why no gnomes?

[Hypersmurf]

You are nuts!! HP needs to be locked away!! He is blind! Blind I tell you!

Fine, then, explain this one.

Frodo travels into the very heart of Sauron's demesnes, accompanied by a piteous creature driven mad by an unnatural lust for the One Ring.

Shea travels into the very heart of the Warlock Lord's demesnes, accompanied by a piteous creature driven mad by an unnatural lust for the Sword of Shannara, and a bandit, and a mute Troll.

Ha! Where are your parallels now?

-Hyp.

 

[Turjan]

You guys are hilarious !

 

[johnsemlak]

I don't know about the original mythology but I can say that in Russian separate words for Gnome and Dwarf didn't exist until recently. "Gnome" is the word generally used to describe a Tolkien-esqe Dwarf.

 

[Turjan]

@johnsemlak: Not only gnomes and dwarves, but even elves and dwarves are the same . The most famous dwarf in German myths is called "Elberich" (I think that's Elfric in Anglo-Saxon), and the Scandinavians distinguished "light elves" (those living in the air) from "dark elves" (dwarves). Celtic elves lived underground, anyway.

The word "elf" means ghost. The word itself seems to have its origin in latin "white", most probably referring to a white ghost. All other words like dwarf, gnome or wight just meant "little people" and were used as interchangeable term for elves.

 

[Jack Daniel]

The term "gnome" was first used by the medieval writer Paracelcus, who used the word to name earth elementals; and he called the air, water, and fire elementals sylphs, undines, and salamanders, respectively. Over time, gnomes came to be synonymous with goblins, kobolds, knockers, spriggans, and other diminutive subterranean fairies of dubious morality. Not to be confused, of course, with the elf/dwarf/troll sort of fairy, which came out of Norse myth and somehow managed to become many different fairies, yet further confused with gnomes, sprites, and everything else. Tracing the origins of mythical creatures is basically a boggled mess (boggles... I forgot boggles, which are also bogarts and brownies, the gnomes or goblins of Sottish and English myth... darn).

And yes, Tolkien called his Noldori Elves "Gnomes" every once and a while, so while the "David the Gnome" type never did exist in Middle-Earth, there was something called a gnome. And yes, vampires and werewolves are mentioned in Middle-Earth, but only rarely.... and as for mermaids, you'll have to read Tolkien's short story Roverandom.

And the Shannara books are good for reading just in case you run out of Valium.

 

[Nightfall]

You guys are hilarious !

It's a nice shtick I'll grant you.

As for parallels, HP, if you don't see I'm not pointing them out. Blind leading the blind into a ditch then into walls.

 

[Emiricol]

Why is the only race that was not included in LotR included in D&D? (gnomes)? Why did Tolkien not use this race in his works? It seems like a fairly common mythological concept.

Well... I'm not fond of gnomes. That's why, in The 13 Kingdoms when we were working through the history of the setting, my beloved goblinoids enslaved those pathetic beardless dwarves. They are great architects and tutors for proper hobgoblin children, however, which is a nice bonus. Sadly, a few did escape their proper fate; happily, not enough to infest the place like those damned hew-mons.

Anyway, as has been said before by others, I think the gnomes are to Tolkein just degenerate elves, mostly. And the Gnome was included in D&D because... um... uh... Gygax was drunk one night? I couldn't say for sure, but that seems like a reasonable explanation

 

[Hypersmurf]

As for parallels, HP, if you don't see I'm not pointing them out. Blind leading the blind into a ditch then into walls.

Oh, for...

Look, if you're trying to draw any connection between Palance Buckanah, ruling a kingdom assumed to be allied but really under the sway of a corrupt advisor, and Theoden, ruling a kingdom assumed to be allied but really under the sway of a corrupt advisor, I just have to point out that Theoden was a king, and Palance was only a prince.

And the fact that Frodo and Shea are both referred to as 'halflings' is complete coincidence, because the term means two different things in the two books.

And let's not forget, the council where a group comprising members of all the Good races is formed to protect the bearer of the Important Magical Object takes place at an elven settlement in LotR, but in Sword of Shannara, it's at Culhaven - a dwarven settlement.

Come on, Nightfall... you're going to have to try harder than that if you expect to convince me of anything!

-Hyp.

 

[Morgenstern]

But actually, it isn't. Words akin to "gnome" appear all over Europe, but rarely do any two groups agree on what the darned things are. Similarly for "dwarves" and "elves". There's vague mappings between the mythological critters of various cultures, but they are only vague.

*Snort* Funny, there ARE gnomes in Tolkien's Middle Earth last I checked. Just tripped over some in the first part of the lost tales .

D&D stole some concepts from Tolkien, and Tolkien influenced pretty much every Engligh language fantasy writer after him. But don't for a minute mistake that for the idea that Tolkienesque elves and dwarves are really mythologically common.

Really? They seem to play just about exactly the way they are prtrayed throughout Norse mythology. That stuff, you know, Tolkien was translating during his day job . You need to go a lot further back than J.R.R.T. to get an original thought on the subject. He didn't exactly invent the house, he -just- (*chuckle*) made it more accesible to folks who couldn't read the older languages .

 

[Dark Jezter]

Hypersmurf, you have made my night.

I'd heard that Sword of Shanarra was a shameless LotR ripoff, but until reading your posts, I didn't know just how bad it was.

Of course, I do recall hearing that Sword of Shanarra was written because a publisher approached Terry Brooks and basically said "Give us a LotR clone that we can cash in on." And the rest is history.