Authors: J. R. R. Tolkien

Tags: #Middle Earth (Imaginary place), #Science Fiction & Fantasy, #General, #Fiction, #Fantasy, #Literary Criticism, #Baggins; Frodo (Fictitious character), #Epic, #Fantasy Fiction; English

The Lord of the Rings (194 page)

In the case of persons, however, Hobbit-names in the Shire and in Bree were for those days peculiar, notably in the habit that had grown up, some centuries before this time, of having inherited names for families. Most of these surnames had obvious meanings in the current language, being derived from jesting nicknames, or from place-names, or (especially in Bree) from the names of plants and trees. Translation of these presented little difficulty; but there remained one or two older names of forgotten meaning, and these I have been content to anglicise in spelling: as Took for
Tűk
, or Boffin for
Bophîn
.

I have treated Hobbit first-names, as far as possible, in the same way. To their maid-children Hobbits commonly gave the names of flowers or jewels. To their man-children they usually gave names that had no meaning at all in their daily language; and some of their women’s names were similar. Of this kind are Bilbo, Bungo, Polo, Lotho, Tanta, Nina, and so on. There are many inevitable but accidental resemblances to names that we now have or know: for instance Otho, Odo, Drogo, Dora, Cora, and the like. These names I have retained, though I have usually anglicised them by altering their endings, since in Hobbit-names
a
was a masculine ending, and
o
and
e
were feminine.

In some old families, especially those of Fallohide origin such as the Tooks and the Bolgers, it was, however, the custom to give high-sounding first-names. Since most of these seem to have been drawn from legends of the past, of Men as well as of Hobbits, and many while now meaningless to Hobbits closely resembled the names of Men in the Vale of Anduin, or in Dale, or in the Mark, I have turned them into those old names, largely of Frankish and Gothic origin, that are still used by us or are met in our histories. I have thus at any rate preserved the often comic contrast between the first-names and surnames, of which the Hobbits themselves were well aware. Names of classical origin have rarely been used; for the nearest equivalents to Latin and Greek in Shire-lore were the Elvish tongues, and these the Hobbits seldom used in nomenclature. Few of them at any time knew ‘the languages of the kings’, as they called them.

The names of the Bucklanders were different from those of the rest of the Shire. The folk of the Marish and their offshoot across the Brandywine were in many ways peculiar, as has been told. It was from the former language of the southern Stoors, no doubt, that they inherited many of their very odd names. These I have usually left unaltered, for if queer now, they were queer in their own day. They had a style that we should perhaps feel vaguely to be Celtic elements in England, I have sometimes imitated the latter in my translation. Thus Bree, Combe (Coomb), Archet, and Chetwood are modelled on relics of British nomenclature, chosen according to sense:
bree
hill,
chet
“wood*. But only one personal name has been altered in this way. Meriadoc was chosen to fit the fact that this character’s shortened name. Kali, meant in the Westron ‘jolly, gay’, though it was actually an abbreviation of the now unmeaning Buckland name Kalimac.

I have not used names of Hebraic or similar origin in my transpositions. Nothing in Hobbit-names corresponds to this element in our names. Short names such as Sam, Tom, Tim, Mat were common as abbreviations of actual Hobbit-names, such as Tomba, Tolma, Matta, and the like. But Sam and his father Ham were really called Ban and Ran. These were shortenings of
Banazîr
and
Ranugad
, originally nicknames, meaning ‘half-wise, simple’ and ‘stay-at-home’, but being words that had fallen out of colloquial use they remained as traditional names in certain families. I have therefore tried to preserve these features by using Samwise and Hamfast, modernizations of ancient English
samwís
and
hámfćst
which corresponded closely in meaning.

Having gone so far in my attempt to modernise and make familiar the language and names of Hobbits, I found myself involved in a further process. The Mannish languages that were related to the Westron should, it seemed to me, be turned into forms related to English. The language of Rohan I have accordingly made to resemble ancient English, since it was related both (more distantly) to the Common Speech, and (very closely) to the former tongue of the northern Hobbits, and was in comparison with the Westron archaic. In the Red Book it is noted in several places that when Hobbits heard the speech of Rohan they recognised many words and felt the language to be akin to their own, so that it seemed absurd to leave the recorded names and words of the Rohirrim in a wholly alien style.

In several cases I have modernised the forms and spellings of place-names in Rohan: as in
Dunharrow
or
Snowbourne
; but I have not been consistent, for I have followed the Hobbits. They altered the names that they heard in the same way, if they were made of elements mat they recognised, or if they resembled place-names in the Shire; but many they left alone, as I have done, for instance, in
Edoras
‘the courts’. For the same reasons a few personal names have also been modernised, as Shadowfax and Wormtongue.

This assimilation also provided a convenient way of representing the peculiar local hobbit-words that were of northern origin. They have been given the forms that lost English words might well have had, if they had come down to our day. Thus
mathom
is meant to recall ancient English
máthm
, and so to represent the relationship of the actual Hobbit
kast
to R.
kastu
. Similarly
smial
(or smile) ‘burrow’ is a likely form for a descendant of
smygel
, and represents wen the relationship of Hobbit
tran
to R.
trahan
.
Sméagol
and
Déagol
are equivalents made up in the same way for the names
Trahald
‘burrowing, worming in’, and
Nahald
‘secret’ in the Northern tongues.

