Hobbits & Halflings

[Tonguez]

Okay
ORCS
1. Tolkien makes it explicit in his work that Orc is the Hobbit word for Hob-goblin ergo the Orc as we know it is based on the hob-goblin of folk lore
2. The word Orc use to refer to a sea monster and is derived from the same root-word as Ogre

Hobbits
1. There are a variety of 'little people' mentioned in folklore (as Fusangite said)
2. Hob refers to a class of these faerie folk who were often potbellied and involved in rural trades
3. Hob is derived from an old word for raw iron (hence modern use in hob-nailed boots and oven hobs)
x. Hobbits are from Cornwall and were once a major ingredient in Cornish pasties

 

[Wilphe]

If you drop a Hobbit down a tin mine will it still be one piece when it hits the bottom?

 

[Goblyns Hoard]

Do Hobbits & Halflings have a deeper mythological backround or do they merely come from Tolkien.

Can't say for certain whether or not a human like 'small-folk' really existed in mythological terms pre-Tolkien but I don't know of any thing halfling-like. However I can say that of the folklore and rumour that surrounds Tolkien (which may very well be fact but who can tell these days) he wrote the first sentence of The Hobbit on the back of an English paper he was grading. It's something like "In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit." Apparently at the time that he wrote it he had no idea what a hobbit was or where he was going to take the story. In my mind that points to it being a Tolkien creation.

 

[gizmo33]

orcs and hobbits

I thought "orc" was Gaelic for a pig or perhaps a boar.

Yea, I see it in modern dictionaries as "torc" (Irish) or "twrch" (Welsh) but I thought I remember seeing "orc" somewhere - might be because it shows up as a different part of speech - or might be dialect, archaic or something. But AFAIK it's not the source for Tolkien's orcs - although it might be the source of inspiration for the illustration in the MM1 showing orcs to be pig-headed. I don't think there's anything in Tolkien about orcs being pig-headed, or having anything to with pigs, but I'm not sure.

The summary of what I've read about Tolkien is that orc derives from Old English for demon (as described in a previous post). For an example, you can find an Old English version of Beowulf on the web and do a text search. IMO hobbit was a word invented by Tolkien, although it probably resembles other words because words invented by Tolkien followed linguistic rules that real-world languages follow - and so IMO similarities/equivalences are bound to exist. But while "kobold", "goblin" and such do exist as names for creatures in folklore (although admittedly not in their DnD form), I can't think of any examples of seeing "hobbit" outside of Tolkien - and I've done alot of looking. Although the folklore of the British isles contains a zillion words for fey and bogey-men like creatures (some too silly to be used in DnD).

So, unless a Tolkien-scholar comes forward with some better information, IMO:
1. Orc = name from Old English; personality/character invented by Tolkien
2. Hobbit = name invented/developed by Tolkien; personality/character invented by Tolkien

 

[Gray Mouser]

Jack Vance uses "halfling" to mean a relatively humanlike fay or half-elf, though I don't know if that goes back to historical usage. There have certainly been many different myths about little people who live in burrows or isolated valleys.

Hmm, do you recall where Vance uses this name? I have read his Dying Earth novels and don't recall it occuring in those. Perhaps something else I haven't read before?

Thanks in advance!

Gray Mouser

 

[kenobi65]

Yea, I see it in modern dictionaries as "torc" (Irish) or "twrch" (Welsh) but I thought I remember seeing "orc" somewhere - might be because it shows up as a different part of speech - or might be dialect, archaic or something. But AFAIK it's not the source for Tolkien's orcs - although it might be the source of inspiration for the illustration in the MM1 showing orcs to be pig-headed. I don't think there's anything in Tolkien about orcs being pig-headed, or having anything to with pigs, but I'm not sure.

I have read (though the story may well be apocryphal) that AD&D went to the pig-faced orc (perhaps inspired by the German word) in an attempt to draw a distinction versus Tolkien's work, esp. after some legal issues stemming from D&D originally using the term "hobbit" instead of "halfling."