On the Origin of the Name "Hobbit"
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Volume 16 Number 2 Article 19 Winter 12-15-1989 On the Origin of the Name "Hobbit" Donald O'Brien Follow this and additional works at: https://dc.swosu.edu/mythlore Part of the Children's and Young Adult Literature Commons Recommended Citation O'Brien, Donald (1989) "On the Origin of the Name "Hobbit"," Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature: Vol. 16 : No. 2 , Article 19. Available at: https://dc.swosu.edu/mythlore/vol16/iss2/19 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Mythopoeic Society at SWOSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature by an authorized editor of SWOSU Digital Commons. An ADA compliant document is available upon request. For more information, please contact [email protected]. To join the Mythopoeic Society go to: http://www.mythsoc.org/join.htm Mythcon 51: A VIRTUAL “HALFLING” MYTHCON July 31 - August 1, 2021 (Saturday and Sunday) http://www.mythsoc.org/mythcon/mythcon-51.htm Mythcon 52: The Mythic, the Fantastic, and the Alien Albuquerque, New Mexico; July 29 - August 1, 2022 http://www.mythsoc.org/mythcon/mythcon-52.htm Abstract Notes that although Tolkien believed at first that he had invented the word “hobbit,” he became concerned that he might have encountered it and subconsciously reproduced it. Reviews a number of possible sources of the word suggested by scholars. Additional Keywords Tolkien, J.R.R.—Characters—Hobbits—Origin of name This article is available in Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature: https://dc.swosu.edu/mythlore/vol16/iss2/19 Page 32 OlinrcR 1989 C P y T H L O R e 60 On rhe ORigin oF rhe Name 'Ho66ir Donald OBwen According to a letter dated 7 June, 1955, written by to his children: "as if he had invented them on the spur of Tolkien to W.H. Auden concerning the initial composition the moment." (TH, p. vvi.) Tolkien himself at one time at of The Hobbit: least believed that he had invented 'hobbit' for when the All I remember about the start of The Hobbit is sitting Oxford English Dictionary staff contracted him concerning correcting School Certificate papers in the everlasting the inclusion of 'hobbit7, as well as of 'hobbitry', weariness of that annual task forced on impecunious Tiobbitish', etc., into the second supplement to the diction academics with children. On a blank leaf I scrawled: 'In ary, he wrote to Roger Lancelyn Green in a letter dated 8 a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.' I did not and January, 1971: "I have had, therefore, to justify my claim do not know why. I did nothing about it, for a long time, to have invented the word." (Letters, No. 319, p. 406) His and for some years 1 got no further than the production claim to its invention, or at least to its uniqueness in the of Thror's map. But it became The Hobbit in the early English language, is repeated in his guide for translators 1930s.-1 of The Lord o f the Rings: Tolkien could not remember precisely when he had Hobbit. Do not translate, since the name is supposed no written the first sentence of The Hobbit.2 The name 'hobbit' longer to have a recognized meaning in the Shire, and itself apparently was first used by Tolkien, according to not to have been derived from the Common Speech the recollection of his son Michael, prior to the composi (=English, or the language of translation).7 tion of the sentence when Tolkien recounted stories orally But his claim in the letter to Lancelyn Green of 1971 to to his children at their home at 22 Northmoor Road about having himself invented the name was undermined by an "a small being with furry feet". Tolkien asked his children uneasiness of long standing. Many critics have sought a to name the creature and "then, answering himself, said 'I possible source for 'hobbit'. In fact the enquiry began as think we'll call him a "Hobbit".”3 Since the Tolkiens moved early as 1938 when a letter published in The Observer on 16 from 22 Northmoor Road in 1930, and because Michael January suggested the possibility that there existed an old recalled stories he himself had invented in 1929 based on fairy tale called "The Hobbit" published in a collection the hobbit creature and that his father had written the which the anonymous letter writer may have read about opening sentence to The Hobbit in the summer before he began telling oral stories to the children, Michael Tolkien 1904 concerning a creature called "hobbit". Tolkien replied believed that the inception of Th? Hobbit '"began' at any in a letter published in The Observer on 20 February, 1938: rate no later than