The Riddles of The Hobbit (30 page)

  
5
.  Humphrey Carpenter (ed.),
The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien
(London: HarperCollins 1995), 66.

  
1
.  Adam Phillips,
Side Effects
(London: Penguin 2006), 59. The passage quoted a little further on is from 65.

  
2
.  Ursula Le Guin,
A Wizard of Earthsea
(1968; London: Gollancz 1971), 191.

  
1
.  John D. Rateliff,
The History of the Hobbit: Mr Baggins
(London: HarperCollins 2007)
,
107.

  
2
.  Another reason Tolkien may have been drawn to the
Alvíssmál
is linguistic. As Charlie Anderson notes, ‘the Poetic Edda poem
Alvissmal
is fascinating, because it gives glimpses into the dialects / languages of these beings.
For example, the human
himinn
(“sky”) is
hlyrnir
to the Aesir,
vindofni
to the Vanir,
uppheimto
the Jotnar,
fagraræfr
to the Elves and
drjupansal
to the Dwarves. Tolkien … lived and breathed the sources of Anglo-Saxon and Germanic myth, which are related to Norse myth. As a professional linguist, Tolkien must have seen that some translations of
Alvissmal
, for example Bellows’ (1936), failed to show that the different dialects / languages might be unintelligible, and that the common language between the Aesir and the Dwarves was the language of humans’, Anderson, ‘Norse Mythology, Fantasy and
Lord of the Rings
’:
http://wbrondtkamffer.com/tag/j-r-r-tolkien
(30 October 2012).

  
3
.  John Garth,
Tolkien and the Great War: the Threshold of Middle Earth
(London: HarperCollins 2003), 307–8.

  
4
.  Tolkien,
The Lord of the Rings
(1954–55; 1 Vol. edition; London: HarperCollins 2012), 1172. Might
kûd-dûkan
carry some echo of Tolkien’s classical education? The Greek κυδ- is the root of words meaning ‘renown, glory, esteem’; το δυικαν is Greek for ‘the dual number’. Perhaps the Hobbits are ‘twice renowned’ in the sense that they appear in both
The Hobbit
and
The Lord of the Rings
.

  
5
.  Tom Shippey,
J. R .R. Tolkien: Author of the Century
(London: HarperCollins 2000), 46. Shippey also speculates that ‘hobbit’ may owe something to the word ‘rabbit.’

  
6
.  The Old Norse Saga
King Heidrek the Wise
—which I talk about above, on account of its lengthy riddle context—begins with King Garðaríki, Heidrek’s father, obtaining from the dwarfs the magic sword Tyrfingr, ‘hét ok allra var bitrast’, ‘of all swords the sharpest’. ‘Bitrast’ might be translated ‘bitterest’, provide we keep this etymological sense of the meaning of ‘bitter’ alive.

  
7
.  Iona and Peter Opie’s
Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes
(2nd edn; Oxford: Clarendon Press 1971), 215. Opie goes on to quote Lewis Carroll: ‘ “It is very provoking to be called an egg—very” as Humpty admits in
Through the Looking Glass
, but such common knowledge cannot be gainsaid.’

  
8
.  ‘E. G. Withycombe (
Oxford Dictionary of Christian Names
) also associates a human being with the name [Humpty-Dumpty], suggesting that it echoes the pet forms of
Humphrey
which were
Dumphry
and
Dump
.’ Opies,
Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes
, 215. Both ‘hombetty’ or ‘hobbety’ are variants noted in the
OED
. There is, of course, no actual medieval Romance entitled
Ringe
.

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Humphrey (ed.),
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(1985; London: HarperCollins 1995)

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——,
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——,
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——,
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Edda
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Lord of the Rings
’:
http://wbrondtkamffer.com/tag/j-r-r-tolkien
(30 October 2012)

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glof
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2085b–88) and Various Latin Analogues’,
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Gavin,
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and
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’, in Robert E. Bjork (ed.),
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——,
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——,
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Aldheim,
80–1

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137
,
147

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,
85–9
,
136
,
161

Anderson, Charlie,
178–9

Anderson, Douglas,
68

Anderson Earl Robert,
106

Aquinas, Saint,
119

Artamonova, Maria,
29–30

Auden, Wistan Hugh,
For the Time Being: a Christmas Oratorio
,
11

Augustine, Saint,
119

Austen, Jane,
25–6

Emma
,
25
,
138

‘Battle of Maldon, The’,
23

Beowulf
,
26–7
,
39
,
42
,
51
,
68
,
103–7

Bergonzi, Bernard,
120

Bersani, Leo,
154

Bitterli, Dieter,
47