Tolkien Trewsday Week 16: Stories from the Past – Tuesday 13th June 2023

Week 16: Stories from the Past – Tuesday 13th June 2023
#TolkienTrewsday #TolkienTuesday #Tolkien

Welcome to #TolkienTrewsday #TolkienTuesday.

The hub for this Twitter-based event can be found here.

Tolkien Trewsday (the Hobbit name for Tuesday!) invites the #Tolkien community to form a fellowship to collectively tweet about a pre-selected theme about Tolkien, his works and his life.

Each week a new theme will be selected, often via a poll or by a guest host/curator, and together we will build a collective outpouring of creativity, knowledge and love for J.R.R. Tolkien and the adaptions based on his works.

The inspiration for this comes from the highly successful #FolkloreThursday which engaged lovers of Folklore, academics, artists and more to use Twitter to discuss it.

We only ask that if you are joining in, please do so with courtesy and kindness in your tweets. This is a positive-action community event, open to all and supportive of fan diversity. Intolerance, racism, bigotry have no place here.

💬 This week’s theme
Week 16: “Stories from the Past” – Tuesday 13th June 2023

"Stories from the Past" can include - Myth, legend, folklore etc - from the Legendarium or other Tolkien's works and also the stories that influenced him. I am casting the net wide on this one so we can do a more focused one at a later day.

How to contribute

We are keeping it very simple. All you need to do to join is tweet something about the current week’s theme and use the following hashtags in your tweet:
#TolkienTrewsday #TolkienTuesday #Tolkien

Your tweet, besides following the theme, can be anything. Examples include:

• Myth, legend, folklore from across Tolkien’s works
• Stories that influenced J.R.R. Tolkien

A Harfoot from Amazon Studio’s “The Lord of the Rings:
The Rings of Power” (Season 1 Episode 1: A Shadow of the Past)

Week 16: King of the Frog-fishies, the Man in the Moon and fairy wives – Folktales of Hobbits & Harfoots in adaptions of J.R.R. Tolkien’s works

“As for folktales, there are many of those in Middle-earth, often addressed to children and – paradoxically – many of them come true.”

 -- Dr Dimitra Fimi, “Riddles, Heroes, and Folktales Come True: Folklore in J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings” (27 July 2017, Folklore Thursday). Source.

Bilbo Baggins in writing The Red Book of Westmarch became a chronicler of not only his own story but also of the legends and folklore of Middle-earth, continued later by Frodo and others. The Adventures of Tom Bombadil, considered part of the Red Book, collected Hobbit-lore via poems and song. Bilbo through his writings is a storyteller and it is a tradition much-loved by Hobbits.

I am indebted to the wonderful essays on folklore in Middle-earth by Dr Dimitra Fimi which you can find here and here. The second article has a great description of what folklore, myth, legend and folktales are. The articles inspired me to search out the folklore in Tolkien’s works and also in the adaptions based on his Legendarium. Dr Fimi writes of external folklore (“real world” folklore Tolkien drew upon to create his fictional world) and internal folklore (folklore within Middle-earth created by the peoples living in that “secondary world”). I will focus on three things:

📜 Hobbits as creatures of folklore
📜 “The Man in the Moon” Hobbit poems as internal folklore
📜 Poppy’s “Old Bolgerbuck Went Snailing” song

Before we begin, I just wanted to say that Folklore can be defined quite simply as:

“traditional stories, customs, and habits of a particular community or nation”
-- Collins Dictionary. Source.

In Dr Dimitra Fimi’s article “Hobbit Songs and Rhymes: Tolkien and the Folklore of Middle-earth” here she breaks down what myth, legend and folktale are:

📜 Myths: Prose narrative, considered truthful accounts, distant past - basis for religious beliefs
📜 Legends: Prose narrative, considered true by narrator and audience, closer to narrator’s time – real adventures exaggerated over time
📜 Folktales: Prose narrative, fiction – often told for entertainment

Two of the folklore stories below fit clearly into the folktales category, whilst “The Man in the Moon” could be placed as a legend, depending on whether you are looking at Tolkien’s books or adaptions of his works.

