The Hobbit Companion

by David Day

  As we have seen, the name Durin was also given to a mysterious creator of the Dwarfs which Tolkien used as the name of the First King of the Dwarves. If taking a comic turn, one could translate Durin as Sleepy, the name of one of Snow White’s Seven Dwarfs (which was taken from the same source). However, Tolkien creates an epic character in Durin, the greatest of the Seven Fathers of the Dwarves and the first of the Seven Sleepers to awake the “Halls of Stone” and bring the race of Dwarves into the world.

  There seems little doubt that the Dvergatal list of names was a primary motivator for Tolkien and the means by which he “discovered” the history, origin, and character of his Dwarves. In good part, the grand adventure of The Hobbit was Tolkien’s explanation for the gathering of the Dwarves and his eloquent answer to the mysterious Riddle of the Dvergatal.

  XVI. Naming the DRAGON

  BILBO BAGGINS’S ultimate test in his quest is his confrontation with that most feared of monsters: the fire-breathing Dragon. Let us examine the Dragon as a species. Let us look first at the word: DRAGON.

  DRAGON~English

  DRAGON~Old French

  DRAKE~Old English

  DRAKE~Old German

  DRACO~Latin

  DRAKON~Greek

  DARC~Sanskrit

  The Greek Drakon means Serpent, but is derived from the Greek word Drakein, meaning “look, glance, flash, gleam.” Thus, the Greek Drakon suggests “to see fiercely” and the idea of a watcher or fierce guardian. Similarly, the Sanskrit Darc has the implication “creature that looks on you with a deadly glance.”

  In Greek and Sanskrit the words for this Monstrous Serpent convey the sense of a Watcher with a Deadly Glance that is also a guardian of treasure or a sacred site. It also suggests a creature with the capacity to see Prophetic Visions, and to “see” in the sense of being in possession of Ancient Arcane Knowledge.

  In Ancient Greece, Dragons guarded treasures like the Golden Fleece, but more often guarded sacred wells or caves of a sacred and prophetic nature. The most famous was the Dragon at the Delphic Oracle that the sun god Apollo slew with his arrow. Thereafter, he lay deep beneath the ground, but the vapours of his breath still escaped through a crevasse and put the priestesses in a trance that allowed them to prophecy the future.

  As professor of Anglo-Saxon, J. R. R. Tolkien was an authority on Beowulf, and has acknowledged that “Beowulf is among my most valued sources” for his tale of the Hobbit. The two stories are not very obviously similar; however, there are strong parallels in the plot structure of the Dragon episodes of Beowulf and The Hobbit.

  Beowulf’s Dragon is awakened by a thief who finds his way into the Dragon’s cavern and steals a jewelled cup from the Dragon treasure hoard. This is duplicated by Bilbo Baggins’s burglary when he also steals a jewelled cup from the treasure hoard. Both thieves escape unscathed; however, other heroes die and nearby Human settlements in both tales suffer terribly from the Dragon’s wrath.

  The Hobbit is the Beowulf Dragon story from the thief’s point of view. However, Beowulf’s Dragon is given no personality and is not even named. If comparisons must be made, Tolkien’s Dragon is closer to the crafty and evil Dragon of the Volsung Saga.

  DRAGONS AND WORMS

  In Old English and Norse literature~and most European mythology~Dragon and Worm are used interchangeably to describe the same monster. However, the word Worm has a very different root-meaning related to the physical characteristics associated with snakes and serpents.

  Snakes and Serpents are also twisting and turning creatures, and in most modern languages of northern Europe these words became entwined with the word Worm and its variations: Wurm is the German for snake; Worm is the Dutch for snake, and Orm means snake in both Danish and Swedish.

  Snake and Serpent, however, come from different root-meanings, which add other dimensions to our composite monster.

  SNAKE is from the Prehistoric German root:

  SNAG, meaning crawl, while SERPENT is from the Latin

  SERPERE, meaning crawl, creep.

  MONSTER = DRAGON + WORM + SNAKE + SERPENT

  RIDDLE OF THE DRAGON

  In the creation of his winged, fire-breathing Dragon, Tolkien took what he considered the best from the collective Dragon mythology of western cultures. He also borrowed elements suggested by the words Dragon and Worm. He then chose a name that would conjure up the ultimate Dragon ~a perfect villain, completely evil and supremely intelligent.

  That character was realized in a single name: Smaug.

