The History of the Hobbit

by John D. Rateliff

  Finally, the detail of the woodland king’s golden hair, which only enters in with the typescript, is interesting, given Tolkien’s later statements that of the three kindreds of the elves it was the First Kindred or Vanyar (the Light-elves of p. 315) who are golden-haired, not the Third Kindred or Teleri (the Sea-elves); see Douglas Anderson’s commentary in The Annotated Hobbit (DAA.206) and Christopher Tolkien’s commentary in The Peoples of Middle-earth (HME XII.77 & 82). It is not known, however, at what point Tolkien made that decision, and there is some evidence that he originally conceived of the Second Kindred or Noldor (the Deep-elves) as golden-haired: in the genealogies meant to accompany the ‘(Earliest) Annals of Beleriand’ [early 1930s] they are referred to as Kuluqendi or ‘Golden-elves’ (HME V.[403]); the 1937 Quenta Silmarillion includes ‘the Golden’ as one of their many descriptors (HME V.215) and Christopher Tolkien notes (BLT I.43–4, HME XII.77) that the passage in Appendix F of the first edition of The Lord of the Rings describing the Eldar (the Three Kindreds of the High Elves) as dark-haired, ‘save in the golden house of Finrod’ (i.e., the character known as Finarfin in the published Silmarillion and more recent editions of The Lord of Rings [cf. LotR.1171]: Galadriel’s father not her brother, some of whose children were golden-haired because of his Vanyar mother), was written as a description of the Noldor (the Second Kindred) before being applied to the Eldar as a whole. It’s possible the final determination that only the Vanyar (the First Kindred) were golden-haired actually postdates The Lord of the Rings: the earliest example cited by Christopher Tolkien dates from 1951, after The Lord of the Rings was finished but before its publication.

  This still does not explain why the Elvenking, who is clearly neither one of the Light-elves (Vanyar) nor the Deep-elves (Noldor) but of the Sea-elves (the Sindar, or Teleri of Middle-earth) should be golden-haired. However, there is already precedent for golden-haired Sindar in Tolkien’s earlier writings: in the A-text of ‘The Lay of Leithian’, written in August 1925, Lúthien herself is described as golden-haired (lines 10–16, HME III.157; see ibid. page 150 for the date). It is only in retrospect, then, after Tolkien had decided to restrict golden hair to a specific branch of the Eldar, that the problem of accounting for individual elves with gold hair who were not members of that specific group arose. Therefore we need not concern ourselves over the apparent violation of a rule or restriction that did not exist at the time this passage was written.

  In any case, given the freedom which Tolkien allowed himself when drawing from his mythology in The Hobbit in this earliest draft (e.g., the application of ‘Fingolfin’ as a goblin name on p. 8), it’s unreasonable to expect a strict consistency with his earlier material, especially given the fluid, shifting nature of details and concepts within that corpus. Tolkien often seems to have described scenes as he initially visualized them and worked out the details to make them consistent with the rest of the tale afterwards (e.g., contrast p. 90 with p. 828): in this case, ‘golden-haired elf-lord’ was a motif he decided to use when inserting this interpolation into The Hobbit and he did so, very effectively.

  (iii)

  The King of Wood and Stone

  If Tolkien’s wood-elves as a whole harken back to folklore beliefs about ‘the Fair Folk’, then in his depiction of the Elvenking he is drawing on a specific modern literary source: his own unpublished writings.33 Certainly there are striking similarities between the Elvenking’s halls and the caves of the Rodothlim, a shy and fugitive people who in the later evolution of the mythology became the elves of Nargothrond:

  . . . in the mountains there was a place of caves above a stream, and that stream ran down to feed the river Sirion, but grass grew before the doors of the caves, and these were cunningly concealed by trees and such magics as those scattered bands that dwelt therein remembered still. Indeed at this time this place had grown to be a strong dwelling of the folk . . . long ere [Túrin and his companion] drew nigh to that region . . . the spies and watchers of the Rodothlim (for so were that folk named) gave warning of their approach, and the folk withdrew before them, such as were abroad from their dwelling. Then they closed their doors and hoped that the strangers might not discover their caves, for they feared and mistrusted all unknown folk of whatever race, so evil were the lessons of that dreadful time.

  Now then Flinding and Túrin dared even to the caves’ mouths, and perceiving that these twain knew now the paths thereto the Rodothlim sallied and made them prisoners and drew them within their rocky halls, and they were led before the chief, Orodreth.

