The Peoples of Middle-earth (12 page)

'Horse-folk' or 'Horse-land', translates Lohtur. Theoden, as are many of the other royal names, is an old word for 'king', corresponding to Rohan turac-.(39)

$55. Note. In a few cases I have, not quite consistently, modified the words and names of the Mark, making them more like modern English, especially in spelling. Examples of this process in varying degrees are: Dunharrow (= Dun-harug

'hill-sanctuary'), Starkhorn, Entwash, Helm's Deep, Combe (= Cumb); Halifirien (= Halig-firgen 'holy-mountain'); Fen-march for Fenmerce; Shadowfax for Scadufax. In a similar way in 'The Hobbit' Oakenshield was anglicized from Eikinskialdi.

The name Rohan itself is of Noldorin origin, a translation of the native Lograd (sc. Eo-marc 'the Horse-maik' or 'Borderland of the Horsemen'). Its strictly correct form was Rochann, but the form Rohan represents the actual pronunciation of Gondor, in which medial ch was colloquially weakened to h.

$56. This translation had a disadvantage which I did not foresee. The 'linguistic notes' on the origin of peculiar Hobbit words had also to be 'translated'. I have already alluded to the translation of the actual relation of Rohan cugbagu and Shire cubuc into an imagined one of holbytla and hobbit. Other examples are these (cf. [$24]): Stoor in relation to a Northern word meaning 'big' (cf. Scandinavian stor- 'big') is a translation of actual Hobbit tung (40) in relation to a similar word in Dale.

Supposed Hobbit mathom in relation to Rohan (that is Old English) mathum is a translation of actual Hobbit cast (older castu) compared with Rohan castu.

$57. Similarly, Rohan smygel, actually an Old English word for a burrow, related to a Northern stem smug / smeag (smaug),(41) here represents the genuine Rohan trahan related to Hobbit tran. From smygel I have derived an imaginary modern smile (or smial) having a similar relation to the older form.

Smeagol and Deagol are thus Old English equivalents for actual Trahand and Nuhund 'apt to creep into a hole' and 'apt to hide, secretive' respectively. (Smaug, the Dragon's name, is a representation in similar terms, in this case of a more Scandinavian character, of the Dale name Tragu, which was probably related to the trah- stem in the Mark and Shire.)

$58. Note. In cases where 'folk-etymology' has operated to alter older (Elvish) names into the appearance of names in the C.S. special difficulty may be met, since it is unlikely that suitable words will be found in modern English that will at once translate the C.S. name and yet also have some similarity in sound to the Elvish name. The chief example is that of the River Baranduin, the ancient boundary eastward of the Shire. This is an Elvish name composed of baran 'golden-brown' and duin

'(large) river'. But it was by the Hobbits picturesquely perverted into Branduhim, signifying in their tongue 'foaming beer'

(brand(u) 'foam'; him(a) 'beer'). I have imitated this by calling the river the Brandywine, similar in sound and a very possible

'corruption' of Baranduin, although the sense is not very closely similar. (There is, in fact, no evidence for the distillation of brandy in the Shire.)

$59 For the same reasons the Northern, or rather North-easterly, 'outer' names of the Dwarves taken from the Mannish languages of that region have been all given a Scandinavian style: they are indeed all genuine Norse dwarf-names.(42) NOTES

1. The idea of the three kinds of Hobbit, Harfoots, Stoors, and Fallohides, arose in the first of the two texts (F 1), and was then transferred (before the second text F 2 was written) to the Prologue (see note 10 below, and p. 10). But the text of the latter (P 5) in which it appeared gave only the old story of Bilbo and Gollum, and thus must have been earlier than July 1950: see p. 7.

2. F 1 as written had 'Human', subsequently changed to 'Mannish'; this term occurs later in F 1 as first written. See the commentary on $2.

3. Atani: in F 1 as written no Elvish name appears here, but Atanatari was added in the margin, then changed to Atanni (so spelt).

