The Hobbit Companion
Page 7
This is certainly in tune with Frodo Baggins who, by the end of the War of the Ring, becomes a most remarkable peacemaker. Certainly, within the Shire, there was an equivalent Froda-frith or “Frodo’s Peace:” the year SR 1420, after the Ring War, was known as the “Year of Great Plenty” when the harvest was more bountiful than any in history. This was followed by a golden “Age of Peace and Wealth” for the Shire and its inhabitants. All this was due to the heroic actions of Frodo the Ringbearer.
XIX. Fellowship of HOBBITS
SAMWISE GAMGEE. There is no doubt that Frodo Baggins’s friend and servant, Samwise Gamgee, was born to match up to all of our Hocus-Pocus words that apply to the whimsical aspects of the Hobbits: Hoblike as in clownish, Hobnail as in bumpkin, Hobbyhorsical as in comical, Hobbling as in stumbling, Hobble-de-hoyish as in awkward. All of these apply to the rough-cut Samwise Gamgee at the beginning of the Quest of the Ring. And yet he possesses unswerving loyalty to Frodo Baggins and a courageous heart that more than once saves the day.
His name is his identity tag: Samwise Gamgee, son of Hamfast Gamgee. His master’s name Frodo, means Wise, so logically enough Samwise’s name means Half-wise or Simple. His father’s name was equally descriptive: Hamfast, meaning Home-stay or Stay-at-home. These are unambiguous statements about a simple family of garden labourers.
ORIGIN OF SAMWISE:
BAN in original Hobbitish (abbrev.)
BANAZIR in original Hobbitish,
meaning Half-Wise or Simple
SAMWIS in original Old English
SAMWISE in transliterated Old English
SAMBA in Westron
SAM in Westron (abbrev.)
SAM in English (abbrev.)
SAMWISE’S family name GAMGEE was both descriptive and playful.
ORIGIN OF FAMILY NAME OF GAMGEE:
GAMGEE~Hobbitish translation of
GALPSI~abbreviated through usage from GALBASI~meaning from the village of
GALABAS (GALPSI)
GALABAS, GALAB~meaning Game, Jest, Joke
BAS~meaning Wich/Village
GALEBAS
GAMWICH~meaning Game Village
Therefore, in English translation, the village of
GAMWICH (pronounced Gammidge)
changes to GAMMIDGY and ends up with the name GAMGEE
GAMGEE GAME, JEST, JOKE
In the Half-Wise Samwise Gamgee we have the perfect foil to his master, the Wise Frodo Baggins. Simple Sam Gamgee is both game for any challenge and, despite terrible hardships, always willing to attempt a jest or joke to keep everyone’s spirits up during the Quest of the Ring.
In the end, however, Samwise becomes wise in his humble way, through his great experiences of the wide world and his deep-rooted respect for life. It is not Frodo Baggins, or any of the Baggins clan, that establishes a dynasty of Hobbits but Samwise Gamgee and his offspring. It is Samwise Gamgee who inherits Bag End and becomes the respected mayor of the Shire. Samwise Gamgee is a testament to the belief that “the meek shall inherit the earth.”
Without Samwise Gamgee’s courage and unwavering dedication during those final days, Frodo Baggins could never have reached the Crack of Doom and completed the Quest of the Ring.
Most remarkable of all Samwise’s deeds is his courageous fight with Shelob the Great Spider (Shelob being Old English for She-Spider), the unspeakable horror lurking in the pass of Cirith Ungol (Elvish for Spider Pass) in the Mountains of Mordor (Elvish for Black Land). Using the Elf blade Sting and the Phial of Galadriel the Elven Queen, Sam blinded and mortally wounded the monster, then rescued his master.
PEREGRIN TOOK AND MERIADOC BRANDYBUCK
The other two courageous Hobbit heroes of the War of the Ring are Meriadoc (Merry) Brandybuck and Peregrin (Pippin) Took. They were both born to aristocratic Hobbit families: Merry is the heir to the Master of Buckland and Pippin is the heir to the Thain of the Shire. And they both have names suitable for the courageous (if diminutive) knights-errant they are. They are cousins and childhood friends of Frodo Baggins, and through love and loyalty to him become members of the Fellowship of the Ring.
PEREGRIN (Pippin) TOOK
aka Peregrin I, Thirty-Second Thain of the Shire
PEREGRIN PILGRIM
PEREGRIN from Latin PELEGRINUS
~ foreign, abroad.
Old French PELEGRIN~wanderer
Medieval English PELEGRIN~traveller
Modern English PILGRIM
Also: PEREGRINE › a small hunting falcon or “HOBET”
Note on the historic Pippin: Pippin the Short was the king of the Franks and the founder of the Carolingian dynasty. He was also the father of Charlemagne, the Holy Roman Emperor.
MERIADOC (Merry) BRANDYBUCK
aka Meriadoc the Magnificent, Master of Buckland
Meriadoc is a genuine Ancient Celtic name. One Meriadoc is founder of the Celtic kingdom of Brittany and four others were named among the ranks of Celtic knights in the court of King Arthur.
MERIADOC is a translation from the original Hobbitish Kalimac.
MERRY is a translation from the original Hobbitish Kali meaning Jolly.
MERRY~a variant of Mercy in the 17th century~ in Middle English means Jolly,~while as Myrige in Old English means Pleasant.~but in Prehistoric German, curiously, Murgjaz means short.
