word

Bless

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Bless is a complicated word indeed – Bilbo, Thorin, Gollum, Balin, the narrator himself, and even Gandalf and Smaug use it as an interjection, blessing themselves in a folksy manner.  Gandalf is being disingenuous with Beorn in 07.081 and putting off the dwarves in a teasing manner in 07.116.  “Bless me” (or in Gollum’s case, “us”) sounds like a verbal habit of a slightly superstitious, perhaps parochial dialect.

But whence the superstition?  What is blessing?  In the more solemn sense of spiritual gift, the word is used three times.  In chapter 12, Bilbo wordlessly blesses the luck of his ring and Balin lifts up the importance of knowing about Smaug’s bare patch.  In chapter 18, Thranduil names Bilbo “elf-friend and blessed.”  Although Tolkien had not planned Bilbo’s future trajectory as he wrote that, we certainly see this blessing play out in Bilbo’s story going forward.

What do we make of it?  Two uses of bless.  Do we chart them differently?  I propose that when characters bless themselves, we think of it as a parochial saying and when characters bless others that it is a word of high register.  Well, bless us and splash us.

  • 01.017 Bless me,  (Bilbo)
  • 01.120 Bless me!’ said Thorin,
  • 05.015 Bless us (Gollum)
  • 06.014 Bless me, (narrator)
  • 07.081 And, bless me! (Gandalf)
  • 07.116 but bless me! (Gandalf)
  • 08.127 Gollum! Well I’m blest! (Balin)
  • 12.044 and blessed the luck of his ring.  (Bilbo avoiding Smaug)
  • 12.067 Bless me! (Smaug)
  • 12.089 and a blessing yet to know of the bare patch (Balin)
  • 18.008 Well I’m blessed!’ (Bilbo)
  • 18.049 And I name you elf-friend and blessed.  (Thranduil)
  • 19.035 Bless me! (Bilbo)

Wag

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Wag appears eight times, mostly before chapter ten, but the last time in Chapter 11.  Beards and heads wag (which sounds funny to me!) and in Chapter 7 in Beorn’s home, dwarves are bowing and scraping so comically that the big man laughs and enjoins them to “stop wagging” their whole bodies.

Please note that here we find “a-wagging”, the only one of the a-gerunds uncommon enough to make it into our list.

  • 01.071 while the shadow of Gandalf’s beard wagged against the wall.
  • 01.090 who was wagging his mouth
  • 03.010 His head and beard wagged this way and that
  • 03.016 With beards all a-wagging?
  • 06.046 Thorin’s beard wagging beside him,
  • 06.046 and my stomach is wagging like an empty sack.’
  • 07.070 and stop wagging!’
  • 11.032 and the dwarves with wagging beards watching impatiently.

Grime

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I had best not go past “grim” without taking care of “grime”, lest it be lost between ‘grim-voiced’ and ‘grimly’.  It’s a humble word, but notice?

  • 08.041 and grimed from the old bark of the greater boughs;

It’s a verb.

“Grime” as a verb fell out of use in the 15th century, replaced by ‘begrime’ – we know exactly what it means, even though we’ve probably never seen or heard or used it.  Creating archaic flavor without losing meaning: one of Tolkien’s genius gifts.

“Grime” (the noun) is attested in Middle English and probably of Proto-German origins, having cognates in Flemish and Dutch.  In fact the Dutch form has connotations of “mask”, like the Old English word for mask.  Grima.  Yes, indeed.  In another work, Tolkien named a certain character “filthy spy”.

Harper, Douglas. “Grime”.  Online Etymology Dictionary. Web.

Grim

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It is possible that I got into this entire business because of my curiosity about the word “grim”.  It’s an uncommon word.  It’s a humble, one-syllable word.  It evokes in me a sense of the color grey although I find only one close pairing of those words: 09.053 shadow grey and grim!  I wondered who was described as grim, and had a vague sense that it was related in Tolkien’s usage to kingship.  Here’s our little table of who and what are described as grim in The Hobbit.