4. As originally written, F 1 had: 'In that war the Fathers of Men aided the Elves, and lived with them and fought beside them; and their chieftains learned the Noldorin speech, and some indeed forsook their own tongue, even in the daily use of their own houses.' This was changed to: 'In that war three houses of the Fathers of Men aided the Elves, and lived with them and fought beside them; and the people of these houses learned the Noldorin speech, and forsook their own tongue.' On this see the commentary on $7.

The final reading in F 2, 'the lords of these houses learned the Noldorin speech', belongs with the changes made in $9 and $13

introducing Adunaic, which were made after the third version of the text had been written, or was at any rate in progress (see pp. 74-5).

5. Throughout F 2 the name was written Dunedein, subsequently corrected at all occurrences to Dunedain (the spelling in F 1).

This is not further indicated in the text printed, where I have spelt the name in the usual form.

6. At first F 1 read here: 'This tongue was in Noldorin called Falathren "Shore-language", but by its speakers Westnish or the Common Speech.' The name Westnish was used throughout F 1, changed everywhere to Westron (see the commentary on $9). The present sentence was altered to read: '... but by its speakers Unduna (that is Westron) or Soval Phare the Common Speech.'

7. F 1 has: 'First: the Numenoreans had not been wholly sundered from the Eldar that remained in Middle-earth, and there had been much coming and going between Numenor and the westlands.'

8. After 'in the days of its blessedness' F 1 has: 'and there the language of the Kings of Men had changed little and slowly. And the like may be said of the Eldar.'

9. For the passage in F 2 concerning Treebeard F 1 has: 'As was natural in one so ancient Treebeard also knew this tongue, and such words and names as he is here recorded to have used, other than those in the Common Speech, are Quenya.'

10. F 1 is here altogether different. Following the words 'To speak last of Hobbits' it continues:

These were a people who, as has been said, were more nearly akin to Men than any other of the speaking-peoples of the ancient world. Their language must then be supposed to have been of similar kind and origin to the language of Men. But, owing to the absence of all records among the Hobbits before their settlement in the West, the remoter history of Hobbit-language is difficult and obscure. [This passage was struck out.]

Among the Hobbits of the Shire, though a love of learning was far from general (unless it be of genealogical lore), there were always some few, especially in the greater families, who were lore-masters, and gathered information concerning older times and distant lands, either from their own traditions, or from Elves and Men and Dwarves. According to the accounts thus compiled in the Shire, Hobbits, though originally one race, became divided in remote antiquity into three somewhat different kinds: Stoors, Harfoots, and Fallohides.

Here there follows in F 1 an account of the three kinds that is already very close to that in the Prologue (FR pp. 12-13); and it is clear that it was here that the conception of the three Hobbit-kinds first entered (see the commentary on $20). It is notable that while the actual wording of F 1 was little changed subsequently, the Stoors were at first placed before the Harfoots, and a part of the description of the Harfoots was at first applied to the Stoors and vice versa.

The Stoors were broader, heavier in build, and had less hair on their feet and more on their chins, and preferred flat lands and riversides. [Added: Their feet and hands were large.] The Harfoots were browner of skin, smaller and shorter, and they were beardless and bootless; they preferred highlands and hillsides. [Added: Their hands and feet were neat and nimble.] The Fallohides were fairer of skin and often of hair, and were taller than the others; they were lovers of trees and woodlands.

[Added: All Hobbits were 'good shots' with stone, sling or bow, but the Fallohides were the surest on the mark.]

The Stoors [> Harfoots] had much to do with Dwarves in ancient times, and long lived in the foothills of the Misty Mountains. They moved westward early, and crossed the Mountains and roamed over the land of Eriador beyond, as far as Weathertop or further, while the others were still in Wilderland. [Struck out: The Harfoots lingered long by the Great River, and were friendly with Men. They came westward after the Stoors.] They were probably the most normal and representative variety of Hobbits and were certainly the most numerous. They were the most inclined to settle, and the most addicted to living in holes and tunnels. [Added: The Stoors lingered by the banks of the Great River, and were friendly with Men. They came westward after the Harfoots, owing to the great increase of Men in Anduin Vale according to the[ir]

tales, and followed the course of the Bruinen (or Loudwater) southwards.] The Fallohides were the least numerous, a northerly branch....

