The History of the Hobbit (Contains some "Spoilers"

[Alatar]

Yeah, I was already aware of those changes. Can't remember where I read them though. For me the most interesting part of the whole hobbit history was the rewriting of Gollums riddle game when the new LotR needed a more sinister Ring.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

I was interested to learn that a description of Hobbits as "not as small as Lilliputians" actually made it into the published text, and was not removed until the third edition in 1966. It is surprising to me that Tolkien included this reference to someone else's created universe. I'm glad it got removed eventually.

[Primula Baggins]

I could see why someone might have wanted it included, though. It might really harm a child's understanding of the book if he thought the hobbits were literally tiny people.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

I never had that impression. Did you?

[Alatar]

Well, their size is made pretty clear on the first page of the book:

They are (or were) a little people, about half our height, and smaller than the bearded Dwarves.

[ToshoftheWuffingas]

'In the North I am known as Gandalf; Mithrandir by the Elves; Olórin in the forgotten West and in the doctor's surgery - Bladorthin....'

[Primula Baggins]

I never had that impression. Did you?

Oh, I never had that impression, either, Voronwë, but then I had read LotR first, several times.

I sometimes think that editors of children's books think children are idiots, and so perhaps the note about Lilliputians was put in at an editor's insistence, to reinforce the size of the hobbits. It does not seem like something Tolkien would have chosen to include.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

No, it was in Tolkien's original draft. Along with references to Bilbo walking to the "Great Desert of Gobi" and fighting the "Wild Wire Worms of the Chinese" if he needed to (when he overheard the dwarves questioning his suitability to go on the quest with them). The latter two quickly disappeared, but the "lilliputions" reference was retained.

[Primula Baggins]

Ah, thanks.

I suppose it's not so odd—wasn't there also reference to something sounding like a train?

Maybe Tolkien thought children are idiots.

[solicitr]

No, it's just that when T began, he was setting Mr Baggins in a never-land where anything could appear: gradually of course the Elder Days seeped in... but Tolkien was still hedging his bets. The Necromancer didn't *have* to be Thu/Sauron of the Lay of Leithian, and the Elvenking didn't have to be (and in the event wasn't) Thingol, and the Arkenstone didn't have to be (and in the event wasn't) Maedhros' Silmaril. But JRRT left his options open.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

The Necromancer didn't *have* to be Thu/Sauron of the Lay of Leithian, and the Elvenking didn't have to be (and in the event wasn't) Thingol, and the Arkenstone didn't have to be (and in the event wasn't) Maedhros' Silmaril. But JRRT left his options open.

As to the Necromancer being Thu/Sauron, he actually was explicitly so in the first drafts, where Tolkien actually refers to his defeat by Tinúviel. Of course, he could have changed his mind later on once that reference was removed, but that foundation was definitely there from the beginning.

I have not reached the parts of the book where the Elvenking and the Arkenstone are discussed. Is there really any suggestion that the Elvenking could have been Thingol? I find that difficult to believe, given that Thingol's death at the hands of the dwarves was already an important part of the legendarium (and had been from the very beginning). As for the Arkenstone being Maedros' Silmaril, I have seen that argument made, and I have never found it to be convincing. But perhaps Rateliff sheds more light on that subject.

[solicitr]

Again, Tolkien was leaving his options open. Although it seems to me on reflection that insofar as JRRT was mentally relating The Hobbit to the legendarium, it must have been vaguely in some sort of post-War of Wrath Beleriand, since Gondolin had fallen many years (but not thousands) before, and it appears that the Necromancer/Thu/Sauron is the chief baddie. Also it seems that the Elvenking from the start must have been conceived as some other person than Thingol, his caves a rude echo of glorious Menegroth, and located (explicitly) in Taur-nu-Fuin (to which, in the Lay of Leithian, Thu fled after his defeat by Lúthien).

I reckon that in his early work on the Hobbit there was a vague association of the 'Western Lands' with Hithlum, the Misty Mts with the Ered Wethrin, the Great River is Sirion, the Withered Heath Anfauglith, and Mirkwood Taur-nu-fuin (a literal translation- and of course Tolkien's illustration thereof is a dead copy of his picture of Beleg finding Flinding)

After that it broke down- there simply isn't any way to fit the lands east of Mirkwood into Beleriand's geography. I have my own hypothesis, not found in Rateliff, that later on in writing Hobbit, and on into the early stages of The Lord of the Rings, T shifted the whole thing eastward- but not yet as far as it ultimately wound up. Here the "Edge of the Wild" is marked by the Ered Luin, the boundary of Lindon and the frontier of the 'civilised' lands: it's remarkable to compare the first draft of the Wilderland Map with the early Silmarillion map to see how closely the Misty Mountains and Ered Luin match up, and how the water-courses line up with Gelion's northern tributaries. This idea is reinforced, I think, by the fact that Moria, just a name in the Hobbit, was early on considered to be ancient Nogrod, by then long located in the Blue Mountains south of the Pass; and for a time retained that identity shifted whole to the new Hithaeglir in the east! One might note also that by the time the 'Fall of Númenor' was written, just as Hobbit was being revised for publication, the last 'chapter' concerning Elendil and the Last Alliance in embryonic form places Sauron's tower in the "Iron Forest" in the midmost parts of Middle-earth, "far from the sea;" which establishes I think that the Taur-nu-fuin identification had been rejected.