  • The Misty Mountains:  01.082 Far over the misty mountains grim
  • Thror and Thrain:  01.124 They looked very grim but they said very little.
  • Gandalf:  01.132 and grimly,
  • Mirkwood:  08.078 The forest was grim
  • Thranduil: 09.006 and though he looked grimly at them,
  • Shadow: 09.053 Stoops in shadow grey and grim!
  • The Lonely Mountain: 11.001
  • Balin: 11.007
  • Bilbo: 12.008
  • Bard:
    • 14.006 said another with a grim voice.
    • 14.009 But the grim-voiced fellow ran hotfoot to the Master.
    • 14.013 if it had not been for the grim-voiced man
    • 14.018 grim-voiced
    • 14.018 and grim-faced,
    • 15.020 he is a grim man but true.
    • 15.046 and grim of face,
    • 15.049 and grimly spoken;
    • 16.032 asked Bard grimly.
  • Thorin:
    • 15.059 So grim had Thorin become,
    • 17.019 said Thorin grimly.
  • Dain’s troops
    • 16.005 Though they are a grim folk,
    • 16.031 and has at least five hundred grim dwarves with him –
    • 17.031 and their faces were grim.
  • Some men of Beorn’s line: 18.051 and some were grim men

Not all the grim folk are kings, but all the kings are grim.

Online Etymology Dictionary tells us that it’s an Old English word meaning fierce and severe, adding the connotation of ‘gloomy’ in the 12th century.  Its Proto-Indo-European root may be related to “thunder”, and I’ve certainly known more than one person of grim countenance to be described in stormy terms.

Harper, Douglas. “Grim”.  Online Etymology Dictionary. Web.

Despair

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I am fascinated to find that despair, the lack of hope, does not occur in the war chapters, or even after Thorin has shown more than long-distance glimmers of dragon-sickness.

  • 05.130 and despair.
  • 07.141 in despair.
  • 08.044 and he climbed down full of despair.
  • 09.054 in despair
  • 09.001 and the dwarves made one last despairing effort
  • 13.004 just when the dwarves were most despairing,
  • 13.006 In desperation they agreed,

Cram

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I imagine that cram in this story is much like hardtack.  I will be checking this more thoroughly as we go, but I believe that cram is the only food mentioned in its chapters.  Please feel free to comment with your own recipes for cram.  I wonder if it is related to the recipe for cramsome bread.  We learn from the OED that it’s pasty dough for fattening up fowl before slaughter.

  • 13.064 chiefly cram
  • 13.064 (If you want to know what cram is,
  • 15.028 chiefly cram,
  • 15.028 but cram is much better than nothing –
  • 15.060 and cram is beginning simply to stick

Update 2015.06.20: My prediction was incorrect, in Chapter 13, rushing water boils and dark depths of caverns stew, and Chapter 15 ends with bacon.

“cram, n.” OED Online. Oxford University Press, March 2015. Web. 9 May 2015.

Hobbit

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Hundreds of papers have been written on “hobbit”, a measurement of about two and a half bushels, and I can add little more.  As Tolkien used it, the word has its own glorious OED entry:

  In the tales of J. R. R. Tolkien (1892–1973): one of an imaginary people, a small variety of the human race, that gave themselves this name (meaning ‘hole-dweller’) but were called by others halflings, since they were half the height of normal men.

Tolkien gives the etymology thus:

1955   J. R. R. Tolkien Return of King 416   Hobbit is an invention. In the Westron the word used, when this people was referred to at all, was banakil ‘halfling’. But..the folk of the Shire and of Bree used the word kuduk… It seems likely that kaduk was a worn-down form of kûd-dûkan [= ‘hole-dweller’]. The latter I have translated..by holbytla [‘hole-builder’]; and hobbit provides a word that might well be a worn-down form of holbytla, if the name had occurred in our own ancient language.

Just a few demographics.  The word “hobbit” appears 173 times in the text.  Forty two of those times is in Chapter One – 24% of the instances.  Chapter 14 does not include the word “hobbit”.  Twenty one of these mentions are Tolkien’s famous hyphenated words:

