2, “Roast Mutton”).

Here, we have comic exaggeration combined with the frustrated defensiveness of a leader whose tactics are being questioned by subordinates.

The tension grows as the scene progresses.  Bilbo appears, is nabbed by a purse which sounds like the Trolls, the Trolls fall to fisticuffs while arguing over Bilbo and then over the dwarves whom they capture, and Gandalf, imitating various Troll voices, so stirs the pot that the Trolls never notice when the first beam of sunlight cuts across their clearing and they are petrified.

jrrt_14.jpg

So, if we consider what the Trolls have been doing previously–“Never a blinking bit of manflesh have we had for long enough…” says one, as well as what they discuss doing not only to Bilbo, but to the whole of Thorin & Co., these could seem to be grim figures, indeed.  Then again, they sound like comic cockneys, they have ludicrously-large appetites, and they are dim enough to be taken in very easily by Gandalf’s ventriloquism.   So, grim and funny at the same time.

On the whole, humor is more an element in The Hobbit than in The Lord of the Rings, but we believe that perhaps because of his initial appearance in The Hobbit, Gollum may have both the menace and the humor, at times , of these gormless Trolls, as we hope to show in Part 2.

Thanks, as always, for reading,

MTCIDC,

CD