  —‘Turambar and the Foalókë’ [circa 1919],

  BLT II.81–2.

  While the wood-elves’ dwelling [circa 1931] is not described as being located in mountains, it otherwise strongly resembles the Rodothlim’s lair, being ‘a great cave’ alongside a river that ‘ran from out of the heights of the forest’; these heights are also described as ‘the highlands’ (p. 315) and ‘a steep slope’ (p. 379). Like the Rodothlim, the wood-elves initially flee before the intruders (at the three feasts), only to waylay and capture the trespassers the next day and bring them before their king for judgement. But aside from their dwelling the Rodothlim are not a very close parallel to the wood-elves: we are told the former are so industrious that ‘there the ancient arts and works of the Noldoli [Deep Elves] came once more to life . . . There was smithying in secret and forging of good weapons, and even fashioning of some fair things beside, and the women spun once more and wove, and at times was gold quarried privily in places nigh . . . so that deep in those caverns might vessels of beauty be seen in the flame of secret lights’ (BLT II.81). By contrast, we are specifically told that the Elvenking’s treasure is small because his people ‘neither mined nor worked metal or jewels, nor did they trade, nor till the earth more than they could help’ (see below). Also, the wood-elves do not share the Rodothlim’s aversion to marching off to war, as we shall see in later chapters, although admittedly this was a slightly later development.

  A much closer parallel to the wood-elves can be found in the woodland realm of Doriath, located in the heart of a dark forest known for its impenetrability, a place where most travellers get lost and perish miserably. Like the elven kingdom in Mirkwood, Doriath is a realm of the Sea Elves (the Teleri), not the Deep Elves (the Noldoli or Noldor) as had been the case with the Rodothlim of Nargothrond. At the heart of Doriath lies their stronghold, Menegroth (‘The Thousand Caves’), which can only be reached by crossing a guarded bridge over a stream that runs just past its gates – or, as The Book of Lost Tales put it, describing a scene strikingly like the one depicted in one of the illustrations for The Hobbit (DAA.224): ‘his halls were builded in a deep cavern of great size, and they were nonetheless a kingly and a fair abode. This cavern was in the heart of the mighty forest of Artanor [Doriath] that is the mightiest of forests, and a stream ran before its doors, but none could enter that portal save across the stream, and a bridge spanned it narrow and well-guarded’ (‘The Tale of Tinúviel’, BLT II.9–10).34

  Furthermore, the wood-elves of Mirkwood are great archers, who can ‘hit a bird’s eye in the dark’; indeed, their extreme skill with the bow is so well known that the dwarves promptly and prudently surrender on the spot when faced with wood-elves armed with bows. Similarly, the most renowned warrior of Doriath was Beleg of the bow (also called Beleg the Bowman, the character known in The Silmarillion as Beleg Strongbow), Túrin’s closest friend after whom the second canto of ‘The Lay of the Children of Húrin’ is named (HME III.29–48). The bow is also the weapon most associated with the Teleri of Eldamar, those of the Third Kindred who had immigrated to Valinor, with which they defend themselves against the Noldor during the Kinslaying (Silm.87).

  The strongest parallel between Doriath and the wood-elves’ realm, however, is the Elvenking himself, who strongly resembles one of the most famous characters in the legendarium: King Thingol Greycloak, ruler of the woodland realm of Doriath and high king of the Elves of Beleriand. It is said in the 1937 Quent
a Silmarillion that his name was ‘held in awe’ by the Lords of the Noldor (Fingolfin, Fingon, Maidros/Maedhros, and Inglor/Finrod) [HME V.266]. Thingol is unique in that he is a major character in not one but two of the ‘great tales’ that form the heart of the Silmarillion: ‘The Lay of Leithian’ (the story of his daughter, Lúthien Tinúviel, and her mortal lover Beren) and the story of the children of Húrin (as loyal foster-father to Túrin the Hapless). He is also one of the original elves, one of those who began life in Cuiviénen, the lost elven Eden far to the east of what we know as Middle-earth, and one of the three who travel to Valinor as representatives of their people. He thus became the leader of one of the three great divisions of the Eldar, the Sea Elves (see above), in their migration half-way across the world towards Elven-home. He is the only one of the Children of Ilúvatar to marry one of the Ainur or angels, Queen Melian, and ultimately became either ancestor or close kin to many of Tolkien’s other important characters – for example, he is Elrond Halfelven’s great-great-grandfather.35 Later legends, not yet written at the time The Hobbit was drafted, would make him great-uncle to Galadriel (the most powerful elf depicted in The Lord of the Rings) and her brother Finrod Felagund (the first elf to befriend humans and perhaps the most appealing character in The Silmarillion), and the direct ancestor of the kings of Númenor and hence of Gondor and Arnor as well, including Aragorn/Strider.

