as Men preserved, or to the makings of Men’s minds not wholly dissimilar. But it has been diminished, and to many it may now suggest fancies either pretty or silly, as unlike to the Quendi of old as are butterflies to the swift falcon – not that any of the Quendi ever possessed wings of the body, as unnatural to them as to Men. They were a race high and beautiful, the older Children of the world, and among them the Eldar were as kings, who now are gone: the People of the Great Journey, the People of the Stars. They were tall, fair of skin and grey-eyed, though their locks were dark, save in the golden house of Finarfin; 1 and their voices had more melodies than any mortal voice that now is heard. They were valiant, but the history of those that returned to Middle-earth in exile was grievous; and though it was in far-off days crossed by the fate of the Fathers, their fate is not that of Men. Their dominion passed long ago, and they dwell now beyond the circles of the world, and do not return.
Note on three names: Hobbit, Gamgee, and Brandywine.
Hobbit is an invention. In the Westron the word used, when this people was referred to at all, was banakil ‘halfling’. But at this date the folk of the Shire and of Bree used the word kuduk, which was not found elsewhere. Meriadoc, however, actually records that the King of Rohan used the word kûd-dûkan ‘hole-dweller’. Since, as has been noted, the Hobbits had once spoken a language closely related to that of the Rohirrim, it seems likely that kuduk was a worn-down form of kûd-dûkan. The latter I have translated, for reasons explained, by holbytla; and hobbit provides a word that might well be a worn-down form of holbytla, if that name had occurred in our own ancient language.
Gamgee. According to family tradition, set out in the Red Book, the surname Galbasi, or in reduced form Galpsi, came from the village of Galabas, popularly supposed to be derived from galab- ‘game’ and an old element bas-, more or less equivalent to our wick, wich. Gamwich (pronounced Gammidge) seemed therefore a very fair rendering. However, in reducing Gammidgy to Gamgee, to represent Galpsi, no reference was intended to the connexion of Samwise with the family of Cotton, though a jest of that kind would have been hobbit-like enough, had there been any warrant in their language.
Cotton, in fact, represents Hlothran, a fairly common village-name in the Shire, derived from hloth, ‘a two-roomed dwelling or hole’, and ran(u) a small group of such dwellings on a hill-side. As a surname it may be an alteration of hlothram(a) ‘cottager’. Hlothram, which I have rendered Cotman, was the name of Farmer Cotton’s grandfather.
Brandywine. The hobbit-names of this river were alterations of the Elvish Baranduin (accented on and), derived from baran ‘golden brown’ and duin ‘(large) river’. Of Baranduin Brandywine seemed a natural corruption in modern times. Actually the older hobbit-name was Branda-nîn ‘border-water’, which would have been more closely rendered by March-bourn; but by a jest that had become habitual, referring again to its colour, at this time the river was usually called Bralda-hîm ‘heady ale’.
It must be observed, however, that when the Oldbucks (Zaragamba) changed their name to Brandybuck (Brandagamba), the first element meant ‘borderland’, and Marchbuck would have been nearer. Only a very bold hobbit would have ventured to call the Master of Buckland Braldagamba in his hearing.
INDEX
Compiled by Christina Scull & Wayne G. Hammond
The pagination of this electronic edition does not match the edition from which it was created. To locate a specific passage, please use the search feature of your e-book reader.
This list has been compiled independent of that prepared by Nancy Smith and revised by J.R.R. Tolkien for the second edition (1965) of The Lord of the Rings and augmented in later printings; but for the final result reference has been made to the earlier index in order to resolve questions of content and to preserve Tolkien’s occasional added notes and ‘translations’ [here indicated within square brackets]. We have also referred to the index that Tolkien himself began to prepare during 1954, but which he left unfinished after dealing only with place-names. He had intended, as he said in his original foreword to The Lord of the Rings, to provide ‘an index of names and strange words with some explanations’; but it soon became clear that such a work would be too long and costly, easily a short volume unto itself. (Tolkien’s manuscript list of place-names informed his son Christopher’s indexes in The Silmarillion and Unfinished Tales, and is referred to also in the present authors’ The Lord of the Rings: A Reader’s Companion.)
Readers have long complained that the original index is too brief and fragmented for serious use. In the present work citations are given more comprehensively for names of persons, places, and things, and unusual (invented) words, mentioned or alluded to in the text (i.e. excluding the maps); and there is a single main sequence of entries, now preceded by a list of poems and songs by first line and a list of poems and phrases in languages other than English (Common Speech). Nonetheless, although this new index is greatly enlarged compared with its predecessor, some constraints on its length were necessary so that it might fit comfortably after the Appendices. Thus it has not been possible to index separately or to cross-reference every variation of every name in The Lord of the Rings (of which there are thousands), and we have had to be particularly selective when indexing Appendices D through F, concentrating on those names or terms that feature in the main text, and when subdividing entries by aspect.
Primary entry elements have been chosen usually according to predominance in The Lord of the Rings, but sometimes based on familiarity or ease of reference: thus (for instance) predominant Nazgûl rather than Ringwraiths or even less frequent Black Riders, and predominant and familiar Treebeard rather than Fangorn, with cross-references from (as they seem to us) the most important alternate terms. Names of bays, bridges, fords, gates, towers, vales, etc. including ‘Bay’, ‘Bridge’, etc. are entered usually under the principal element, e.g. Belfalas, Bay of rather than Bay of Belfalas. Names of battles and mountains are entered directly, e.g. Battle of Bywater, Mount Doom. With one exception (Rose Cotton), married female hobbits are indexed under the husband’s surname, with selective cross-references from maiden names.