📗 Hobbits as creatures of folklore

In “The Lord of the Rings” we see many instances where the various races of Middle-earth consider each other differently. The men of Rohan, as represented by Éomer, believe Hobbits to be mythical whilst the Dwarves (through Gimli) and men see the Elves of Lothlorien as otherworldly – both held in awe and fear.

‘Halflings!’ laughed the Rider that stood beside Éomer. ‘Halflings! But they are only a little people in old songs and children’s tales out of the North. Do we walk in legends or on the green earth in the daylight?’

‘A man may do both,’ said Aragorn. ‘For not we but those who come after will make the legends of our time. The green earth, say you? That is a mighty matter of legend, though you tread it under the light of day!’

-- J.R.R. Tolkien, “The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers” (Book Three Chapter 2: The Riders of Rohan)

Éomer’s surprise at Halflings/Hobbits being real shows just how well hidden the Hobbits were to the race of men by the time of the Third Age. He and his people considered them magical creatures who may not have even existed. Even within Hobbit folklore, there are tales of some Hobbits with magical connections, as can be seen from a paragraph in The Hobbit below:

“It was often said (in other families) that long ago one of the Took ancestors must have taken a fairy wife. That was, of course, absurd, but certainly there was still something not entirely hobbitlike about them, and once in a while members of the Took-clan would go and have adventures.”

-- J.R.R. Tolkien, “The Hobbit” (Chapter I: An Unexpected Party)

Fairy wives are part of the external folklore that Tolkien brought into his internal folklore which he connected to Bilbo and Frodo’s family. It’s used to explain why both of them were willing to go off on adventures, which were generally frowned-upon within Hobbit society. In the “Great Writers Inspire” University of Oxford Podcast series, Carolyne Larrington and Fay Hield discuss “Fairy Wives and Fairy Lovers” here.

This idea of Hobbits and fairy is reinforced by Éomer’s comment: “they are only a little people”. Although he is meaning size, the little people in external folklore are another name for fairy-folk. This idea of Hobbits being magical beings of legend is reinforced in the Amazon Studio’s “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power” where a duo of men, wandering hunters, stop to listen in a field and the conversation turns to Harfoots:

Hunter 1: Keep walkin’.
Hunter 2: Why? Looked like a badger. Maybe a fox.
Hunter 1: More likely a Harfoot.
Hunter 2: Harfoot?
Hunter 1: Ugh. Don’t care to be seein’ none, but if you do, watch yourself. Dangerous creatures they are.
Hunter 2: You’re making it up.
Hunter 1: >chuckles< Come on. Rattle your dags! Let’s just get to the lake before sundown.

-- Dialogue from Amazon Studio’s “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power” (Season 1 Episode 1: A Shadow of the Past)

Two hunters discussing Harfoots in Amazon Studio’s “The Lord of the Rings:
The Rings of Power” (Season 1 Episode 1: A Shadow of the Past)

The younger hunter’s disbelief is clearly reminiscent of Éomer’s astonishment that Hobbits are real. The older hunter, whilst perhaps pulling the leg of his younger companion, clearly states Harfoots as dangerous. He is clearly fearful of them despite his bravado. Superstitious as they come, he believes you don’t mess with the little people! In a reversal of this scene, it is the Harfoots who are watchful of these hunters, with an animal-noise signal system to signify they are out of danger. The Harfoot Trailfinder Sadoc Burrows then gives the all-clear and the camp comes alive. Later, Sadoc reads from a tome which shows pictograms that look very much like the hunters (alongside wolves) in seasonal charts that Harfoots use to navigate their world. The scenes in the television show of the awakening camp have the Harfoots arising from their covered wagons but also from tree stumps and other natural hiding places.

A Harfoot awakens from their sleeping spot inside a tree trunk in Amazon Studio’s
“The Lord of the Rings:The Rings of Power” (Season 1 Episode 1: A Shadow of the Past)

We are back to the little people, sleeping in trees and hollows and potentially a nod to the pre-Shire Hobbits being (external folklore) fairy-like. Even Hobbit holes are reminiscent of the fairy-folk who live under the earth, sometimes with dark secrets hidden away. English book illustrator Arthur Rackham shows this in picture from his 1913 “The Book of Pictures”. A group of little people gather under the tree roots and appears to be their home.

“The Book of Pictures” by Arthur Rackham (1913). Source.