EDIT: Note that Hadhodrond, the later 'official' Sindarin name of Moria, is the same name as Nogrod: Naug + rond, Hadhod + rond, "Dwarf-cavern' or 'Dwarrowdelf.' Tolkien explicitly translated Nogrod thus in the late Thirties.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

I think your hypothesis has value, soli.

A truly extraordinary notion, which I have never heard before and never considered, is that the Dwarves of The Hobbit (and even more of LOTR) were base in part on ... the Jews!

Some of the characteristics that Rateliff points to are the secret ancestral language reserved for their own use (Khudul, Hebrew) while they adopt the language of their neighbors, the fact that they were driven from their homeland and settled in scattered enclaves, amongst other folk, but still preserved their own culture, their craftsmanship, their engaging in money-lending (which was an occupation reserved for Jews in many Christian countries) and their "warlike nature". Lest one thinks that Rateliff is reaching, particularly with the latter point, it should pointed out that that comes from Tolkien himself. In a 1965 BBC interview, he stated (apparently to the immense surprise of the interviewer):

The Dwarves of course are quite obviously a -- wouldn't you say that in many ways they remind you of the Jews? All their words are Semitic, obviously; constructed to be Semitic. There's a tremendous love of the artefact. And of course the immense warlike passion of the Jews too, which we tend to forget nowadays.

It should be noted that Rateliff also takes pains to point out that Tolkien did not incorporate the anti-Semitism pervasive in Medieval literature and cites Tolkien's well know reply to the German publisher of The Hobbit who wanted Tolkien to confirm his "Aryan" ancestry:

if I am to understand that you are enquiring whether I am of Jewish origin, I can only reply that I regret that I appear to have no ancestors of that gifted people

[solicitr]

A truly extraordinary notion, which I have never heard before and never considered, is that the Dwarves of The Hobbit (and even more of LOTR) were base in part on ... the Jews!

Vor, don't you have a copy of Letters? If not, you must get one.

It's interesting also that Tolkien's early writings view Dwarves as hostile, originally Melkorhini and later as amoral, self-interested 'neutrals'- only with The Hobbit and its sequels did Tolkien soften this view. Could this be unconnected with the ever-increasing plight of German Jews in the Thirties, and Tolkien's friendship with Cecil Roth?

(It's sadly the case that the only available patron saint for 'William', aside from various Reformation martyrs who would hardly be appropriate for a Protestant convert, is poor William of Norwich, a medieval boy whose body was found mutilated and (by implication) sexually violated- immediately the deed was blamed on "The Jews" and their alleged practice of drinking the blood of Christian children, and the typical pogrom ensued. Worse yet, the Church labeled him a 'martyr for the faith,' when I think any rational modern can easily recognize the work of a murderous pedophile.

I wound up going with my middle name- St Cloud was a Merovingian prince who, following the murder of his father and brothers by his uncles, refrained from killing them back. This counted as saintly conduct for a Merovingian prince.)

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Yes, my copy of Letters is virtually falling apart, I've used it so much. But I don't recall seeing anything about the Dwarves being based on the Jews (although of course I well recall his statements on anti-Semitism, including the one that I quoted). When I get home tonight I'll look again. Do you have any particular letters to cite?

[Voronwë the Faithful]

To answer my own question:

I do think of the 'Dwarves' like Jews: at once native and alien in their habitations, speaking the languages of the country, but with an accectdue to their own private tongue.

[N.E. Brigand]

The Necromancer didn't *have* to be Thu/Sauron of the Lay of Leithian...

As to the Necromancer being Thu/Sauron, he actually was explicitly so in the first drafts, where Tolkien actually refers to his defeat by Tinúviel... Of course, he could have changed his mind later on once that reference was removed, but that foundation was definitely there from the beginning.

If Tolkien dropped the notion that the Necromancer was Sauron, he had taken it up again before he began work on LotR. On December 16, 1937, writing to Stanley Unwin that he will give the idea of a Hobbit sequel "thought and attention", he notes that the stories and languages of the "Silmarils are in my heart. So that goodness knows what will happen", and that The Hobbit "got drawn into the edge of it -- so that even Sauron the terrible peeped over the edge".

However, as we know from The Return of the Shadow, Tolkien didn't make use of the Sauron/Necromancer character right away. Three days later, Tolkien would write C.A. Furth at Allen & Unwin that "I have written the first chapter of a new story about Hobbits -- 'A long expected party'". But there's nothing in the first draft of that chapter about the Necromancer.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Good point, N.E. And just to be clear, I don't think that he ever dropped the idea, even though he removed the reference to Beren and Tinúviel. That reference created other problems, and as Rateliff correctly pointed out, it created a contradiction with the reference to Gondolin, and since the reference to Gondolin was important to the story, and the reference to Beren and Tinúviel was mere backstory with no real significance to the plot, the latter had to go.

[solicitr]

No, I don't think he ever dropped the idea. But by coining the title 'Necromancer" and avoiding naming him, he left himself the flexibility to pursue the identity or deny it later as he saw fit. It's very clear however that the identity was present in ca. 1936 with the writing of the Fall of Númenor.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

The reference to Sauron as the Necromancer goes back at least to the original Lay of Leithian.