  To the contemporary reader, there is one immediate association: Smaug is a pun on the modern word smog, meaning foul polluted smoke and fog; this implies evil brimstone smoke and vapour exhaled by a fire-breathing Dragon.

  Yet it was the conundrum of an ancient Anglo-Saxon spell~rather than an air-pollution problem~ that inspired Tolkien in the creation of Smaug the Magnificent. It began with an Old English spell for protection against Dragons: wid smeogan wyrme, which translates as “against the penetrating worm.”

  THE FIREWORK DRAGON

  Fortunately for most Hobbits, their experience of Dragons was almost entirely limited to ancient tales of Elvish Days when it was reputed a multitude of creeping, crawling and flying monsters stalked Middle-Earth. Many Hobbits of the Shire chose to disbelieve these legends, although they still loved to hear deliciously scary legends of Dragons and heros told over and over again.

  Knowing of the Hobbits fascination for these fearsome beasts, whenever Gandalf the Wizard agreed to create one of his magnificent firework displays for a special Hobbit celebration, the climax of the evening was the appearance of a terrifying, flying, swooping Firework Dragon who would light up the night sky above the Shire. This brilliant, exploding and roaring of the Dragons, thrilled its Hobbit audience.

  Tolkien decided the spell was not actually a spell, but a riddle. It was not the spell itself, but the answer to the riddle it posed that granted protection from the Dragon. So, to solve the riddle, Tolkien first asked: “How do you protect yourself against the penetrating worm?”

  Only by discovering the secret of the Dragon’s name can you defeat the Dragon. Of course, this is a variation of the Rumpelstiltskin story~and a dozen other fairy tales. All of these tales are based on the belief that naming is essentially a magical act. It is a shamanic principle shared by all tribal cultures and is based on the observation that you cannot control what you do not know. This is often summed up in aphorisms such as “know thine enemy.”

  Tolkien believed that (as with all good riddles) the answer was to be found within the riddle itself: wid smeogan wyrme. So Tolkien asked himself why the Dragon was described as the smeogan or “penetrating” worm. He believed that smeogan was the clue to the secret of the Dragon’s name.

  Tolkien observed that the adjective smeogan (meaning penetrating) and its verb smeagan (to inquire into), along with the related smeagol (burrowing, worming into) and its verb smugan (to creep through) were all derived from the reconstructed Prehistoric German verb smugan (to squeeze through a hole).

  SMEOGAN~penetrating (Old English) from the verb

  SMEAGAN~to inquire into (Old English)

  SMEAGOL~burrowing, worming into (Old English), from the verb

  SMUGAN~to creep through (Old English)

  All these Old English words derive from the Prehistoric German verb

  SMUGAN~to squeeze through a hole

  Prehistoric German verb Smugan converted to the past tense becomes

  SMAUG~squeezed through a hole

  By converting this verb to its past tense, Tolkien came up with the word Smaug, which he himself termed “a low philological jest.”

  Despite (or because of) the low jest, Tolkien liked the sound of Smaug. He felt it carried the collective meaning of composite parts in Old English: penetrating, inquiring, burrowing, worm-ing into, and creeping through.

  Furthermore, Smaug was the adjectival form of the Old English verb smeagan, which translates as subtle, crafty.

&
nbsp; This was exactly what Tolkien wanted to convey in the name of a Dragon: a subtle and sophisticated monster full of crafty twists and turns.

  SMEOGAN~penetrating

  SMEAGAN~inquire into

  SMAUG~subtle, crafty

  Tolkien’s solution to the riddle of the Dragon’s name: Smaug

  HOBBIT AND DRAGON

  Armed with the One Ring of invisibility and the sword Sting, Bilbo Baggins had completed the ideal basic training as thief and Hobbler by the time he encountered the Dragon. It became increasingly clear that the Hobbit Bilbo Baggins was the perfect choice for burglar-hero to pillage the treasury of the Dragon.

  After all, the Hobbit had a great deal in common with the Dragon. Bilbo Baggins was a Hobbit (holbytlan) and smial-dweller, a hole-builder and hole-dweller. Much the same could be said of Smaug, who squeezed through a hole in the mountain to hoard his treasure.

  Even more obviously, the Gollum and the Dragon had much in common: Smeagol (worming into, burrowing) and Smaug (a worm squeezed through a hole) are both names constructed from the Old English words smeogan (penetrating) and smeagan (to inquire into).

  As Bilbo Baggins had already penetrated the mountain maze of Smeagol Gollum and outwitted that monster in a contest of riddles, he was especially well qualified for his encounter with the Dragon.

