The obstacles to Bilbo Baggins and Thorin and Company developed out of Tolkien’s investigations into the fragments of Anglo-Saxon literature. The language itself was Tolkien’s way into this world; often phrases or single words suggested whole chapters and scenarios. He also began to define clearly and standardize the elusive forms of mythic creatures inhabiting the Anglo-Saxon language.
Tolkien insisted on clarifying definitions and forms in language, such as altering Dwarfs to Dwarves and Dwarfish to Dwarvish, while Elfs became Elves and Elfin became Elven. In Old English and Norse tales there is considerable confusion between the definitions of Elfs, Dwarfs, Giants, Hobs, Ents, Fairies, etc. Tolkien wished to put an end to this. In the case of Elves in particular, Tolkien defined the Elf as a distinct and singularly important race.
In its etymological history, he also found that Elf was an extraordinarily strong and consistent word through many languages, meaning both Elf and white (the Latin alba and Greek alphos both mean white), and also retaining an association in all languages with Swan.
ELF~English
AELF~Old English
ALFR~Old Norse
ALP~Old High German
ALBS~Gothic
Many aspects of various beings and monsters in Tolkien’s world have evolved from Old English and Germanic words. In the epic poem Beowulf, for instance, Tolkien’s imagination was fired by one phrase that described the tortured races who were thought to be the descendants of the cursed biblical brother, Cain. In this one phrase we have three of Tolkien’s invented species. The Old English wording is eotenas ond ylfe ond orcneas, meaning “ettens and elves and demon-corpses” or more simply “trolls and elves and goblins.”
Elsewhere in Anglo-Saxon literature we have a jumble of words for a confusion of creatures that Tolkien shaped and standardized:
ORCNEAS~demon-corpses or goblin zombies in Old English
ORCPYRS~demon-giants or goblin giants in Old English
WARGS~Vargr (wolf) in Old Norse +
Wearh (human outlaw) in Old English, suggestive of “skin-changers” or werewolves
BERSERKERS~Bear + Sark (bear-shirt warrior cult) in Old Norse, suggestive of “skin-changers” or Werebears
EOTEN~giant or ent in Old English
JOTUNN~giant in Old Norse
TROLL~giant or monster from Norse
BILBO BAGGINS THE BUNGLING BURGLAR
At the beginning of The Hobbit, Bilbo Baggins appears to be totally incompetent as a mercenary burglar. Why would Gandalf the Wizard insist on the Dwarves hiring such an absurd creature for this job? Indeed, Bilbo Baggins is only shamed into attempting the role as master burglar or thief. Unfortunately, he is caught first time out trying to steal from three Trolls of the Trollshaws (literally troll-woods).
Although immensely stupid by Human and Hobbit standards, these monsters~Bert, Tom, and William Huggins (rhymes with Muggins, meaning fool, idiot)~were capable of speech. This made them geniuses among Trolls, and smart enough almost to end Bilbo Baggins’s career before it began.
The episode with the Trolls is rather imitative of the Grimms’ tale The Brave Little Tailor, and other trickster tales from Icelandic mythology. However, it is the Wizard Gandalf who uses his wits to keep the Trolls arguing until the sun rises and turns these creatures of darkness to stone.
The point of the story of The Hobbit is that it traces the initiation and education of the Hobbit from everyday person into epic hero. In this, Gandalf the Wizard is the Hobbit’s mentor.
The episode with the Trolls is Bilbo Baggins’s first lesson in using his wits to outsmart the large and powerful. After passing this first test he wins a prize from the Trolls’ treasure hoard: a magical Elven dagger with the name Sting. Aside from being an extremely effective weapon with an ancient heritage, Sting is Bilbo’s bilbo: it is emblematic of his new-found power of a sharpened wit, and also emblematic of his true self or spirit, which is bright and more than a little dangerous.
BILBO BAGGINS THE HOBBLER
The key to Bilbo Baggins’s education and the model for the kind of heroic master burglar the Hobbit becomes can be conjured up from one of our Hocus-Pocus Dictionary words: Hobbler.
Hobbler is a nineteenth- and early twentieth-century underworld term for a specialized type of criminal who, through a combination of confidence tricks (or stings) and burglary, acquires a great deal of loot. He is an example of “dishonour among thieves,” for his victim is usually another criminal who acquired his booty by theft in the first place.
The term hobbler comes from hobble, in the sense of “to perplex or impede.” This can be done physically, but more often is done through trickery or mental process; in Tolkien’s world we often see superior force “hobbled” by trickery in the form of perplexing riddles or legally binding word play that almost amount to legal contracts, whether dealing with Dwarves, Orcs, Gollum, Elves, or Dragons.
Gandalf the Wizard had decided that, despite appearances, Bilbo Baggins the Hobbit was the perfect candidate for a hobbler. Being a Hobbit, there is little opportunity for Bilbo to intimidate physically, so he is more likely to learn how to “perplex, impede, and confuse” his foes, rather than confront them. If he is to survive, he must quickly learn to use his wits and a few tools of his profession to relieve other criminals of ill-gotten loot.
Bilbo Baggins’s technique is perfectly described in criminal-world slang that was first recorded in Britain in 1812 (and has been used ever since): to hobble a plant~“to find booty that has been concealed by another; to spring the loot by deception or theft.”
The phrase means roughly: “the finder hobbles the planter.” This is the technique employed in each major encounter; whether the planter is a Troll or Goblin or Ghoul or Dragon. In each case, after tricking and evading the creature, the hero-burglar gets “to spring the loot”.
Under the tutorship of Gandalf the ineffectual Hobbit seems rapidly to learn how to become a first-class hobbler. His reward for surviving the first test is his sword Sting. His reward for surviving the much more demanding test of the cannibal ghoul Gollum is the One Ring that allows him to be invisible. With these two tools of his trade, and a wit sharpened by desperation and necessity, Bilbo Baggins becomes a master thief without compa-rison: a Hobbit hobbler.
Bilbo’s apprenticeship to Gandalf the Wizard is over with the hobbling of Gollum and the theft of his One Ring: “Thief! Thief! Thief! Baggins!” We hates it, we hates it for ever!” High praise indeed from a monster colleague who has been stealing and murdering for centuries.
When Bilbo Baggins rejoins the Company of Dwarves, he becomes a master thief beyond compare and the real hero of the expedition. His transformation is remarkable. In the forests of Mirkwood, Bilbo turns into a ferocious hero of the most aggressive kind who ruthlessly slaughters the evil giant spiders with his Ring and his Sting. From the trials of the spider webs and Elven prisons of Mirkwood, it is a short journey to the abandoned Dwarf Kingdom Under Mountain at Erebor, where the ultimate test of Bilbo Baggins’s skills as a Hobbit hobbler lies waiting: the Dragon of Lonely Mountain.
The Quest to steal the lost treasure of Lonely Mountain from the Dragon of Erebor was guided by the Wizard Gandalf the Grey and led by the rightful heir to the Dwarf Kingdom-under-the-Mountain, Thorin Oakenshield. The Wizard and the Dwarf King were accompanied by twelve quarrelsome Dwarves, and assisted by one Hobbit of the Shire who went by the name Bilbo Baggins of Bag End. The Company of Adventurers: GANDALF THE WIZARD, BILBO BAGGINS THE HOBBIT, THORIN OAKENSHIELD, DWALIN, BALIN, KILI, FILI, BIFUR, BOFUR, BOMBUR, DORI, NORI, ORI, OIN, and GLOIN.
