by David Day
What Tolkien has given us in his tea-swilling, pipe-smoking, middle-class Hobbits is a distinct-ively English translation of the rather wild and anything-but-middle-class Brownies of the Celts.
Common Characteristics of Celtic Brownies and English Hobbits:
brown-haired
brown-skinned
dress in brown and earth colours
three feet tall or less
shy and secretive race
usually benevolent and helpful to friendly humans
some are of a humorous or mischievous disposition
most live in dwellings beneath hills
others live in woodland caverns
and still others prefer marshlands
FROM BUCCA THE HOBBIT TO PUCK OF POOK’S HILL
One story which undoubtedly influenced Tolkien’s writing was Rudyard Kipling’s Puck of Pook’s Hill. This is the story of Shakespeare’s Puck as one of the last survivors of the People of the Hills, little brown, blue-eyed, freckled folk measuring just two to three feet, who live in secret dwellings beneath the ancient “hollow hills.”
In Kipling’s tale we learn that Puck people were once powerful pagan gods who came to Britain with the first oak, ash, and thorn trees. But now that all the great forests are gone, only a few survive to hide away in the hills and hollows of England.
Beyond the fact that Puck’s people strongly resemble Hobbits, there are elements of Elrond Half-Elven, Tom Bombadil, and Treebeard the Ent in Puck’s laments on the lost glories of the ancient world. But if we wish to see a true parallel between Puck’s people and Tolkien’s Hobbits, we need only look at the evolution of the name Puck.
From Shakespeare to Kipling, the name Puck has become the traditional name for a mischievous~but not malicious~English sprite or hobgoblin.
Where did this name come from?
PUCK is a Medieval English hobgoblin.
PUCKEL or PUKA, an Old English hobgoblin
PUCCA or POOKA, an Ancient Irish hobgoblin
BUCCA or BWCI, an Ancient Cornish or Welsh hobgoblin
What we witness here is the translation of the original Celtic hobgoblin, Bucca, into an English hobgoblin, Puck. However, it is no accident that one of the founding fathers of the Hobbits was called Bucca. It is another example of obscure Hobbitish humour: Tolkien implies that in the Hobbit Bucca we have the original archetypal British sprite, while Puck is but a pale imitation, only vaguely understood by Shakespeare and others.
Similarly, but with deeper understanding, by connecting Bucca to Puck, Tolkien declares his intention to draw up a comparable translation process in his transformation of Celtic Brownies to English Hobbits.
X. The Shire & MICHEL DELVING
THE SHIRE is the Hobbit homeland: a green and pleasant land of orderly farms and hill villages. It is well watered by rivers and streams, and provided with lush meadows, hedgerows, and ample woodlands. The Shire is the heartland of Middle-earth, and Britain’s Shires are the heartland of England.
The word shire comes from the Old English scir, which was the main unit of Anglo-Saxon government (later known as counties) in England before the Norman Conquest and was under the control of a sheriff.
Originally, the sheriff was the Shire-reeve (scir-gerefa), who was the monarch’s representative and chief official for local administration. After the thirteenth century, his power decreased with the introduction of county courts and local officials, and although the Sheriff was still the chief officer of the Crown, his role became largely ceremonial.
Organizationally, the Shire was also very like the Shires of England with its mayors, musters, moots, and sheriffs. It shared folk traditions similar to British spring, mid-summer, and autumn fêtes, fairs, and festivals. It also shared the inhabitants’ loyalty to the monarchy, distrust of all outside influences, and unquestioning acceptance of tradition that amounted to an almost pig-headed conservativeness.
The character of the Shire is very like that of the Shires of England. In fact, Tolkien acknowledged that his Shire was largely modelled on the Midlands (and Oxfordshire, in particular) around the turn of the century in the last years of Queen Victoria’s reign. In many ways it was an idealized (and yet gently satiric) view of England the Good at the zenith of its power.
ORDERING OF THE SHIRE
The Shire’s actual shape and structure appear to have been governed by Hobbits, or rather the root word: Hob. The first of our Dictionary Hocus-Pocus words, Hob is the word with the most homonyms in the entire list. In this case, the definition “axis or centre of a wheel from which spokes radiate outward” geographically describes the shape of the Shire as the Hobbit homeland, both its external borders and its internal divisions.