  Thus it is obvious why a Hobbit was hired to confront the Dragon.

  Bilbo Baggins knew how to use the name of the Dragon against the monster and at the same time was wise enough to avoid revealing his own true name to the monster. With his inquiring Hobbitish mind he liked riddles and looking for the roots and beginning of things. Furthermore, it takes a life-long hole-dweller, used to creeping through burrows and worming his way through secret passageways, to penetrate the devious stratagems of the Dragon.

  Bilbo Baggins inquired into the meaning of Smaug and found that the monster was indeed subtle and crafty. But he also found that the inquiring mind of Smaug suffered from idle curiosity. Consequently, Bilbo discovered that the Dragon could be distracted with riddles while he spied upon the Dragon and planned his escape.

  Bilbo found that Smaug’s greatest vice was his vanity. He realized that Smaug was Smug. It was Smaug’s arrogance and contempt for his foes that rendered him liable to succumb to the Hobbit’s flattery and accidentally reveal his one mortal weakness.

  So how does the Hobbit use the answer to the Riddle of the Dragon’s Name: “against the penetrating worm?”

  How can the penetrating worm be penetrated and slain?

  The answer is in the name:

  SMAUG squeezed through a hole.

  Bilbo Baggins learned the secret of Smaug’s mortality: a bald patch in the diamond waistcoat covering the Dragon’s belly. Soon after, the Hobbit sent word to the hero Bard the Bowman that Smaug the Fire Dragon could only be slain if the hero’s arrow could be squeezed through a hole in the jewelled armour covering the Dragon’s belly.

  When the arrow found its mark, the mighty winged Fire Dragon, Smaug the Golden, was slain and fell from the sky.

  XVII. SHIRE SOCIETY

  Tolkien’s chapter title “A Long Expected Party,” which opens The Lord of the Rings, is a little jest alluding to the first chapter of The Hobbit, entitled “An Unexpected Party.” However, they are parties (and novels) on an entirely different scale. Bilbo Baggins’s little tea party in The Hobbit bears little resemblance to his massive Eleventy-First Birthday and Farewell Party that was held some sixty years later.

  At the later Baggins party, we have a portrayal of Hobbit life on an epic scale. With a cast of hundreds of Hobbits we see Shire life painted on a broad canvas in all its comic and vital energy: its traditions, its gaiety, its pettiness, and even what passes for its grandeur. It is a party that climaxes with Bilbo Baggins’s vanishing act. However, it is also Frodo Baggins’s coming-of-age party, when (as Bilbo’s heir) he inherits Bag End, the sword Sting, the One Ring, and the role of adventurer.

  Parties are the most revealing time, for Hobbits, for although shy of other races, they are intensely gregarious among themselves. Hobbit society largely revolves around excuses for having parties, picnics, celebrations, and festivals that require the consuming of large amounts of food and drink. There is much singing, dancing, gossiping, laughing, joking, giving gifts away, and story-telling at these events.

  At Bilbo Baggins’s “Long Expected Party,” the Hobbits of Hobbiton Hill celebrate with abandon. They hobbyhorsically hobnob with the hobs and the nobs of Hobbit society, from old hobblers to the young hobbledehoys.

  Although Bilbo Baggins’s party is Tolkien’s celebration of the simple joys of Hobbit (and English) country life, there is also a strong, but good-humoured, element of social satire evident throughout the party festivities. Much of it is aimed at puncturing inflated ideas of self-importance in a very petty bourgeois society.

  Tolkien spent hundreds of thoughtful hours inventing and “discovering” names and creating complex genealogies of Hobbit families. Much of the complexity and variety of Hobbit society is conveyed through the suggestive aspects of many of their individual names.

  Just as the names of Bilbo Baggins, Smeagol Gollum, Smaug the Golden, Gandalf the Wizard and the Dwarves of Thorin and Company have hidden inner stories to tell, there is no doubt that the multitude who are the party guests all have their own lives and their own tales to tell.

  For besides the famous families of Tooks, Brandybucks, Hornblowers, and Bagginses, Tolkien also created a multiplicity of other names, each of which tells its own family saga: Chubbs, Grubbs, Bracegirdles, Goodbodies, Browns, Brockhouses, Bolgers, Proudfoots, Boffins, Burrowses, Ropers, Banks, Butchers, Gamgees, Cottons, Brownlocks, Bunces, Twofoots, Gardners, Goldworthys, Goolds, Greenbands, Overhills, Underhills, Greenhands, Mugworts, Sandymans, Sandheavers, Whitfoots, Noakes, Potts, Sackvilles, Puddifoots, Rumbles, Smallburrows, and Tunnellys.