  Given the fluid nature of the unpublished myths, where Tolkien was willing to play around with concepts and occasionally contemplate major changes in the legends, we should ask the obvious question: is the elven-king Bilbo meets Thingol himself or an entirely new character closely modelled upon him – an analogue, as it were? The answer seems to be both: just as the status of The Hobbit itself hovered in Tolkien’s mind between being part of the legendarium and standing apart from it, so too within the book the identification of the elvenking straddles both options and cannot conclusively be resolved either way. Even after Tolkien eventually, towards the end of work on The Lord of the Rings, committed to the decision that the wood-elf king was a separate character, he never fully reworked the original story to completely support that decision.

  To understand, then, exactly how the wood-elf king in The Hobbit relates to the earlier stories, it is necessary (as so often) to make the mental effort to exclude from our minds knowledge of what Tolkien later resolved while working on the sequel, or that subsequent layer created as much as twenty years afterwards will prevent us from seeing clearly what he was doing at the time he created the character – that is, when writing the story of Mr. Baggins’ adventures as a stand-alone work deriving in varying degrees from his already voluminous writings about Middle-earth. Seen in this light, while the Elvenking strongly resembles King Thingol in general, the evidence for and against the identification is contradictory. Two elements Tolkien goes out of his way to include in the narrative support the argument that the two kings are one and the same, while two unstated facts argue against it because of the dissonance they would create between things we know to be true of Thingol that do not appear to apply to the Elvenking.

  The first passage that strengthens the identification between the Elvenking and Thingol Greycloak is Tolkien’s mention of the three kindreds of the elves (see part ii of this chapter’s commentary, starting on p. 405 above). This places the wood-elves within the context of the old mythology, and we should not overlook the precision of Tolkien’s phrasing that most of the wood-elves are descended from ancient elves who never went to ‘the great FairyLand of the west’. In fact, only one Sea-elf in the whole legendarium ever visited Valinor and returned to live in Middle-earth, this being the figure originally known as Linwë Tinto (BLT I.106), then Tinwë Linto (ibid., pages 130–1) or Tinwelint (‘The Tale of Tinúviel’, BLT II.8), then from ‘The Lay of Leithian’, onwards as King Thingol. It’s possible that this is an oblique allusion to the idea, expressed in the 1926 ‘Sketch of the Mythology’, that some of the Gnomes (Noldor) returning to Middle-earth ‘take service with Thingol and Melian of the Thousand Caves in Doriath’ (HME IV.23).36 It cannot, as it might first seem, be an early form of the idea presented in The Lord of the Rings that Sindar (grey-elf) lords settled among and ruled over Silvan (wood-elf) populations, since those rulers would be Sindar like Celeborn who had never left Middle-earth. Given the Elvenking’s general similarity to Thingol, it seems far more likely then that this passage is a deliberate allusion to Thingol.

  Thingol’s story is even more explicitly evoked in the account of the old enmity between the dwarves and the elves (p. 315):

  . . . [the wood elves] did not love dwarves. They had had wars in ancient days with dwarves, and accused them of stealing their treasure (& the dwarves accused them of the same, and also of hiring dwarves to shape their gold & silver, and refusing to pay them after!).

  The original ending to the first typescript of the Mirkwood chapter (1/1/30:4) expands upon this somewhat:

  . . . they did not love dwarves and thought he was an enemy. In ancient days they had had wars with some of the dwarves whom they accused of stealing their treasure. It is only fair to say that the dwarves gave a different account and said that they only took what was their due, for the elf-king had bargained with them to shape his raw gold and silver and had after refused to give them their pay. If the elf-king had a weakness it was for treasure, especially for silver and white gems, for though his hoard was rich yet he had not as great a treasure as other elf-lords of old, since his people neither mined nor worked metal or jewels, nor did they trade, nor till the earth more than they could help. All this was well known to every dwarf, though Thorin’s family37 had had nothing to do with the old quarrel I have spoken of.

