The History of the Hobbit

by John D. Rateliff

  29 Compare the elven boat that appears in Tolkien’s illustration of Lake-Town (Plate VIII [bottom]) with the one in his painting of Taniquetil ([1928]; Pictures by JRRT plate 31; Priestman, Life and Legend, cover illustration; H-S#52). Even though one is built by the Wood-elves of Mirkwood and the other by the Teleri of Tol Eressëa, the boats are almost identical – naturally enough, having been built by two branches of the same kindred, the Teleri of Middle-earth (the Sindar) and the Teleri of Valinor, respectively (cf. Silm.58 & 61).

  30 In the published Silmarillion (pages 52–3), those who set out and reached Valinor are the Calaquendi (‘Elves of the Light’); those who set out but failed to complete the journey the Úmanyar (‘those not of Aman the Undying Land’); and those who never set out or refused the summons the Avari (‘the Unwilling’). The Úmanyar and Avari together make up the Moriquendi (‘Elves of the Darkness’), with the sole exception of Thingol Greycloak, since he did indeed visit Valinor once and became lost on his return journey to that land: ‘king though he was of Úmanyar, he was not accounted among the Moriquendi, but with the Elves of the Light’ (Silm.56). The wood-elves of The Hobbit, along with their kin who live scattered in the hills and mountains, seem to be a mix of Úmanyar and Avari (or, as the Lhammas called them, Lembi; cf. the ‘family trees’ of languages in HME V.182).

  Caranthir’s remark about Thingol is thus both deliberately insulting and untrue. However, it should be noted that this would not have been the case in earlier versions of the legend: in the 1930 Quenta it states explicitly that ‘Of the Dark-elves the chief in renown was Thingol’ (HME IV.85).

  31 That is, the Deep-elves are so called because of their knowledge (‘deep’ in the sense of profound), not because they live underground. Similarly, their byname Gnome derives from the Greek gnosis (thought, knowledge, wisdom), a sense preserved today in gnomic literature (maxims, aphorisms, proverbs; literally ‘wisdom writing’) and Gnosticism (secret wisdom). Tolkien goes to some pains (Letters p. 318) to distinguish his Gnomes from the earth elementals created by Paracelsus [1658] and popularized by Alexander Pope’s ‘The Rape of the Lock’ [1714], eventually abandoning ‘gnome’ altogether when he realized the popular association of the name with garden gnomes and the like was insurmountable.

  The Light-elves are so called because of their devotion to the light of Valinor, which is so strong that they dwell among the Valar themselves at the foot of Mount Taniquetil rather than with their fellow elves in Elvenhome. The Sea-elves gained their name dwelling on the coasts of Beleriand before some of them removed first to Tol Eressëa and then Elvenhome itself; those left behind either withdrew into the woods of Middle-earth and became the wood-elves (Thingol’s people) or stayed beside the ocean and became known as the Falathrim (‘elves of the coasts’, Círdan the Shipwright’s people).

  32 The old name ‘Light-elves’ was retained in the manuscript Christopher Tolkien refers to as ‘The Conclusion of the Quenta Silmarillion’ (HME V.323ff), but this text clearly is more closely linked to the 1930 Quenta than the 1937 Quenta Silmarillion as a whole, and it is not surprising that it retains some archaic elements, such as the retention of the old common name for the First Kindred that had appeared in the 1926 ‘Sketch,’ the 1930 Quenta, and The Hobbit (this particular passage from which probably dates from 1931).

  The final name for the First Kindred, ‘Vanyar’, seems to have arisen sometime in the late 1940s or early 1950s, possibly as late as 1958; cf. ‘The Annals of Aman’ ([circa 1958]; HME X.82–5) and ‘The Grey Annals’ ([1951 & 1958]; HME XI.6–7), as well as HME X.34 & 6 (Version D of the Ainulindalë [after 1951]).

  33 One could say that Tolkien borrowed from Celtic legend and traditional folklore for the external description of the elves – that is, the elves as they appear to others (specifically, Bilbo and the dwarves) – and drew on his own legendarium once the focus shifts so that we can see the elves close up.

  34 Unfortunately the elvenking’s halls are never described in detail, either in The Hobbit or afterwards, but we can get some idea of what they might have looked like (albeit on a somewhat grander scale) from Tolkien’s description in ‘The Lay of Leithian’ of King Thingol’s halls in Menegroth:

  Downward . . .

  through corridors of carven dread

  whose turns were lit by lanterns hung

  or flames from torches that were flung

  on dragons hewn in the cold stone

  with jewelled eyes and teeth of bone.