  To these Tolkien added a plethora of individual first names both plain and exotic. Out of these names, a whole community and country of Hobbits was born. Tolkien’s “discovery” of his Hobbits as individual characters was so vivid that one might imagine the author had actually sent a portrait painter to record the event, and to paint an individual portrait of every single Hobbit at that wonderful gathering!

  XVIII. FRODO the Ringbearer

  After Bilbo Baggins of Bag End mysteriously vanished at his famous Eleventy-First Birthday and Farewell Party, Frodo Baggins inherited the family home of Bag End. Orphaned in childhood, Frodo became Bilbo Baggins’s heir by virtue of being adopted by his wealthy and eccentric bachelor cousin. However, Bilbo Baggins had left Frodo with more than the family home. He also left the young Hobbit the mysterious Ring of Power that he had acquired from Gollum. It took Gandalf the Wizard another seventeen years to discover the true nature of the One Ring.

  With the One Ring, Frodo inherited an adventure even more fantastic than the Quest to Lonely Mountain. Indeed, Dragon-slaying seemed a small matter compared with the challenge that the One Ring was to pose. Sauron, the Lord of the Rings, was the master of all Dragons, Balrogs, Trolls, Wargs, Orcs, and all other evil creatures of the world.

  LORD OF THE RINGS: SAURON

  ~meaning ABOMINABLE in High Elvish

  ~also suggestive of SAUROS meaning

  LIZARD in Greek

  The Ring Lord’s name Sauron and the Greek Sauros carry a sense of menace into English because they are suggestive of the prehistoric reptilian age of dinosaurs (“terrible lizards”). Undoubtedly the name must have worked on Tolkien’s subconscious, for when Sauron’s creatures, the Ringwraiths, trade in their horses for aerial mounts, they climb onto flying monsters that can only be descended from the pterodactyls of the prehistoric Saurian Age.

  FRODO THE RINGBEARER

  What further baggage was passed on along with the Baggins name to Frodo the Ringbearer? Through our investigation into Bilbo Baggins’s heritage we have already sorted out a great deal of the Baggins Baggage, especially those pieces a
pplying to various names of specialized and highly skilled forms of larceny.

  However, there is one term that has been much used by the criminal world that seems obviously to be directly connected to the Bag in Baggins. This term is related, to, but different from, all the others: Bag Man, Baggage Man, Bag-snatcher, Baggage Smasher, etc.

  In the context of the One Ring, there is a startling linkage between the name Baggins and another specialized underworld occupation: the Bagger or Bag Thief.

  Bagger, Bag Thief~a thief who specializes in stealing rings by seizing a victim’s hand.

  Remarkably, the Bagger or Bag Thief had nothing to do with baggage, but was simply a homonym derived from the French bague meaning “finger ring.” It appears to have been in common usage between 1890 and 1940.

  BAGGINS RING THIEF BAGGER

  BAG THIEF BAGUE THIEF

  RING THIEF BAGGINS

  It seems that from the beginning the Baggins name contained the seeds of the plot of both The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. Bilbo and Frodo Baggins were born to be Baggers or Ring Thieves.

  What came first, the Baggins or the Baggers?

  (Bilbo) BAGGINS Bourgeois Burgher

  Burglar Baggage Man

  Bag Man Bag Thief

  Bagger Bague Thief

  Ring Thief (Frodo) BAGGINS

  Why Frodo?

  What’s in a name? What were the special qualities that Frodo brought to the Ring Quest?

  FRODO (Modern English)

  Froda (Original Hobbitish)

  Froda (Old English), meaning Wise

  Frothi (Norse), meaning Wise One

  FRODO THE WISE

  FRODO THE PEACEMAKER

  In Old English and Scandinavian mythology, the name Frodo (or Froda, Frothi, Frotha) is most often connected with a peacemaker. In the Old English epic of Beowulf there is Froda the powerful King of the Heathobards who attempts to make peace between Danes and Bards. In Norse mythology there is a King Frothi who rules a realm of peace and prosperity. Also, in Icelandic texts we find the expression Frotha-frith, meaning “Frothi’s Peace” with reference to a legendary “Age of Peace and Wealth.”