HOB: Axis or Hub of a Wheel from which Spokes Radiate Outwards
The Shire is shaped like a child’s wobbly drawing of the large front wheel of an old-fashioned Penny-farthing bicycle, and has a diameter measurement roughly equal to forty or fifty leagues: (120 to 150 miles). The four great spokes of the wheel radiate out from the hob, and divide the Shire into four regions known as the Four Farthings. This is logical enough as a farthing comes from the Old English feorthing, meaning fourth or a fourth part. This is because the silver penny was marked with a cross on the reverse, and each of these quarters was a farthing. The central hob of the Shire is marked geographically with a large standing stone, known as the Farthingstone.
To the Four Farthings of the Shire there were later appended the lands known as the Eastmarch and the Westmarch: the regions of Buckland and the Tower Hills.
The Shire is full of names to be found in the English landscape today, deriving from the same peculiar sources a name such as Nobottle, both in the English Shires and in the Hobbit Shires, sounds to the contemporary ear like a joke about meek Hobbitish inhabitants who “lost their bottle’ or courage. In fact it is an Old English compound of niowe, or new, plus botl, or house, which can also be translated as Newhouse or Newton or Newbury. Indeed, there was one very real Nobottle in Northamptonshire not far from Farthingstone, just thirty-five miles from Tolkien’s Oxford home. Meanwhile, just twenty-five miles south of Oxford was Newbury (another variation on Nobottle) in Berkshire and not far from Buckland.
White Cliffs of Michel Delving
Similar etymological histories can be found to explain why the Hobbit Shire and the English Shires share many geographic names: Dunharrow, Gladden, Silverlode, Limlight, Withywindle, Cherwell, Bree, Combe, Archet, Chetwood, Bucklebury, Budgeford, Hardbottle, Oatbarton, Stock, Frogmorton, Sackville, and scores of others.
SHIRE CAPITAL: WHITE CLIFFS OF MICHEL DELVING
The capital city of the Shire is Michel Delving on the White Downs. The name Michel Delving is perhaps something of a Hobbitish joke in im-itation of one of Charles Dickens’s novels. One might suggest that humans have “Great Expectations,” while less ambitious Hobbits are content with “Great Excavations” (michel is Old English for great and delving for excavation).
Michel Delving was built on the imposing high ridge of the White Downs, ideal terrain for the construction of its substantial Smials. It is also the official residence of the sheriff or mayor of the Shire, and therefore boasts the Shire’s largest great hall, which is known (with typical Hobbit humour) as the Town Hole. Here is to be found whatever civil and social services are on offer to Shire Hobbits.
Michel Delving is also a substantial commercial centre and the venue for many holiday fˆetes and fairs every year. These events are presided over by the mayor, who is also the sheriff and the postmaster general. The city is consequently the location of a considerable number of other civic offices: the post office, the messenger service, the Shire police called The Watch, and the Mathom House, or Shire Museum.
One notable mayor of Michel Delving during the time of the War of the Ring was Will Whitfoot who was exceptionally fat, even for a Hobbit. However, most mayors in Tolkien’s books are fat~in part, one suspects, because Tolkien knew that the word mayor actually means larger (from
the Latin major, meaning greater or larger). Consequently Will was the fattest Hobbit in the Shire. His name Whitfoot (Old English, literally meaning White-foot) was logical enough, because the town of Michel Delving was cut into the white cliffs of the chalk downs.
Without any doubt, Whitfoot was a common Hobbitish name for the region. However, the name was probably what inspired Tolkien to invent the comic tale of the partial collapse of the great hall of the Town Hole. In the middle of a meeting the roof caved in, causing a huge plume of white dust to rise above the village. Fortunately, no one was hurt, but the mayor of the day, Will Whitfoot, emerged covered in chalk dust. It was widely reported that the rotund Will looked like a huge uncooked flour dumpling, and Mayor Whitfoot of Michel Delving was known ever after by the nickname Old Flourdumpling.