Hobbit origins are part of their mystery and other races may misunderstand their nature. We know that Hobbit written history only goes back to the founding of the Shire and the pre-Shire history is lost or has become legend:

“The beginning of Hobbits lies far back in the Elder Days that are now lost and forgotten.”

-- JRR Tolkien, “The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring” (Prologue)   

This is refined later in the “Prologue” by differentiating records from legends:

“Their own records began only after the settlement of the Shire, and their most ancient legends hardly looked further back than their Wandering Days. It is clear, nonetheless, from these legends, and from the evidence of their peculiar words and customs, that like many other folk Hobbits had in the distant past moved westward. Their earliest tales seem to glimpse a time when they dwelt in the upper vales of Anduin, between the eaves of Greenwood the Great and the Misty Mountains.”

-- JRR Tolkien, “The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring” (Prologue)   

It is understandable that during these Wandering Days, the Hobbits would likely not be dwelling in holes if they are moving about. In fact, the word “Hobbit” comes from the Old English compound of “holbytla”, where hol = “hole” and bytla = “builder”. This is "Hole-dweller" in the fictional Rohirric language. Though some Hobbits may well have had holes in the Vales of Anduin, others would not.

“holbytla” source:

P. Gilliver, E. Weiner and J. Marshall, “The Ring of Words: Tolkien and the Oxford English Dictionary” (2009). Oxford University Press: Oxford. p. 144.

The three “breeds” of Hobbits, divided before their Wandering Days each inhabited different areas east of the Misty Mountains. It was the Harfoots who moved westwards first. In Amazon Studio’s “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power” we see the Harfoots in their Wandering Days and before they settle with Hobbit holes as their main architectural residence. These wilder beings, in the Hobbit distant past, potentially were like fairy-folk, experts at hiding from the big folk and other dangers, which would be passed off as magic. The reputation amongst other Free Peoples, at least those that knew of them, became legend. It is also said in the Fourth Age and later, that Hobbits returned to these ways as they became more reclusive and wary of men and eventually disappeared completely.

It is clear proximity to Hobbits by men of Bree removed their mystery, but to other settlements of men, further away in places such as Rohan and Gondor, the Hobbits were still magical creatures, less powerful but akin in otherworldliness to the Elves of the woods that they also feared. And even amongst the Hobbits themselves were stories of fairy heritage.    

"The Man in the Moon stayed up late" by Alan Lee. Source.

📗 “The Man in the Moon” Hobbit poems as internal folklore

In internal folklore of Tolkien's Middle-earth, the Red Book of Westmarch holds a selection of Hobbit/Gondor folklore in the form of poems about trolls, faerie, bestiary creatures and the Man in the Moon. Some of these are attributed to the Hobbits Bilbo Baggins and Samwise Gamgee and are considered Hobbit folklore that would be enjoyed across the Shire. Externally, these are collected in the Adventures of Tom Bombadil by J.R.R. Tolkien. In “The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring”, Frodo Baggins sings one of the “Man in the Moon” poems (“The Man in the Moon Stayed Up Too Late”) whilst at the Prancing Pony in Bree.

In the poem, the Man in the Moon hears about a special beer so comes down to earth and gets drunk in an Inn under a hill (fairy?). A host of animals and others have to roll him up the hill in order to safely return him back to the Moon. In the Amazon Studios television series, “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power”, this folklore story is re-enacted by a mysterious character known as the Stranger (played by Daniel Weyman) who crashes to Middle-earth in (or as) a meteor and is discovered by the Harfoot Elanor “Nori” Brandyfoot (played by Markella Kavenagh).

Nori looks at the Stranger in the crater from Amazon Studio’s “The Lord of the Rings:
The Rings of Power” (Season 1 Episode 1: A Shadow of the Past)

In the run up to the TV series airing, the Stranger was dubbed “Meteor Man” by fans after his arrival was made a feature of one of the show trailers. Knowledgeable fans looked through the Legendarium for references to meteors and one stood out in a poem: “The Man in the Moon Came Down Too Soon”.

"And he tripped unaware on his slanting stair,
and like a meteor,
A star in flight, ere Yule one night
flickering down he fell
From his laddery path to a foaming bath
in the windy Bay of Bel."

