Richard Blackwelder writes:

There is no evidence in Tolkien’s biography that he was ever closely associated with horses, but I was struck with his feeling for them in the books.

Blackwelder went on to create a lovely monograph about the horses of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, stringing together Tolkien’s passages concerning horses with “connective rephrasing” (Blackwelder’s term) to form a coherent description.  Blackwelder’s mini-chapters are: In The Hobbit; The Pony of Sam Gamgee; The Horses of the Dark Lord; The Riders of Rohan; and Shadowfax.

For those of you who love onomastics, I note that Shadowfax is named in the style of Skinfaxi (pronounce “shine-faxi”) and Hrímfaxi, “Shining-mane” and “Frost-mane”, the horses of Day and Night in Norse mythology.

Because goblins eat horses, I have tagged this as a food word – scholars be careful only to use the 04.024 reference when researching food!

• 01.094 that he could ride a horse.
• 02.027 when up came Gandalf very splendid on a white horse.
• 03.001 and their horses had more to eat than they had;
• 03.010 so suddenly that Gandalf’s horse nearly slipped down the slope.
• 03.023 but Gandalf was already off his horse
• 04.024 since his horse was not suitable for the mountain-paths.
• 04.024 For goblins eat horses
• 05.030 Thirty white horses on a red hill,
• 06.061 like men do on horses.
• 07.023 and as a man he keeps cattle and horses
• 07.032 Some horses,
• 07.034 The horses were standing by him with their noses at his shoulder.
• 07.035 he said to the horses.
• 07.126 and a horse for Gandalf,
• 07.127 At the gate of the forest I must ask you to send back my horse
• 07.137 What about the horse,
• 07.140 I am not sending the horse back,
• 07.146 and wishing he was beside the wizard on his tall horse.
• 07.153 said Gandalf, and he turned his horse
• 10.045 Horses and ponies
• 11.001 Here they were joined by the horses

Blackwelder, Richard E. The Horses of Tolkien’s Middle Earth. Personal correspondence.  July 8, 1980.  Photocopy.

It’s definitely a lack-of-food word!

• 02.116 and being very hungry
• 04.024 and they are always hungry.
• 05.018 for he was not really very hungry at the moment,
• 05.022 and whether Gollum was really hungry.
• 05.023 whether he was fierce or hungry,
• 05.037 What is more they made him hungry;
• 05.058 It had made him very hungry indeed.
• 05.083 and hungry.
• 05.087 or when he was very, very, hungry,
• 06.035 I am dreadfully hungry,’
• 06.096 in the meantime we are famished with hunger.’
• 07.014 and a little hungry.
• 07.024 and then Bilbo felt so hungry that he would have eaten acorns,
• 08.007 and he was always hungry,
• 08.046 that they were still gnawingly hungry,
• 08.047 nor why he felt so hungry;
• 08.057 hunger decided them,
• 09.001 to find a way out before they died of hunger
• 09.008 to be hungry
• 09.011 He was hungry too outside,
• 09.062 to be really hungry,
• 10.005 and he was hungry,
• 10.014 and sick with hunger is maddening.
• 13.052 that he was not only tired but also very hungry indeed.
• 13.062 A dragon would always be hungry
• 14.038 and great hunger.

A feast is a celebratory religious observance, the contrast to a fast.  The root of the word has more to do with “festival” and the religious meaning has more to do with antiphons than to do with food.  Yet we apply the third meaning of a sumptuous meal to each of these instances.  I wonder what could be made if we used the more religious definition?

• 05.015 I guess it’s a choice feast;
• 08.048 and there was a great feast going on,
• 08.056 A feast would be no good,
• 08.057 But without a feast
• 08.057 in the woodland feast;
• 08.071 The feast that they now saw was greater
• 08.071 and at the head of a long line of feasters
• 08.104 It had thought of starting the feast while the others were away,
• 08.131 The feasting people were Wood-elves,
• 09.024 There is a feast tonight
• 09.025 but for the king’s feasts only,
• 09.029 As a matter of fact there was a great autumn feast
• 09.039 They had left a merry feast
• 09.042 He’s been having a little feast all to himself
• 09.046 you began your feasting early
• 09.048 is pushed into the river for the Lake-men to feast on for nothing!’
• 10.009 and the boatmen went to feast in Lake-town.
• 10.026 He is at feast,’
• 13.045 the hall of feasting
• 15.034 and feasting by the fires.
• 18.039 then the feast shall indeed be splendid!’
• 18.051 and wide to feast at Beorn’s bidding.
• 19.043 and fruit and feasting in autumn.

“feast, n.” OED Online. Oxford University Press, March 2016. Web. 25 May 2016.

Caveat lector, sometimes these are animals and sometimes food.  Fellow scholars exploring fish in the Hobbit must judge for themselves whether each instance is about a comestible.  Almost all of them are in Chapter 5, just as we would wish them to be.

• 05.011 fish whose fathers swam in,
• 05.011 also there are other things more slimy than fish.
• 05.012 He was looking out of his pale lamp-like eyes for blind fish,
• 05.012 Sometimes he took a fancy for fish from the lake,
• 05.012 and sometimes neither goblin nor fish came back.
• 05.050 a fish jumped out
• 05.051 Fish!
• 05.051 fish!’ he cried.
• 05.051 It is fish!’
• 05.054 talking of fish,
• 05.054 Fish on a little table,
• 05.087 and tired of fish.
• 05.128 cold fish,
• 14.007 Anything from floods to poisoned fish.
• 14.018 and poisoned fish,
• 16.018 That was no fish!’

