Hobbit Month

[dreamflower02]

( ceshaughnessy was unable to get her Hobbit Month entry completed for today, so she asked for someone to fill in for her. I offered to do it, so that I could go ahead and post that portion I could not get completed for my own assigned date.)

Comments

[labourslamp]

Hurray! Even if I use the "borrowed from the Romans" version I do love the sound and flavor of the Shire month and day names. (And I do use the day/date matching system, the same way Tolkien does.)

One thing that I think odd about the whole business, though--these names themselves had to be "translations"!--considering that they're composed of English elements the same way that "smial" and "mathom" are.

So there's another layer of Westron names out there presumably.

The whole thing makes me rather suspect that this and Appendix F were composed around different times. Considering the way the appendices were rushed to publication it might explain the inconsistency. Unfortunately that's a little fact that rarely lends itself to explanation in fic...

[dreamflower02]

I had several other things I wanted to point out, interspersed between the months, but sadly every attempt to do so completely ruined the formatting, reducing my careful calendars to strings of incomprehensible code. (I use the "cheat" method, of making the tables in Rich Text, and then converting them to HTML by switching over. But it can only go so far.)

One of the things I wanted to point out was how cleverly JRRT managed to fit "names" that looked and sounded remarkably *like* those we now use into his own legendarium (for example "Trewsday" was intended to have come from "Two Trees Day".

I suspect the same as you, by the way. Some parts of the Appendices appear to have been charted or composed during the writing of his epic, while others seem to be afterthoughts. I think the Family Trees and the Calendar were of the earlier variety.

[labourslamp]

One of the things I wanted to point out was how cleverly JRRT managed to fit "names" that looked and sounded remarkably *like* those we now use into his own legendarium (for example "Trewsday" was intended to have come from "Two Trees Day".Gosh, yes! Of course the fact that hobbits would have a "Treesday" (Monday and Sunday make sense, and one of these days I'm going to work the older spellings in there) raises a whole slew of questions as to how much Elvish mythology was actually embedded in their culture, and whether in earlier days when they were in greater contact with the elves they had something closer to the lore we see in such texts as the Silm. Kind of shakes up the interpretations of those of us (like me) who don't like seeing too much of the Silm entering the Shire (i.e., hobbits knowing the names of the Valar). And I'm not complaining

[dreamflower02]

I would imagine the earliest Shire settlers might have known some of the stories--they received the Shire from the hands of a Numenorean king, after all. But I am also sure that any such that they might have known in the beginning were soon lost in the mists of time, only retained by the odd word or two of obscure origin

[shirebound]

Oh my goodness! This is a fascinating resource.

[dreamflower02]

It was fun to think up, but frustrating to post. But there is so much to those calendars-- it's one more example of what a remarkable mind the Professor had!

[shirebound]

The layers and layers and layers of complexity with the Professor's world is what makes it so very real.

[blslarner]

Oh, I can so imagine how difficult it was to format this! But it's very well done, Barbara!

[dreamflower02]

Thank you!

[addie71]

What an interesting post, thanks!

[dreamflower02]

You're welcome! I hope it's useful, as well.

[dreamflower02]

Thanks! The info, of course, was not hard to come by. Getting the post to hang together and all of the stuff in the little boxes, was another matter altogether!