XI. Hometown of HOBBITON
Although Michel Delving is the capital of the Shire, and there are many larger and more imposing towns, the most famous Hobbit village is Hobbiton-on-the-Hill. Hobbiton is a modestly typical Hobbit settlement. It is not famous because of its size or location. Hobbiton’s only claim to fame is that it is the home of the Baggins family of Bag End on Hobbiton Hill.
The name Hobbiton simply means Hobbit town. But looking at the many homonyms of Hob such as hub, axis, nave, and centre we could interpret Hobbiton as the Hub Town of the Hobbits. Looking at other Hob homonyms~hub, hump, hill this time~we could interpret it as Hill Town of Hobbits.
In the English Shires are scores of hollow hills: burial mounds, barrow graves, and tumuli that are known locally as Hob Hill Houses or Hobthrush Houses. In popular mythology these Hobs are believed to be hairy little Brownies of sorts, variously named Hobs, Hobmen, Hob-i-t’-hursts, Hob Thrushes and Hob Thrusts. Only a few miles from Tolkien’s home was Hob Hurst’s House, an ancient round barrow which is not typically remembered as a tomb, but as a house or hollow hill wherein the spirit called Hob Hurst still lives beneath the mound.
Hobbits are both Hole-Dwellers and Hill-Dwellers. How did this come about? Perhaps the reason is in part buried deep in the roots of the language: is there a connection between hill and hole?
XII. BAG END: The Hobbit Home
If one wishes to study the design and view the interior of an ideal Hobbit smial, one could do no better than examine the home of the famous Bilbo and Frodo Baggins at Bag End. Considered the finest Hobbit hole in the ancient village of Hobbiton, it is a rather magnificent, but perfectly traditional, Hobbit smial.
The epitome of the country gentlehobbit’s home, it is well-designed, warm, cosy, and extremely comfortable, but without any grand pretensions. The no-nonsense nature of this family smial is emphasized by its name: Bag End.
There is an element of social satire here because Bag End is another of Tolkien’s Hobbitish linguistic jokes. Bag End is a literal translation of the French cul de sac: a term employed by snobbish British estate agents in the early twentieth century who felt the English dead end road was too common. The French cul de sac was considered more cultured, even though it is a term little used by the French, who commonly call such a road an impasse.
BAG END
CUL DE SAC in “Franglais”
IMPASSE in French
DEAD END in English
Tolkien’s Baggins family of Bag End are authentically Hobbitish and would have no truck with this kind of Frenchified silliness. However, this is exactly why the obnoxious, social-climbing side of the Baggins family took on the double-barrelled name of Sackville-Baggins. The facts that they came from Sackville in Southfarthing and insist on using this Frenchified double-name tell us everything we need to know about this branch of the family. Absurdly, the pretentious Sackville-Baggins accurately rendered would have been the ridiculous and down-market name of Bagtown-Baggins.
SACKVILLE literally translates as Bagtown
SACKVILLE-BAGGINS literally translates as “Bagtown-Baggins”*
All in all, Tolkien’s perspective on Bag End is a gentle satire of English middle-class “home and garden” society. As a rule, Tolkien despised the pretension and snobbery that looked down condescendingly on all things English. He preferred plain English in language, in food, in culture. The Hobbit home of Bilbo Baggins at Bag End is the epitome of everything that is honestly and plainly English.
Through the Hobbits at Bag End, Tolkien extols the Englishman’s love of simple home comforts. They are seen as both ideal and absurd: a view that is part delight, part mockery. All in all, it only seems surprising he didn’t write a parody aphorism along the lines of: “the Hobbit’s hole is his castle.”
DESIGN OF THE BAG END SMIAL
All Hobbit holes or smials follow a single fundamental plan. Although Bag End is more extensive than most, it does not depart from the basic design tenets of a typical smial. A central tunnel or smial is dug into a hillside. On either side of this corridor, rooms are excavated.
The central tunnel is usually dug parallel to the slope of the hill, entering it at one point and emerging via a back door at the other end. Rooms excavated on one side of the corridor will have round windows with garden views; rooms on the other side, naturally enough, will have none.
There are no stairs in Hobbit homes: the rooms are all on one level, and they are similar to those of Human country squires~although there is a rather heavier emphasis on large pantries, kitchens, and cellars for food and drink; and on wardrobes, chests, drawers, and closets for clothes.