  • 01.001 there lived a hobbit.
  • 01.001 it was a hobbit-hole,
  • 01.002 the hobbit was fond of visitors.
  • 01.002 No going upstairs for the hobbit:
  • 01.003 This hobbit was a very well-to-do hobbit,
  • 01.003 This hobbit was a very well-to-do hobbit,
  • 01.004 The mother of our particular hobbit –
  • 01.004 what is a hobbit?
  • 01.004 I suppose hobbits need some description nowadays,
  • 01.004 Hobbits have no beards.
  • 01.004 the mother of this hobbit –
  • 01.004 head of the hobbits who lived across The Water,
  • 01.004 not entirely hobbitlike about them,
  • 01.005 built the most luxurious hobbit-hole for her
  • 01.005 in the beautiful hobbit-hole built by his father,
  • 01.006 since they were all small hobbit-boys
  • 01.006 and hobbit-girls.
  • 01.006 and the hobbits were still numerous
  • 01.006 and the hobbits had almost forgotten what he looked like.
  • 01.012 and gazing at the hobbit without saying anything,
  • 01.021 With that the hobbit turned
  • 01.023 on the hobbit’s beautiful green front-door.
  • 01.028 said the hobbit,
  • 01.030 Excuse me!’ said the hobbit,
  • 01.043 as if some naughty little hobbit-boy was trying to pull the handle off.
  • 01.046 The poor little hobbit sat down
  • 01.046 so the hobbit was kept very busy for a while.
  • 01.047 but a hard rat-tat on the hobbit’s beautiful green door.
  • 01.057 as the hobbit stumped off to the pantries.
  • 01.063 while the hobbit ran after them almost squeaking with fright:
  • 01.068 while the hobbit was turning round
  • 01.070 and very far from his hobbit-hole under The Hill.
  • 01.083 the hobbit felt the love of beautiful things
  • 01.085 that he guessed both halves of the hobbit’s mind.
  • 01.090 and audacious hobbit –
  • 01.090 and for a polite remark from the hobbit,
  • 01.092 the poor little hobbit could be seen kneeling on the hearth-rug,
  • 01.094 poetical exaggeration applied to any hobbit,
  • 01.094 (for a hobbit)
  • 01.095 It is all very well for Gandalf to talk about this hobbit being fierce,
  • 01.110 He was only a little hobbit you must remember.
  • 01.110 and only of hobbit-holes).
  • 01.142 The hobbit had to find room for them all,
  • 02.028 At first they had passed through hobbit-lands,
  • 02.030 never turning round or taking any notice of the hobbit.
  • 02.033 (who shared the hobbit’s views about regular meals,
  • 02.041 said Thorin to the hobbit.
  • 02.042 But at any rate hobbits can move quietly
  • 02.054 a hobbit,” said poor Bilbo,
  • 02.060 yer nassty little rabbit,” said he looking at the hobbit’s furry feet;
  • 02.114 but it was as good as a short sword for the hobbit.
  • 03.004 in his hobbit-hole,
  • 03.019 “Just look! Bilbo the hobbit on a pony,
  • 03.031 right back to his hobbit-hole without trouble.
  • 03.041 asked the hobbit full of excitement.
  • 04.001 and the hobbit,
  • 04.002 and his little hobbit-hole.
  • 04.015 as loud a yell as a hobbit can give,
  • 04.017 and again for his nice bright hobbit-hole.
  • 04.040 He made the hobbit scramble on his shoulders
  • 04.045 “Why, O why did I ever leave my hobbit-hole!”
  • 04.046 bring a wretched little hobbit
  • 04.051 and the hobbit rolled off his shoulders into the blackness,
  • 05.008 Hobbits are not quite like ordinary people;
  • 05.016 The hobbit jumped nearly out of his skin
  • 05.022 and the hobbit,
  • 05.049 said the hobbit shivering.
  • 05.058 That made the hobbit most dreadfully uncomfortable
  • 05.120 Bilbo behind going as softly as a hobbit can.
  • 05.127 He could not see the hobbit,
  • 05.130 and grabbed as the hobbit flew over him,
  • 05.133 It was not too difficult for the hobbit,
  • 05.145 and the poor little hobbit dodged this way
  • 06.024 and the hobbit wondered if he guessed
  • 06.030 (even the hobbit had never forgotten the magic fireworks
  • 06.034 in answer to more questions from the hobbit.
  • 06.035 Just think of that for a hobbit!
  • 06.041 (like the little hobbit)
  • 06.045 with tall fronds rising right above the hobbit’s head;
  • 06.060 and their dreadful clamour almost made the hobbit fall
  • 06.090 when you are only the size of a hobbit,