The still more northerly language of Dale is in this book seen only in the names of the Dwarves that came from that region and so used the language of the Men there, taking their ‘outer’ names in that tongue. It may be observed that in this book as in
The Hobbit
the form
dwarves
is used, although the dictionaries tell us that the plural of
dwarf
is
dwarfs
. It should be
dwarrows
(or
dwerrows
), if singular and plural had each gone its own way down the years, as have
man
and
men
or
goose
and
geese
. But we no longer speak of a dwarf as often as we do of a man, or even of a goose, and memories have not been fresh enough among Men to keep hold of a special plural for a race now abandoned to folk-tales, where at least a shadow of truth is preserved, or at last to nonsense-stories in which they have become mere figures of fun. But in the Third Age something of their old character and power is still glimpsed, if already a little dimmed: these are the descendants of the Naugrim of the Elder Days, in whose hearts still burns the ancient fire of Aulë the Smith, and the embers smoulder of their long grudge against the Elves; and in whose hands still lives the skill in works of stone that none have surpassed.

It is to mark this that I have ventured to use the form
dwarves
, and so remove them a little, perhaps, from the sillier tales of these latter days.
Dwarrows
would have been better; but I have used that form only in the name
Dwarrowdelf
, to represent the name of Moria in the Common Speech:
Phurunargian
. For that meant ‘Dwarf-delving’ and yet was already word of antique form. But Moria is an Elvish name, and given without love; for the Eldar, though they might at need, in their bitter wars with the Dark Power and his servants, contrive fortresses underground, were not dwellers in such places of choice. They were lovers of the green earth and the lights of heaven; and Moria in their tongue means the Black Chasm. But the Dwarves themselves, and this name at least was never kept secret, called it
Khazad-dűm
, the Mansion of the Khazâd; for such is their own name for their own race, and has been so, since Aulë gave it to them at their making in the deeps of time.

Elves
has been used to translate both
Quendi
, ‘the speakers’, the High-elven name of all their kind, and
Eldar
, the name of the Three Kindreds that sought for the Undying Realm and came there at the beginning of Days (save the
Sindar
only). This old word was indeed the only one available, and was once fitted to apply to such memories of this people as Men preserved, or to the making of Men’s minds not wholly dissimilar. But it has been diminished, and to many it may now suggest fancies either pretty or silly, as unlike to the Quendi of old as are butterflies to the swift falcon—not that any of the Quendi ever possessed wings of the body, as unnatural to them as to Men. They were a race high and beautiful the older Children of the world, and among them the Eldar were as kings, who now are gone: the People of the Great Journey, the People of the Stars. They were tall, fair of skin and grey-eyed, though their locks were dark, save in the golden house of Finrod; and their voices had more melodies than any mortal voice that now is heard. They were valiant, but the history of those that returned to Middle-earth in exile was grievous; and though it was in far-off days crossed by the fate of the Fathers, their fate is not that of Men. Their dominion passed long ago, and they dwell now beyond the circles of the world, and do not return.

Note on three names:
Hobbit, Gamgee, and Brandywine.

Hobbit
is an invention. In the Westron the word used, when this people was referred to at all, was
banakil
‘halfling’. But at this date the folk of the Shire and of Bree used the word
kuduk
, which was not found elsewhere. Meriadoc, however, actually records that the King of Rohan used the word kűd-dűkan ‘hole-dweller’. Since, as has been noted, the Hobbits had once spoken a language closely related to that of the Rohirrim, it seems likely that
kuduk
was a worn-down form of kűd-dűkan. The latter I have translated, for reasons explained, by
holbytla
; and
hobbit
provides a word that might well be a worn-down form of
holbytla
, it that name had occurred in our own ancient language.

Gamgee
. According to family tradition, set out in the Red Book, the surname
Galbasi
, or in reduced form
Galpsi
, came from the village of
Galabas
, popularly supposed to be derived from
galab-
‘game’ and an old element
bas-
, more or less equivalent to our
wick, wich. Gamwich
(pronounced
Gammidge
) seemed therefore a very fair rendering. However, in reducing
Gammidgy
to
Gamgee
, to represent
Galpsi
, no reference was intended to the connection of Samwise with the family of Cotton, though a jest of that kind would have been hobbit-like enough, had there been any warrant in their language.

Cotton, in fact, represents
Hlothran
a fairly common village-name in the Shire, derived from
hloth-
‘a two-roomed dwelling or hole’, and
ran(u)
a small group of such dwellings on a hillside. As a surname it may be an alteration of
hlothram(a) ‘
cottager’.
Hlothram
, which I have rendered Cotman, was the name of Farmer Cotton’s grandfather.

Brandywine
. The hobbit-names of this river were alterations of the Elvish
Baranduin
(accented on
and
), derived from
baran
‘golden brown’ and
duin
‘(large) river’. Of
Baranduin
Brandywine seemed a natural corruption in modern times. Actually the older hobbit-name was
Branda-nîn
‘border-water’, which would have been more closely rendered by Marchbourn; but by a jest that had become habitual, referring again to its colour, at this time the river was usually called
Bralda-hîm
‘heady ale’.

It must be observed, however, that when the Oldbucks (Zaragamba) changed their name to Brandybuck (Brandagamba), the first element meant ‘borderland’, and Marchbuck would have been nearer. Only a very bold hobbit would have ventured to call the Master of Buckland
Braldagamba
in his hearing.

Table of Contents

Prologue

BOOK ONE