Small

Finally! Thanks to the Rev. Dr. Dickieson over at A Pilgrim in Narnia, I have gotten un-stuck from the word which has held me in thrall since October. I hope this is of interest to his students in their study of the power of small ones:

• 1.004 and smaller than the bearded Dwarves.
• 1.004 the small river that ran at the foot of The Hill.
• 1.006 since they were all small hobbit-boys
• 1.059 and a couple of small tables
• 1.068 he sent a smaller smoke-ring from his short clay-pipe
• 1.109 Because it is too small.
• 1.113 a small and curious key.
• 2.022 There was a very small pony,
• 2.112 very small and secret.
• 2.113 too small for trolls,
• 2.123 our small stock of provisions.
• 3.009 some of which were small,
• 3.033 in the story of Bilbo’s great adventure is only a small one,
• 5.012 a small slimy creature.
• 5.087 and caught a small goblin-imp.
• 5.101 to his alarm Bilbo now saw two small points of light peering at him.
• 5.106 and saw Gollum’s eyes like small green lamps
• 6.039 and he drank from a small mountain-stream that crossed the path,
• 6.040 rubbish and small pebbles
• 6.067 and can see small things
• 6.099 and a small sheep.
• 7.045 and came through another smaller door into a sort of veranda
• 7.133 and occasionally small herds
• 8.042 But they were only small ones of ordinary size,
• 8.075 as small spiders do to flies –
• 8.132 from which countless smaller ones opened out on every side,
• 9.002 their small knives,
• 9.005 they were smaller,
• 9.025 until they entered a small cellar
• 9.025 and for smaller bowls
• 9.038 in a small kennel;
• 9.044 Small wonder if I fall asleep from weariness!’
• 9.045 Small wonder,’
• 9.051 he had precious small chance of ever finding the dwarves again.
• 9.060 and being rather leaky had now shipped a small amount of water.
• 10.006 It was so wide that the opposite shores looked small
• 10.013 with plenty of straw into smaller casks,
• 11.014 because it was so small that it looked
• 11.021 of the Misty Mountains small
• 12.020 though it was so small,
• 13.017 Oin with a small pine-torch alight
• 13.018 The light grew smaller
• 13.020 His small hand would not close about it,
• 13.027 Faintly the dwarves heard his small cries,
• 13.034 who had small interest
• 13.037 With that he put on Bilbo a small coat of mail,
• 13.067 But there seemed small need for watching
• 13.071 and there was a small chamber further in,
• 15.020 but thirteen is small remnant
• 15.026 the small secret door)
• 15.028 they had contrived a small low arch under the new wall;
• 15.053 whom I remember with small kindness.
• 17.062 dark shapes small yet majestic against the distant glow.
• 18.037 In the end he would only take two small chests,
• 19.018 and giving him such small gifts as he would accept,
• 19.024 except that the company was smaller,

2 thoughts on “Small

  1. Reblogged this on A Pilgrim in Narnia and commented:
    I have talked about Sparrow Alden’s work before, the creative Digital Humanities project to stage all of the words in J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit. Her “Words That You Were Saying” blog then offers up visual word studies that invite us to imagine dominant, peculiar, and hidden themes in this literary fairy tale. Digital Humanities work is not magic; we consider the data, doing all the work before we know if we will see a result. But I have found Sparrow’s word studies have consistently made me reflect on the text in fresh ways.
    It’s a cool project, but I also have been able to make use of it in my scholarly work. In preparing for a lecture in Northwind’s Romantic Theology program, I began playing with words in the text, playing out an image that I think is a bit under-appreciated. Because she is entirely equipped, I reached out to Sparrow to see if she could run the data on “little” and “small” in her magic Digital Humanities project. This is the first part of that project, “Small,” and “Little” was not far behind. https://wordsthatyouweresaying.blog/. I then spent some time visualizing the data, using it to enrich my close reading.
    I think this is a good example of cooperative scholarship and digital humanities experimentation at work. Thanks to Sparrow and I hope students found the slight tilt in perspective enriched their reading as much as it did mine!

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