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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Paul Farquhar" data-source="post: 9721995" data-attributes="member: 6906155">Maybe, but there is usually some sort of seed that multiple people pick up on. For example, the occasional Welsh dwarf comes from the association dwarves=miners=Welsh.I would suggest that for the Scots, the association is stubbornness. In The Hobbit, he dwarves are certainly extremely stubborn. And this is also a stereotype for the Scottish, perhaps down to English incredulity that the Scots did not embrace the 1707 Act of Union.However, one of the problems with Tolkien is he casts such a large shadow that it obscures what was already present in popular culture. In The Hobbit, he explains Hobbits, but says very little about elves, dwarves or goblins. He is clearly expecting popular culture to supply the missing information.I'm also trying to remember how C S Lewis wrote the dialogue for his dwarves. They certainly have speaking parts in TLTWATW and PC. The movie version gave the main dwarf in TLTWATW a Scottish-ish accent, but I can's remember if there is anything to suggest that in the text (I suspect not).It’s also worth noting that Disney’s Snow White came out in the same year that The Hobbit was published, we can assume they were completely independent, but in the same cultural environment. The Disney version, of course connects to the German Dwarfs mentioned earlier, and itself casts a huge shadow obscuring the original folk tale.For goblins, we can look at Enid Blyton in the 1950s, who does not appear to have been influenced by Tolkien.</blockquote>

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