In the Ring Quest, Merry and Pippin provoked the Ents to attack Saruman the evil Wizard of Isengard and the Hobbits were carried along on the March of the Ents. The largest and strongest race on Middle-earth, the Ents ripped down the walls of Isengard with root-like hands and destroyed the kingdom of the evil Wizard Saruman.*
At the Battle of Pelennor Fields, Merry served as squire to the King of the Riders of the Mark, whose charge broke the siege of Gondor. On that day, Merry became a truly heroic figure when~with the shield-maiden Eowyn~he slew the Ringwraith Witch-king of Morgul.
In the final conflict with the Ring Lord in the Battle of the Black Gate of Mordor, the Hobbit Pippin also won distinction as a warrior. Making a defiant last stand with the army of the Captains of the West against the overwhelming forces of darkness, Pippin slew a huge Troll with his charmed Elven sword before the Black Gate of Mordor.
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*During this adventure Merry and Pippin were given Ent-draughts to drink, which stimulated their growth. They grew to measure four feet and six inches, which made them the tallest Hobbits in history!
XX. HOBBITS & RINGS
In The Lord of the Rings, Gandalf the Wizard tells us that the One Ring had something like a will or a purpose of its own that directed its movement through history. It was apparent to the Wizard that as it slipped from one hand to another~in some mysterious way and for some mysterious purpose~the Ring itself chose each of its masters.
If one accepts the Wizard’s proposition, one is almost compelled to ask a fundamental question:
What is it about HOBBITS
that made them so attractive to the Ring?
The answer is that from the beginning the word Hobbit had a magnetic element in the core of its being that inevitably drew the Ring to it and consequently was responsible for the central plot and climax of The Lord of the Rings. That element was the most versatile of Hocus-Pocus words: Hob.
A game of Hob, derived from “Hob,” is also called Quoits or Rings. It is played with large flat iron rings (also called quoits) pitched over a pin or peg (called the hob) that is used as a mark on a raised mound or hump (also called the hob). In America the rings have been replaced with horseshoes, but it is essentially the same game.
GAME OF HOB GAME OF QUOITS
GAME OF RINGS
The Ring Quest is an ancient tale common to cultures all over the world. It is an epic tale of heroic ancestors, but also became a means of conveying the secret rituals of alchemy and metallurgy through the adventures of warriors, smiths, and wizards.
Just as the once bloody sacrificial rites of spring were tamed and ritualized into such harmless p
ursuits as May Pole dancing and Easter Egg hunting, so the titanic duels fought by Ring Quest heroes have been reduced to a friendly game of Hob played by a pair of hobnobbing villagers. This symbolic re-enactment of the Quest of the Ring was how the game of Hob, Quoits, or Rings came into being.
Few people today are aware of the origin of the game, and consequently give little thought to the ancient contest of the Ring Quest that they unknowingly commemorate (and imitate) as they toss rings or horseshoes at country fairs and fêtes.
Curiously, we also find that the War of the Ring was not decided by the slaying of Dragons, the clash of armies in battle, the siege of cities, or even the collapse of empires. The fate of the world and the climax of the War of the Rings came down to a wrestling match between the Hobbit and Gollum, which was emblematic of the moral dilemma of the Hobgoblin, and the struggle of the Hob and the Goblin.
In the course of The Lord of the Rings it was a struggle that literally ranged from the ends of the earth. For Frodo Baggins’s Quest began on the Hob of the Hill in Hobbiton in the Shire, and ended on the Hob of Hell on Mount Doom in Mordor.
DOOM FATE, JUDGEMENT
MORDOR BLACK LAND, DEAD LAND
It was on the edge of the volcanic fissure known as the Crack of Doom that Smeagol Gollum wrestled with Frodo Baggins over the One Ring. It was in these fires that the One Ring was forged, and it was only in these fires that the One Ring could be destroyed.
Ironically, without the evil Gollum, the good Hobbit could not have achieved the destruction of the Ring. The power of the Ring was too great, but at the critical moment Gollum attacked and viciously bit off Frodo’s ring finger. Joyfully seizing the Ring, Gollum missed his footing, toppled backward, and literally met his doom as he fell into the fiery abyss.
In this way, the One Ring was destroyed, the War of the Ring was ended and the Lord of the Rings was vanquished.
Was it really the HOB
in HOBBIT that brought
RINGS and HOBBITS together?
Did the game of Hob inspire the plot of the epic tale of The Lord of the Rings? Or was the whole of the epic tale of The Lord of the Rings a story invented to explain the origin of the game of Hob?
It is unlikely that even J. R. R. Tolkien would intentionally have been quite this bizarrely convoluted and elaborately Hobbitish. But one never knows~Tolkien was an unrepentant multi-lingual serial punner. It is conceivable that, in some other dimension, Professor Tolkien may now be sitting back and blowing his smoke-rings as he chuckles at the thought of inflicting one more totally obscure philological joke on the unsuspecting and unknowing world.
However, there is perhaps another way of explaining the strange synchronicity of Tolkien’s world. Language is a collective creative process that interacts with the creative processes of the individuals who use it. This results in an alchemy that is ultimately far more complex and far more intelligent than any one person. Words have a resonance and meaning that are beyond any single individual’s ability to understand fully or predict.
The truth is that words, like magic rings,
have something like a will or a purpose of their own that directs their movement through history.
In mysterious ways and for mysterious purposes, words have the power to shape the world, and to transform the lives of those who master them.
Words are older and wiser than any living person. There is no doubt, J. R. R. Tolkien himself would be the first to acknowledge that, from the very beginning, The Hobbit had its own agenda.
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Diamond of Long Cleeve