Hobbits are fine and skilful craftsmen, so their homes are well made, from the polished brass knob on the round porthole front door to the polished brass knob in the round porthole back door. The tube-like central corridor and all the rooms are finely crafted with wood-panelled walls and beautifully tiled and carpeted floors. The rooms are all cosy and well ventilated, well lit and heated with substantial fireplaces. They are filled with exquisite hand-made furniture, all of which is neatly polished, painted, and fully upholstered for maximum comfort.
HERITAGE OF BAG END~THE HOUSE THAT BUNGO BUILT
Bag End was built by Bilbo Baggins’s father, Bungo Baggins. Oddly enough, this simple revelation leaves the reader open to a barrage of Tolkien’s dreadful Hobbitish puns pivoting on the word Bungo. Bag End was Bungo’s house; however, in original Hobbitish (in which masculine names end in a) his name was Bunga. Therefore Bag End was Bunga’s House, which was a bungalow, or a “low one-storey house,” which is a fairly accurate description of a Hobbit smial like Bag End.
BAG END
Bunga’s House Bungalow
Low One-Storey House
Bunga’s Smial Bag End
Furthermore, Bungo’s House is also Bungo’s Hole, and the common English term bunghole, as a place into which things are carelessly thrown, comes from the term bung meaning “to shut up with a cork or stopper.” This is evocative of the Hobbitish habit of filling their holes up with clutter, bunging things in and never throwing them away. Also, the bung hole in the end of a wine or beer barrel suggests the round door at the entrance of the Hobbit house.
BAG END
Bungo’s Hole Bunghole
Nor does it quite end there. From the sixteenth century to the early twentieth century the English slang term bung had a similar meaning to the word Bagg in Baggins: that is, a “purse or pocket.” Therefore, Mr. Bungo Baggins of Bag End could almost be reduced to a simplistic Mr. Bag Bag of Bag End.
BUNGO BAGGINS
Bung(o) Bung Purse Money Bag
Bagg Bagg(ins)
By the nineteenth century Bung had become a verb: to bung meant to throw away. From this came the slang bungo, which meant “to disappear”, especially in connection with money: literally bung-go, meaning “purse-gone.”
BUNGO
Bung-Go Disappear Purse-Gone Bag-Gone Baggins-Gone
It appears that Bilbo Baggins inherited not only Bag End bungalow from his father Bungo, but also the Baggins’s tendency to bungo (disappear). Bungo (and his wife) both went bungo after a boating accident, never to return. Bilbo Baggins went bung
o twice: once after his “Unexpected Party” at the beginning of The Hobbit; and again after his “Long Expected Party” at the beginning of The Lord of the Rings. *
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* Closer than the Sackvilles would want to “Bag-End-Baggins”
* Frodo Baggins carried on the disappearing tradition by going bungo at the beginning and the end of The Lord of the Rings.
XIII. Conjuring GANDALF the WIZARD
Just as the Dwarves of Thorin and Company begin their adventure in The Hobbit as standard creatures of the fairy-tale variety, Gandalf the Wizard also appears as a rather comic eccentric fairy-tale magician. In The Hobbit, Gandalf has something of the character of the absent-minded professor and muddled conjurer about him.
It is Gandalf who brings the Dwarves and the Hobbit together and begins the quest. It is his injection of adventure and magic into the mundane world of the Hobbits that transforms Bilbo Baggins’s world. It is Gandalf who leads the band of outlaw adventurers in the form of Thorin and Company to Bilbo’s door. And it is this combination of the everyday and the epic that makes The Hobbit so compelling. Grand adventures with Dragons, Trolls, Elves, and treasure combined with the everyday pleasures of afternoon teas, toasted muffins, pints of ale, and smoke-ring-blowing contests.
So, in The Hobbit, Gandalf is a fairy-tale magician with the traditional pointy hat, long cape, and wizard’s staff. He is an amusing and reassuring presence: like a fairy godfather. His later transformation in The Lord of the Rings is something of a surprise, but then Tolkien is making the point that behind all fairy-tale magicians there are powerful archetypes from the myths and epics of a racial past.