  This in turn is followed closely in the revised ending of the Mirkwood chapter (1/1/58:17), which, in addition to a few small revisions of punctuation and phrasing, achieves the text of the published book:

  . . . though his hoard was rich, he was ever eager for more, since he had not yet as great a treasure as other elf-lords of old38 . . . All this was well known to every dwarf, though Thorin’s family had had nothing to do with the old quarrel I have spoken of. Consequently Thorin was angry at their treatment of him, when they took their spell off him and he came to his senses; and also he was determined that no word of gold or jewels should be dragged out of him.

  (compare DAA.220).

  This quarrel is clearly an allusion to the Lost Tale known as ‘The Nauglafring: The Necklace of the Dwarves’, the last of the tales (in terms of the cycle’s internal chronology) to be written out in full (BLT II.221–51). This story changed greatly in its details and tone but remained consistent in its overall outlines from The Book of Lost Tales through ‘The Sketch of the Mythology’ into the 1930 Quenta, the last completed version of the tale.39

  The 1926 summary of the tale runs thusly:

  Húrin and outlaws come to Nargothrond, whom none dare plunder for dread of the spirit of Glórung [the dragon] or even of his memory. They slay Mîm the Dwarf who had taken possession and enchanted all the gold. [After transporting it to Doriath] Húrin casts the gold at Thingol’s feet with reproaches. Thingol will not have it, and bears with Húrin, until goaded too far he bids him begone. Húrin wanders away . . .

  The enchanted gold lays its spell on Thingol. He summons the Dwarves of Nogrod and Belegost to come and fashion it into beautiful things, and to make a necklace of great wonder whereon the Silmaril shall hang. The Dwarves plot treachery, and Thingol bitter with the curse of the gold denies them their reward. After their smithying they are driven away without payment. The Dwarves come back; aided by treachery of some Gnomes [that is, Noldor or Deep Elves] who also were bitten by the lust of the gold, they surprise Thingol on a hunt, slay him, and surprise the Thousand Caves and plunder them. Melian they cannot touch . . .

  [On the return journey to their homelands] The Dwarves are ambushed at a ford by Beren and the brown and green Elves of the wood, and their king slain, from whose neck Beren takes the ‘Naugla
fring’ or necklace of the Dwarves, with its Silmaril. It is said that Lúthien wearing that jewel is the most beautiful thing that eyes have ever seen outside Valinor. But Melian warned Beren of the curse of the gold and of the Silmaril. The rest of the gold is drowned in the river.

  But the ‘Nauglafring’ remains hoarded secretly in Beren’s keeping . . .

  —‘The Sketch of the Mythology’ [1926] HME IV.32–3.

  Besides prefiguring all the trouble that will erupt later in The Hobbit over Smaug’s hoard, and the curse of possessiveness that falls upon Thorin in the end, this passage clearly describes the same quarrel which lay between the wood-elves and our dwarves in The Hobbit: dwarves hired to shape silver and gold (the Book of Lost Tales version stresses the amount of unwrought gold in the hoard; cf. Note 38) for an elvenking who then refuses them payment, an ensuing war, and lasting bitterness over the whole incident, with each side nursing grudges as to the rightness of their cause – the ‘(Later) Annals of Beleriand’, which are associated with the 1937 Quenta Silmarillion, goes so far as to claim ‘and there hath been war between Elf and Dwarf since that day.’ If we were to go by Tolkien’s later writings in The Lord of the Rings and published Silmarillion then in the account in The Hobbit the elf-king who bargained with the dwarves to shape his raw gold and silver and the elf-king of the next sentence who had a weakness for treasure are two separate people (Thingol and Thranduil, respectively), but this is clearly untenable: nothing in Tolkien’s prose here justifies the assumption of a complete shift in antecedent between identical nouns used as the subjects of two consecutive sentences. Moreover the phrase ‘as other elf-lords of old’ clearly implies that our Elvenking is himself one among their number, not a newcomer of latter days but directly involved with the elf-dwarf wars of ancient days.40 In short, there can be no doubt that here Tolkien is stating it was the same king of the wood-elves whom Bilbo meets who had quarreled and warred with the dwarves long ago, events that the Silmarillion tradition unequivocally ascribes to King Thingol. Furthermore, in a letter written many years later Tolkien explicitly said that this particular passage in The Hobbit is a reference to ‘the quarrel of King Thingol, Lúthien’s father, with the Dwarves’ – JRRT to Christopher Bretherton, 16th July 1964; Letters p. 346.