  Then sudden, deep beneath the earth

  the silences with silver mirth

  were shaken and the rocks were ringing,

  the birds of Melian were singing;

  and wide the ways of shadow spread

  as into archéd halls [Lúthien] led

  Beren in wonder. There a light

  like day immortal and like night

  of stars unclouded, shone and gleamed.

  A vault of topless trees it seemed,

  whose trunks of carven stone there stood

  like towers of an enchanted wood

  in magic fast for ever bound,

  bearing a roof whose branches wound

  in endless tracery of green

  lit by some leaf-emprisoned sheen

  of moon and sun, and wrought of gems,

  and each leaf hung on golden stems.

  Lo! there amid immortal flowers

  the nightingales in shining bowers

  stand o’er the head of Melian,

  while water for ever dripped and ran

  from fountains in the rocky floor.

  There Thingol sat.

  —‘The Lay of Leithian’, Canto IV, lines 980–1009;

  HME III.188–9.

  35 Or, according to some versions of the legend, great-grandfather. Cf. Elrond’s words to Bingo [= Frodo] in the earliest version of the Rivendell chapter: ‘My mother was Elwing daughter of Lúthien daughter of King Thingol of Doriath’ (HME VI.215–16). The same wording survived into the second version of ‘The Council of Elrond’ (HME VII.110) and does not seem to have been altered to include Dior, Lúthien’s son, until the fourth draft (HME VII.127). Since Dior had already appeared as far back as The Book of Lost Tales, his absence here might be mere forgetfulness on Tolkien’s part when drafting ‘The New Hobbit’, or it might represent the brief appearance of an alternate tradition which was rejected in favor of the long-established genealogy.

  36 For an earlier form of the same concept of Doriath’s mixed elven population, see The Book of Lost Tales: ‘many a wild and woodland clan rallied beneath King Tinwelint [Thingol]. Of those the most were Ilkorindi – which is to say Eldar that never had beheld Valinor or the Two Trees or dwelt in Kôr – and eerie they were and strange beings, knowing little of light or loveliness or of musics save it be dark songs and chantings of a rugged wonder that faded in the wooded places or echoed in deep caves.† Different indeed did they become when the Sun arose, and indeed before that already were their numbers mingled with a many wandering Gnomes [Noldor], and wayward sprites [very minor Maiar] too there were of Lorien’s host [i.e., the Vala Lórien or Irmo; cf. the Valaquenta, Silm.28] that dwelt in the courts of Tinwelint, being followers of Gwendeling [Melian], and these were not of the kindreds of the Eldalië [Eldar]’, in addition to ‘fugitives that fled to his protection’ after the Battle of Unnumbered Tears (‘The Tale of Tinúviel’, BLT II.9).

  † Compare the strange singing Bilbo and the dwarves heard in the forest – beautiful but eerie and strange and not at all comforting.

  37 This assertion represents a new element entering into the mythology, since in all previous versions of the story Thorin’s folk, the Longbeards or Indrafangs, had indeed taken part in the raid on Doriath and killing of the king; cf. BLT II.230 & 234–5, although in the original version of the story the dwarves of Nogrod (the Nauglath) rather than the dwarves of Belegost (the Indrafangs) had been the instigators of the attack. Both groups take part in the war in the 1926 ‘Sketch’ (HME IV.32
) and 1930 Quenta (HME IV.132–3), except in the latter we are now told that the Indrafangs or Longbeards are the dwarves of Nogrod, not Belegost (something also true of the 1937 Quenta Silmarillion, which unfortunately does not include an account of the elf-dwarf war due to its having been left incomplete). The ‘(Later) Annals of Beleriand’ (post-Hobbit, pre-LotR) agrees with this tradition that both groups of dwarves invaded (HME V.141) but does not specify which is which.

  In later material such as the ‘Annals of Aman’ ([1950s]; HME X.93), the ‘Grey Annals’ ([c. 1950–51]; HME XI.10), and the later Quenta Silmarillion ([post LotR/early 1950s]; HME XI.205), Tolkien reverted to the original identification of the dwarves of Belegost as the Longbeards, but all of these works broke off before reaching the war, so the role of the Longbeards within it remains murky. In the published Silmarillion, the dwarves of Belegost not only refuse to join their kin from Nogrod in the attack but ‘sought to dissuade them from their purpose’ (Silm.233). However, by that point the name ‘Longbeard’ had been shifted to the dwarves of Khazad-dûm (Moria), though it seems clear that this shift postdated The Hobbit and that the association of Thorin’s folk with the Blue Hills west of Bilbo’s home, which were only their temporary homes in exile in the published book, had very ancient roots in the original conception.