  • 07.005 and at last the hobbit opened his eyes again.
  • 07.014 (carrying the hobbit)
  • 07.030 taking the frightened hobbit with him.
  • 07.032 and the hobbit pushed open the heavy creaking gate
  • 07.038 at the hobbit
  • 07.039 a hobbit of good family
  • 07.052 But these aren’t hobbits,
  • 07.057 the hobbit
  • 07.067 and grabbed the hobbit
  • 07.079 and found that there was no hobbit.
  • 07.082 and the hobbit that was lost.
  • 07.082 when he heard of the hobbit’s reappearance
  • 07.113 where the hobbit
  • 07.120 The hobbit felt quite crushed,
  • 07.121 He picked up the hobbit
  • 07.134 and it seemed to the hobbit that a silence began to draw
  • 07.148 groaned the hobbit.
  • 08.004 but the hobbit,
  • 08.007 for what seemed to the hobbit ages upon ages;
  • 08.027 back to the far bank?’ asked the hobbit.
  • 08.045 and what is the use of sending a hobbit!’
  • 08.047 The last thing that he remembered was the party at the hobbit’s house,
  • 08.064 and they simply could not find the hobbit.
  • 08.064 Hobbit!
  • 08.064 You dratted hobbit!
  • 08.064 Hi! hobbit, confusticate you,
  • 08.065 and he found it was the hobbit curled up fast asleep.
  • 08.074 of his far-distant hobbit-hole
  • 08.080 Hobbits are clever at quietness,
  • 08.093 and swinging towards the hobbit,
  • 08.099 Very soon the hobbit would be caught
  • 08.103 after the hobbit
  • 08.107 and then he did his best to help the hobbit,
  • 08.125 if it had not been for the hobbit;
  • 08.129 and the hobbit.
  • 08.145 in which the hobbit again showed his usefulness.
  • 09.002 they never found or counted the hobbit.
  • 09.003 and the hobbit had just time
  • 09.012 in my hobbit-hole
  • 09.014 with the hobbit on the other side.
  • 09.015 hearing how the hobbit had rescued his companions
  • 09.026 in crept the hobbit.
  • 09.028 said the hobbit.
  • 09.035 So following the hobbit,
  • 09.056 not even for a hobbit,
  • 10.010 It was some time before he would be even polite to the hobbit.
  • 10.012 and helped the hobbit as well as he could.
  • 10.018 and the hobbit
  • 10.039 the dwarves’ good feeling towards the little hobbit
  • 11.010 said the hobbit.
  • 11.014 and the hobbit went back one day
  • 11.020 in his hobbit-hole,
  • 11.021 The hobbit was no longer much brighter than the dwarves.
  • 11.022 and his hobbit-hole under it.
  • 11.032 the hobbit standing by the grey stone,
  • 12.002 and a hobbit full of courage
  • 12.005 who was rather fond of the hobbit.
  • 12.007 when the hobbit crept through the enchanted door
  • 12.008 Then the hobbit slipped on his ring,
  • 12.008 and warned by the echoes to take more than hobbit’s care
  • 12.008 Already he was a very different hobbit
  • 12.012 Through it peeps the hobbit’s little head.
  • 12.014 so that the hobbit could see his underparts
  • 12.017 while the little hobbit toiled back up the long tunnel.
  • 12.018 Balin was overjoyed to see the hobbit again,
  • 12.034 they began to grumble at the hobbit,
  • 12.062 hobbit-smell;
  • 12.071 and imagined that the hobbit had come to a sudden
  • 12.076 that the hobbit had already caught a glimpse
  • 12.082 But the hobbit was worried
  • 13.007 whispered the hobbit,
  • 13.008 compare with the hobbit
  • 13.008 that the hobbit came to the opening unexpectedly,
  • 13.016 and though that helped the hobbit
  • 13.018 They saw the little dark shape of the hobbit
  • 13.037 was set upon the hobbit’s head.
  • 13.044 for hobbit-legs,
  • 13.054 asked the hobbit.
  • 13.056 grumbled the hobbit.
  • 15.035 in Bilbo’s little hobbit-hole.
  • 16.017 in the dark was not easy for the little hobbit.
  • 16.021 Are you the dwarves’ hobbit?
  • 16.025 A hobbit
  • 16.039 said the hobbit uncomfortably.
  • 17.014 You miserable hobbit!
  • 18.014 and leading the hobbit he took him within the tent.
  • 18.047 O hobbit?’
  • 19.027 through which the hobbit strolled along contentedly.
  • 19.033 You are not the hobbit that you were.’
  • 19.036 of Bag-End, Underhill, Hobbiton.
  • 19.037 in his nice hobbit-hole so very much.
  • 19.038 by all the hobbits of the neighbourhood
  • 19.041 a Hobbit’s Holiday’ –