The staff of life!  OED affirms that it’s but meal and moisture, kneaded and baked.  The word comes from roots meaning “bit” or “piece” or “morsel”.

Before 1200 bread had quite displaced hláf as the name of the substance, leaving to the latter the sense ‘loaf’ (an amount, LFSA) which it has since retained. It thus appears that a word originally meaning ‘piece, bit, frustum’, has passed through the senses of ‘piece of bread’, ‘broken bread’, into that of ‘bread’ as a substance; while at the same time the original word for ‘bread, loaf, panis’ has been restricted to the undivided article as shaped and baked, the ‘loaf’. The Lowland Scotch and northern dialect use of piece illustrates anew the first step in this transition, for it is the regular word for a piece of bread, as in ‘give the bairn a piece’,

• 02.116 Now they had bread
• 07.121 and fat again on bread
• 08.145 and after he had got over his thankfulness for bread
• 18.048 and eaten much of your bread.’

“bread, n.” OED Online. Oxford University Press, March 2016. Web. 18 May 2016.

In the excellent history of this word, “provision” has meant anything from food to providence to cold, hard cash.  I’m thinking of

[02.116] Their own provisions were very scanty.

but do I include “provide” in my search?  I think I do, since Latin pro-videre, to see ahead (and therefore remember to pack one’s pocket-handkerchief) clearly leads us to the noun pro-vision (oh!  and look at the not incorrect but unexpected form pro-vidence up above!)

So!  Not all of these are food words, friends, take care when you are doing your food research.

• 01.002 provided with polished chairs,
• 02.116 Their own provisions were very scanty.
• 02.123 our small stock of provisions.
• 03.034 and provisions light to carry
• 07.126 He would provide ponies for each of them,
• 07.126 I will provide you with skins for carrying water,
• 08.007 for they were extremely careful with their provisions.
• 10.045 and many provisions.
• 11.001 with other provisions
• 12.020 in size but provided with a bitter sword
• 16.042 so an escort was provided for him,

“provide, v.” OED Online. Oxford University Press, March 2016. Web. 18 May 2016.

“provision, n.” OED Online. Oxford University Press, March 2016. Web. 18 May 2016.

Is there something almost Kipling to the rhythm of this beautiful line?

[02.063]  I’ll cook beautifully for you, a perfectly beautiful breakfast for you, if only you won’t have me for supper.”

Something like “Up jumped Nqua from his seat on the salt-flat and shouted “Go away!”

• 01.142 and cook everybody else’s wretched breakfast.
• 02.057 “And can yer cook ’em?” said Tom.
• 02.063 “And please don’t cook me,
• 02.063 I am a good cook myself,
• 02.063 and cook better than I cook,
• 02.063 and cook better than I cook,
• 02.063 I’ll cook beautifully for you,
• 03.024 “I can smell the wood-fires for the cooking.”
• 06.099 and the figures of the dwarves round it cooking
• 06.099 being used to having it delivered by the butcher all ready to cook.
• 08.092 and cooking,

Kipling, Rudyard, and Nicolas. Just so Stories. New York: Doubleday, 1952. Print.

I was a little surprised to learn that “barrel” is a comparatively common word, so I checked more closely – it is approximately the nine-thousandth most common word in the Project Gutenberg corpus.  It occurs mostly in Chapter Nine, of course.  Note that in Chapter One, it does not refer to food.

• 01.113 with a long barrel
• 02.043 Also there was a barrel of good drink at hand,
• 02.049 Bert and Tom went off to the barrel.
• 02.116 also one barrel of ale which was still full.
• 05.144 and to sneak behind a big barrel
• 09.001 Chapter IX BARRELS OUT OF BOND
• 09.018 There stood barrels,
• 09.018 and barrels, and barrels;
• 09.018 and barrels, and barrels;
• 09.019 Hiding behind one of the largest barrels
• 09.019 From Lake-town the barrels were brought up the Forest River.
• 09.020 When the barrels were empty
• 09.020 and out the barrels floated on the stream,
• 09.037 get the empty barrels
• 09.038 in the sides of the barrels,
• 09.048 they answered rolling the barrels to the opening.
• 09.050 So they sang as first one barrel
• 09.050 Some were barrels really empty,
• 09.051 in a barrel himself,
• 09.051 to the place where the barrels were collected.
• 09.052 so as to let out the barrels as soon as they were all afloat below.
• 09.054 Now the very last barrel
• 09.054 into the cold dark water with the barrel on top of him.
• 09.055 the barrel rolled round
• 09.055 for you cannot count friends that are all packed up in barrels.
• 09.056 even if he had managed to get astride his barrel,
• 09.059 the eddying current carried several barrels
• 09.059 up the side of his barrel
• 09.060 Before long the barrels broke free again
• 09.060 and the barrel was a good big one
• 09.061 On the shallow shore most of the barrels ran aground,
• 09.062 and pushed all the barrels together
• 09.062 He slipped from his barrel
• 09.064 They were making up a raft of barrels,
• 09.065 The barrels now all lashed together
• 10.004 shivering on the barrels,
• 10.009 As soon as the raft of barrels came
• 10.009 in the meanwhile the barrels were left afloat
• 10.010 First of all a barrel was cut loose by Bilbo
• 10.012 which were the right barrels.
• 10.040 about keys or barrels while the dwarves stayed
• 12.060 Maybe Barrel was your pony’s name;