  38 ‘As great a treasure as other elf-lords of old.’ The elf-lords specifically referred to here seem to be Orodreth of the Rodothlim (a figure whose role in the mythology was later greatly diminished, being largely superseded by Finrod Felagund of Nargothrond), Turgon of Gondolin, and, if he is not the same character as the Elvenking, Thingol of Doriath. Of Gondolin we are told the city held ‘a wealth of jewels and metals and stuffs and of things wrought by the hands of the Gnomes to surpassing beauty’ (BLT II.175).

  For more on the great treasure of the Rodothlim, and the wonders the dwarves later crafted from it at Tinwelint’s [Thingol’s] bidding, see my commentary following Chapter XIV, starting on p. 595. Tinwelint’s treasure, like the Elvenking’s, was originally far too scanty for his liking (that is, before he gained the Rodothlim’s hoard), although his wealth was greatly increased in later versions of the story, along with his majesty and dignity:

  Now the folk of Tinwelint were of the woodlands and had scant wealth, yet did they love fair and beauteous things, gold and silver and gems, as do all the Eldar . . . nor was the king of other mind in this, and his riches were small, save it be for that glorious Silmaril that many a king had given all his treasury contained if he might possess it. (‘Turambar and the Foalókë, BLT II.95)

  Furthermore, as Christopher Tolkien points out (BLT II.245 & 128), Tinwelint frankly admits that part of his motive for sending some of his elves to investigate the caves of the Rodothlim after they had become a dragon’s lair is not just to find out what has become of his foster-son Túrin but the lure of dragon-treasure: ‘Yet it is a truth that I have need and desire of treasury, and it may be that such shall come to me by this venture’, although he magnanimously promises half of any treasure recovered to Túrin’s mother (BLT II.95). Compare the Elvenking’s similarly mixed motives in the final chapters of The Hobbit, where concern for the fate of the dwarves plays very little part and he chiefly wishes to claim Smaug’s enormous hoard but nonetheless fully recognizes the Lake-men’s claim to a large part of the treasure.

  39 The 1937 Quenta Silmarillion broke off early in the Túrin story and so did not include the final quarter of the cycle, including the tales of the destruction of the great hidden elven kingdoms of Nargothrond, Doriath, and Gondolin, corresponding to chapters 21, 22, and 23, respectively, of the published Silmarillion, which draws its text for these sections primarily from the 1930 Quenta instead.

  For the three main versions of the destruction of Thingol’s realm, see ‘The Nauglafring’ (BLT II.221-51), the 1926 ‘Sketch of the Mythology’ (HME IV.32-3), and the 1930 Quenta, part 14 (HME IV.132–4, plus Christopher Tolkien’s commentary thereon on IV.187–91). Shorter accounts may be found in the ‘(Earliest) Annals of Beleriand’ (HME IV.306–7, V.141).

  40 The plural ‘wars’ in this passage from The Hobbit is interesting but may simply refer to the early conception in The Book of Lost Tales of the dwarves as an evil people, like the goblins, who sometimes marched in Melko’s armies; see commentary, pp. 76ff.† More probably, it refers to strife between the dwarves of the Blue Mountains and their neighbors the Sons of Fëanor mentioned in the 1930 Quenta (HME IV.103–4): ‘[The sons of Fëanor] made war upon the Dwarves of Nogrod and Belegost; but they did not discover whence that strange race came, nor have any since’.

  † In fact, the dwarf-host that destroyed Tinwelint’s realm was accompanied by ‘a great host of Orcs, and wandering goblins’, armed with dwarven weapons, attracted by ‘a good wage’ and the promise of much opportunity for looting and mayhem (BLT II.230, 232–3).

  41 The name ‘Thranduil’ seems to have arisen quite late in the drafting of The Lord of the Rings, possibly during the construction of the Appendices after the main story had been completed; see part iv of this commentary on p. 417.

  42 ‘Thither [i.e., to the Halls of Mandos] . . . fared the Elves . . . who were by illhap slain with weapons or did die of grief for those that were slain – and only so might the Eldar die, and then it was only for a while. There Mandos spake their doom, and there they waited in the darkness, dreaming of their past deeds, until such time as he appointed when they might again be born into their children, and go forth to laugh and sing again’ (‘The Coming of the Valar’, BLT 1.76).