that year (i,e. 1929)." (TH, pp. vi-vii.) However, with regard to the Habit's principal question Grotta-Kurska quotes from a leittef which he received from there is no danger: I do not remember anything about the Michael Tolkien dated 10 August, 1975: "I first heard it at name and inception of the hero. I could guess, of course, the age of 7, when John, my elder brother was 10, and but the guess would have no more authority than those of future researchers, and I leave the game to them.... I Christopher 3. My sister was not even bom then."4 Grot have no waking recollection of furry pygmies (in book or ta-Kurska further adds: "Since Michael Tolkien had been moonlight): nor of any Hobbit bogey in print by 1904.1 bom in November, 1920, this would place the time at suspect that two hobbits are accidental homophones, and summer, 1928. The salient fact for the evolution of the am content that they are not (it would seem) synonyms.8 world of Arda was the mythopoeic influence of language on Tolkien's subereative genius: "Names always generate adding with a note of uncertainty: "Not quite. I should like, a story in my mind. Eventually I thought, I'd better find if possible, to learn more about the fairy-tale collection, c. out what hobbits were like. But that's only the beginning." 1904." (The Observer, p .9, fn.) And he wrote to Lancelyn (.Biography, p. 172.) From that first sentence The Hobbit - the Green in the letter of 1971 cited above, still plagued at so bulk of which was probably written between 1930 and late late a date by the same that had arisen in 1938: 1932 when C.S. Lewis read the manuscript6 - and The Lord The Ox.E.D. has in preparation of its Second Supplement of the Rings were born and a mediatory means was found got to Hobbit, which it proposes to include together with for the presentation of the mythology of the First Age to its progeny: hobbitry, -ish, etc. I have had, therefore, to modem readers. justify my claim to have invented a word. My claim rests really on my 'nude parole' or unsupported assertion that The name 'hobbit' has been treated by some critics as I remember the occasion of its invention (by m e)... Oh Tolkien's own invention. For example, Grotta-Kurska has what a tangled web they weave who try a new word to written: "In any event, the word hobbit is unquestionably, conceive! (Letters, No.319, pp. 406-07.) uniquely Tolkien's invention, like "pandemonium" in A doubt had set in in 1938 about the origin of 'hobbit' Paradise Lost and "chortle" in Alice in Wonderland." (Grot which would never be allayed in Tolkien's mind a doubt ta-Kurska, p. 74.) According to Michael Tolkien, his father compounded by the several new 'sources' for 'hobbit7 repeated the opening words to The Hobbit in the oral tales hypothesized by researchers. CPyTHLORe 60 (UtnrcR 1989 Page 33 Tolkien never satisfactorily resolved the dilemma in of the letter to The Observer published on 16 January, 1938, which he increasingly found himself, a predicament neatly proposed the possible existence of: "... an old fairy tale summarized by the phrase "tangled web" in his letter of called "The Hobbit" in a collection read about 1904." (The 1971. He resorted to one solution founded on a linguistic Observer, p. 9) To the best of my knowledge no such story basis in the appendices to The Return of the King: as Shippey has been discovered. Yet its possible existence continued succinctly describes Tolkien's 'solution': to exercise Tolkien even as late as his letter of 1971 to Lancelyn Green. In particular, he was worried about a tale ... having invented the word Tolkien felt obliged to give it an etymology, and to embed that deep in the structure entitled Puss Cat M ew which had been read to him prior to of linguistic correspondences that holds Middle-Earth 1900 and which he feared might contain a 'hobbit': he (sic) together. asked Lancelyn Green to check out this tale. According to Lancelyn Green: According to Tolkien: At one point he was troubled about the origin of Hobbits Hobbit was the name usually applied by the Shire-folk to who were about to find their way into the supplement of all their kind. Men called them Halflings and the Elves the Oxford English Dictionary as his original invention, Periannath. The origin of the word was by most forgotten. and felt that something he had read as a child might have It seems, however, to have been at first a name given to given him the idea or even the name, which had the Harfoots by the Fallohides and Stoors, and to be a remained in his subconscious and had come back to him worn-down form of a word preserved more fully in Rohan: holbytla 'hole-builder'.