The text F 1 then proceeds in almost the same words as in the Prologue, as far as 'they were often found as leaders or chieftains among clans of Stoors or Harfoots' (FR p. 13). At this point there is a footnote:

Thus it is said to have been clans of a still markedly Stoorish strain that first moved on west again from Bree and colonized the Shire, attracted originally to the riverbanks of the Baranduin. In Bilbo's time the inhabitants of the Marish in the East Farthing, and also of Buckland, still showed Stoorish characteristics. Yet even there the chief families, notably the Brandybucks, had a strong Fallohidish strain in their make-up.

(On this see the commentary on $20.)

Before F 2 was written the account of the Harfoots, Stoors, and Fallohides was removed to stand in the Prologue, where at its first appearance it had almost word for word its form in the published work (see p. 10).

From this point F 1 continues as the basis for the F 2 version from $$21 ff.

11. For this paragraph F 1 reads as follows:

More recent enquiries have failed, it is true, to find any trace of a special Hobbit language, but they do suggest that Westnish

[> Westron] was not in fact the oldest language spoken by this people. The very earliest glimpses of Hobbits to be caught, either in their own legends or those of their neighbours, show them rather to have at that time spoken the language of Men in the higher vale of Anduin, roughly between the Carrock and the Gladden Fields.

The footnote here in F 1 corresponds in subject to that in F 2 at the end of $23, and reads:

If Gandalf's theory is correct the people of Gollum must have been a late-lingering group of Stoors in the neighbourhood of the Gladden. And it may be that the memories of Smeagol provide one of the earliest glimpses of Hobbitry that we have.

It may be noted therefore that Deagol and Smeagol are both words in the languages of Anduin-vale.

12. The footnote here in F 1 (see note 11) reads:

Of course, since the Common Speech was itself derived from a related speech, it may sometimes have happened that the Hobbits preserved in use a word that had once been more widely current in Westnish [> Westron].

13. F 1 has here: 'and to the name of the Dragon Smaug (if that is a name given to him by the northern men of Dale, as seems likely).'

14. F 1 does not have the reference to the Hobbit month-names, but introduces a paragraph that was not taken up here in F 2 (cf. $28, which appears also in F 1).

Hobbits therefore appear from their linguistic history to have had in early times a special aptitude for adopting language from their neighbours, and in no other point is this better illustrated than in their giving of names. They had of course many names of their own invention - usually short and often comic in sound (to us and to Hobbits) - but from very early times they had also in traditional use a wealth of other names drawn not from the language of daily use but from their legends and histories and fictitious tales which dealt by no means solely with their own heroes and adventures, but with Elves and Men and Dwarves and even giants.

15. This is a reference to the conclusion of the text, which is omitted in this book (see note 42).

16. The heading On Translation is absent in F 1.

17. For the reference of the footnote at this point see note 15. In F 1

the footnote reads: 'A note on the spelling and intended pronunciation of the Elvish words and names will be found at the beginning of the Index.'

18. In a draft of this passage in F 1 the Westron name of Imladris was Karbandul.

19. The footnote to the name Dwarrowdelf differs somewhat in F 1.

The Common Speech name of Moria was Kubalnarga (changed to Kubalnargia), translated as Dwarrowdelf 'since in Bilbo's time the word kubal (related to kubu "delve") was obsolete in ordinary speech, and narga [> nargia] contained a plural [> derivative) form of narag "dwarf" that had long disappeared from use.

Dwarrows is what our older dwergas would have become if the singular dwarf from older dwerh had not replaced it, long ago.'