  Late in life Tolkien came to reject the concept that elves were literally reborn, preferring instead to have each elf’s spirit (or fëa) once again be incarnated in a body (or hröa) identical to that he or she had inhabited before death rather than born into a new body as a child; the original (adult) body was either re-created by the memory of the spirit or created by the Valar, under dispensation from Ilúvatar, to house that spirit. In this conception, elves took up their bodies again immediately upon leaving the Halls of Mandos, and it is specifically stated that ‘The re-housed fëa will normally remain in Aman [Valinor/Elvenhome]. Only in very exceptional cases . . . will they be transported back to Middle-earth’ (HME X.364).

  43 It hardly seems a coincidence that Glorfindel, who died defending the seven-year-old Eärendil during the Fall of Gondolin, should turn up six thousand years later in the retinue of Eärendil’s son, Elrond Halfelven; he has clearly made it his task to guard the last scion of the house of Gondolin.

  44 The name ‘Nargothrond’ itself arises for the first time in ‘The Lay of the Children of Húrin’, which predated The Hobbit by at least five years; see HME III.36 & 55.

  45 For Tolkien’s preferred spelling of this name, see HME V.98.

  46 We know that Tolkien was unhappy with the results of Baynes’ efforts (see Note 14 to the commentary following The Bladorthin Typescript), but he seems to have restricted his criticisms to the art-pieces she put at the top and bottom of her map; so far as I know his reservations did not extend to the map itself.

  47 The Nandor are a group of Teleri who abandoned the westward march but later changed their mind and joined the Sindar in Beleriand, becoming the Green Elves of Ossiriand.

  Chapter X Lake Town

  1 Scull notes that for his work on medieval language and literature Tolkien needed

  . . . a deep understanding of the archaeology, history, and culture of the period in which the text is set . . . Tolkien’s interest in such matters for the periods he studied and taught is clear in his writings and contributed much to the background of his fiction.

  – ‘The Influence of Archaeology and History on Tolkien’s World’, Scholarship & Fantasy: Proceedings of The Tolkien Phenomenon, May 1992, Turku, Finland, ed. K. J. Battarbee (page 33).

  2 This era is recorded mainly through the records of the sole surviving Old English kingdom, the Saxon realm of Wessex, and naturally those records focus on the events from that perspective. Tolkien
himself strongly identified with the Angles, considering himself ‘a Mercian’ (JRRT to CT, 18th January 1945; Letters p. 108) and at one point declaring a resolution ‘to refuse to speak anything but Old Mercian’ (JRRT to CT, 9th December 1943; Letters p. 65).

  3 Tolkien was also influenced by other writers of ‘feigned history’, or pseudohistory, such as Geoffrey of Monmouth’s History of the Kings of Britain [1137], which covers the years from the time the Trojans defeated the giants down through King Arthur’s time and into which he inserted his own excursion into that genre, Farmer Giles of Ham.

  4 Actually, it was later discovered that workmen had first turned up prehistoric artifacts at the site in 1829 but discarded them without informing any antiquarian of their existence. Cf. Keller, The Lake Dwellings of Switzerland, page 10.

  5 This image comes from a matchbox cover reproduced as illustration #68 [page 146, top] in Bryony & John Coles’ Sweet Track to Glastonbury: The Somerset Levels in Prehistory [1986]; it seems to have been one of a series of twenty ‘Historic Westcountry’ images, in this case labelled ‘No 8 GLASTONBURY LAKE VILLAGE’. For more on the Glastonbury and Meade lake-villages as they were understood at the time Tolkien wrote The Hobbit, see Arthur Bulleid’s little booklet The Lake-Villages of Somerset [first published in 1924 and many times reprinted], Bulleid being the excavator of Glastonbury lake-village and, with George Gray, of the two minor lake-villages at Meade. My thanks to Jim Pietrusz for drawing the Coles’ book and Bulleid’s pamphlet to my attention and for loaning me both volumes, and to Bryony Coles for her courtesy in replying to my queries about this image.

  6 I.e., Adrien de Mortillet, son of Gabriel de Mortillet, the leading French expert of his time on lake-dwellings (particularly the lake-dwelling at Lake Varese, Italy), famous today largely for his book Le Prehistorique: Antiquité de l’Homme [1882], which proposed a widely influential classification system for dividing prehistory into chronological epochs named after cultures identified through remains excavated at specific sites. Adrien himself was a distinguished archeologist and anthropologist in his own right.