“hobbet | hobbit, n.” OED Online. Oxford University Press, March 2015. Web. 3 June 2015.

“hobbit, n.” OED Online. Oxford University Press, March 2015. Web. 3 June 2015.

Mattock

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I have learned that there’s a great deal more art than I had supposed in working with words in this way.  I’ve had to make a few judgment calls about which words match a headword in The Ten Thousand, a process which I mistakenly thought would be completely straightforward.  Now that I am working with the uncommon words, I’m working on which of them are humble enough for our purposes.  Some uncommon words, like “dragon”, might be taken as common within the genre.  They are words in a cauldron from which a fantasy author almost must dip if he is to establish his world in its proper place in our imaginations.  We save for another day the question of whether Tolkien used a word from the fantasy stew or whether that word excites fantasy associations because Tolkien used it.

Update: at first I foolishly thought I could identify fantasy-genre-specific words and hold them apart from our discussion.  This attempt led to some excellent dinner table discussions with Grace and the kids – and to the abandonment of a silly idea.  Any school vice-principal worth her salt is at least a little bit of a dragon.

I actually own a mattock.  Mattock is to stump as pickaxe is to bedrock.  While recognizing its use as a weapon in The Hobbit, it’s a regular maintenance tool in my shed.

  • 17.031  in battle they wielded heavy two-handed mattocks;
  • 17.051  wielding their mattocks,

Quoits

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Quoits, that ageless game of throwing something round (and sometimes heavy) for distance and/or accuracy, appears but once in our text.  In the middle of the spider attack in Mirkwood when the dwarves are endangered and Bilbo reaches for a stone to throw, our narrator interrupts his narrative.  He takes a moment during this scene of high tension to list Bilbo’s childhood and adulthood pastimes.

  • 08.092   and even grown-up he had still spent a deal of his time at quoits,

“Quoits” helps break the tension of the scene into child-sized portions – the game itself is relaxing and fun.  Quoits was played in the Shire at the end of the Third Age and Quoits Associations can be found in Britain and North America in the beginning of the third millennium of the Common Era.  Since it is a game of antiquity, I believe that it contributes to the old-fashioned or even parochial setting of the Shire.  Finally, say it aloud.  “Quoits” is a very funny word.

Bilbo

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I had meant to leave the names alone for now, the words which Tolkien invented for the work, as that is the prerogative of every author.  Tolkien’s particularly gifted and fantastically expert touch with onomastics also means that the names he invented have been discussed and studied by folks far more scholarly than I am, and I wish to focus on more humble words.

Then this shot across my bows in the course of my professional life:

 A popular skill game in the 18th century it features a wooden ball cup game and the more challenging aspect of catching the hole in the ball on the end of the stick. Once you have mastered the bilbo any number of amazing possibilities may be opened to you.

Jas. Townsend & Son (op. cit) is a high-quality, well-researched company purveying toys, clothing, and other oddments to 18th-century American colonial re-enactors.

Update from the OED: Bilbo is a way of spelling a sword of “Bilbao”, Spain, compare Toledo or Damascus blades, and “Bilbo” was often the name of such a sword, especially as worn by a swashbuckler, or the swashbuckler himself who bears one.  For attestation we are given the phrase “bilbo’s the word” thusly: “1693   W. Congreve Old Batchelour iii. i. 24   Bilbo’s the Word, and Slaughter will ensue.”  It is also, in meaning two, an iron bar (possibly also of Bilbao steel) to which many sliding ankle shackles may be attached.

Aside from the fact that Tolkien read absolutely everything ever and probably knew the Congreve quote, we are certain that he encountered this word because Shakespeare used it and I’m certain that every syllable of Shakespeare passed in front of Tolkien’s eyes. “1602   Shakespeare Merry Wives of Windsor iii. v. 102   Crammed like a good bilbo, in the circomference Of a pack, Hilt to point.”

Prisoner and bold adventurer and rural, parochial amusement.  My admiration cannot be adequately expressed; my eyes are growing misty as I type.  Links to scholarly papers on this word will be welcome in the Comments.

The name “Bilbo” or the possessive “Bilbo’s” appears 555 times in the text of The Hobbit.  Here is the graph of the frequency of the occurrence of “Bilbo” over the course of the work.

“bilbo, n.1.” OED Online. Oxford University Press, March 2015. Web. 3 June 2015.

“bilbo, n.2.” OED Online. Oxford University Press, March 2015. Web. 3 June 2015.

Townsend, Jas. & Son, Inc. “Bilbo” Catalogue 35. Web.