Licensing of Hobbits and Orcs

[Glyfair]

Nonetheless, the concept of orcs having pig heads probably comes from this - though that could just be Gygax's way of making D&D orcs different enough from Tolkien's orcs.

Back in the late 70s I borrowed a book with various mythological monsters from the library. It had a page on the "Orc" which was a sea monster with a boars head. I always thought whatever source this book used was something the MM artist used.

 

[sniffles]

At this point I think it makes sense for WotC to keep halflings and not try to gain the use of the name hobbit. They've made a pretty concerted effort to differentiate their halfling race from the image of Tolkien's hobbits and the two have become quite different. As the wikipedia entry points out, Tolkien's hobbits were in fact a sub-race of humans, whereas in D&D halflings are quite definitely not human.

As an aside, I find it interesting that the picture most players seem to have of goblins is of green creatures. I don't know where this comes from, other than Warhammer perhaps. Tolkien certainly didn't describe orcs or goblins as green in color. I keep having to remind my fellow D&D players that in the Monster Manual goblins are not green.

 

[Choranzanus]

Hobbit

The word hobbit is derived from "hobgoblin"; Tolkien did not invent it and as far as I can tell he knew this. He certainly said somewhere that his use of hobgoblin as evil creatures in "THE HOBBIT" was a mistake.

 

[Desdichado]

The word hobbit is derived from "hobgoblin"; Tolkien did not invent it and as far as I can tell he knew this. He certainly said somewhere that his use of hobgoblin as evil creatures in "THE HOBBIT" was a mistake.

Uh... no. Hobbit is a word Tolkien invented and isn't derived from anything as far as I know, although he did invent a phony etymology for it based on the Old English holbytla. The use of the word hob--which does serve as an element of hobgoblin--may have had a subconscious impact on Tolkien's invention of the word hobbit (see the discussion about the list of fey upthread) but that's certainly impossible to ascertain at this point. Hob was a nickname for the folklore fairy character Robin Goodfellow in origin.

What he said was that the use of goblin overall was a mistake; one which he tried to rectify in LotR by using orc almost exlcusively, and he bridged the two narratives by occasionally having the hobbits refer to orcs as goblins and played it off as a regional dialectical bit of hobbit-speech. He only used the word hobgoblin once IIRC in The Hobbit and did comment in Letters that his use of it implying a larger, stronger goblin was actually the opposite of what etymology should have produced and he regretted it for that reason only. At least based on what he said.

 

[Tonguez]

a hob is a small rough lump of something

as in hobnails made of hob-iron (lumps of iron found in bogs) and used to make feet for kitchen hobs

hob as applied to Robin Goodfellow et al was also an allusiuon to them being small rough lumps

I suspect Tolkien was using this sense of the word when he came up with Hobbit as a race name

Also Tolkien says that Orc is the hobbit word for Hobgoblin (not withstanding its etymology)...

 

[ColonelHardisson]

Bulfinch's Mythology makes reference to a spirit called a "habit," which is also referred to as a "halfling." What description there is makes it obvious that it and Tolkien's "hobbits" are completely different, but it's an interesting bit of trivia.

I also remember reading an essay in which the author tried to make a connection between Sinclair Lewis' "Babbitt" and Tolkien's "hobbit." It wasn't a very convincing argument at all, but it was interesting.

 

[Roman]

Ouch, so even the word halfling might be trademarked due to its existence prior to its introduction in D&D?

 

[S'mon]

A word can only be a trademark if it distinguishes the goods/services of one company from the goods/services of another company. Originality is only relevant in that a made-up word is likely more distinctive than a word already in existence.

Using TM law to protect literary works is a pretty fishy activity to start with. But under US law you can protect the copyright in the made-up creature 'hobbit' by claiming that eg a D&D monster manual creature 'hobbit' is a derivative work infringing the copyright in JRR Tolkien's works through non-literal copying. In UK law the TM and (c) cases would be extremely weak, but I expect some US local courts could be persuaded by a good lawyer. Getting it past a federal appeals court would be very tough, but then you're talking about huge legal fees.

 

[mhacdebhandia]

There's no good reason for D&D to use the word "hobbit", because D&D's halflings are no longer anything like hobbits.

And nor should they be.

 

[Choranzanus]

Uh... no. Hobbit is a word Tolkien invented and isn't derived from anything as far as I know, although he did invent a phony etymology for it based on the Old English holbytla. The use of the word hob--which does serve as an element of hobgoblin--may have had a subconscious impact on Tolkien's invention of the word hobbit (see the discussion about the list of fey upthread) but that's certainly impossible to ascertain at this point. Hob was a nickname for the folklore fairy character Robin Goodfellow in origin.

What he said was that the use of goblin overall was a mistake; one which he tried to rectify in LotR by using orc almost exlcusively, and he bridged the two narratives by occasionally having the hobbits refer to orcs as goblins and played it off as a regional dialectical bit of hobbit-speech. He only used the word hobgoblin once IIRC in The Hobbit and did comment in Letters that his use of it implying a larger, stronger goblin was actually the opposite of what etymology should have produced and he regretted it for that reason only. At least based on what he said.

Well, I simply do not believe that Tolkien invented hobbits. They are too similar to folklore characters in both name and concept. Folklore can produce incredible variety of names and concepts which are often only regional and obscure beyond belief. Because something is a "spirit" in one description doesn't mean it will not be small human in next town.