-- J.R.R. Tolkien, “The Adventures of Tom Bombadil” (The Man in the Moon Came Down Too Soon)

The poem above is an older variant, but in later versions the Bay of Bel is replaced by the Bay of Belfalas and a Seaward Tower (later in the poem) becomes Tirith Aear of Dol Amroth. This directly connects the poem with Gondorian locations. Though the circumstances are of course different, such as the fact the Man in the Moon lands in the sea in the poem, it is very reasonable to believe that the showrunners and writers for “The Rings of Power” TV series wanted to acknowledge Hobbit folklore with Tolkien’s works and provide an creation story for the “Man in the Moon” poems by using the Stranger’s arrival and discovery as the spark.

Poppy and Nori argue whilst the Stranger sleeps in a wheelbarrow in Amazon Studio’s
“The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power” (Season 1 Episode 2: Adrift)

Following Nori’s discovery of the Stranger’s meteorite-like crash site, an accidental tumble into the flames that do not burn and the shock awakening of the Stranger, Nori convinces her friend, Poppy Proudfellow, to assist her in moving the Stranger to safety. The appropriate items from the Harfoot camp and roll the Stranger up a hill in what I believe is a direct reference to “The Man in the Moon Stayed Up Too Late” poem mentioned earlier.

“They rolled the Man slowly up the hill
and bundled him into the Moon,
While the horses galloped up in rear,
And the cow came capering like a deer,
and a dish ran up with a spoon.”

-- J.R.R. Tolkien, “The Adventures of Tom Bombadil” (The Man in the Moon Stayed Up Too Late)

Alan Lee’s depiction (above) of the scene is obviously very different to what we see in “The Rings of Power” but the idea the two Harfoots use a wheelbarrow to get the Stranger uphill taps into the later Hobbit folklore surrounding the Man in the Moon.

The Stranger on an outcropping in Amazon Studio’s “The Lord of the Rings:
The Rings of Power” (Season 1 Episode 5: Partings)

The connection between the Stranger and the Moon, at least in Nori’s eyes, is emphasised in a sequence at night during the episode “Partings” (Season 1 Episode 5) when Nori watches the Stranger on a rocky outcrop looking upwards towards the Moon above him. The camera pans from Nori’s view, to the Stranger and then to the Moon providing a direct visual link between the three.

The Moon above the Stranger in Amazon Studio’s “The Lord of the Rings:
The Rings of Power” (Season 1 Episode 5: Partings)

Could this then be “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power” indicating that Nori will become the recorder of this Hobbit folklore? Is she going to be like Bilbo Baggins who recorded the stories of the late Third Age? Lore-wise, we know from above that there are no written-records from pre-Shire Hobbit history but perhaps it is Nori who begins the tradition of this story being passed down orally as folklore.

Nori later in the episode “Adrift” (Season 1 Episode 2) later uses an unusual saying referencing the Moon when telling the Stranger who plans have gone awry:

“You see, the next migration is in just a few days now, and everything’s gone… Three rabbits to the moon.”

This odd saying appears to be a nod to external folklore which crosses continental and religious divides from ancient China to medieval England and Europe. There are depictions in medieval church roof bosses as a motif of three hares/rabbits against a circular shape (the Moon). The meaning behind the symbol is mysterious, though it is known that the hare in Chinese mythology can represent resurrection and hares are associated with the pre-Christian (Pagan) goddess Oestara. You read more about the three hares on a blog here.

We’ve seen that the showrunners and writers of Amazon Studio’s “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power” were dipping into J.R.R. Tolkien’s Legendarium in order to show Hobbit/Harfoot folklore and culture and how such stories have an origin in “real” events within the landscape.

Poppy went snailin’ in Amazon Studio’s “The Lord of the Rings:
The Rings of Power” (Season 1 Episode 5: Partings)

📗 Poppy’s “Old Bolgerbuck Went snailin’” song

The final folklore story we’ll look at today does not appear and is not referenced in J.R.R. Tolkien’s Legendarium so it should be considered non-canon. However, as internal folklore of the “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power” adaption it is a satisfyingly welcome addition to the folktales of Hobbits/Harfoots.

“Old Bolgerbuck Went snailin’” is sung by Poppy Proudfellow (played by Megan Richards), spilt across several scenes, during the episode “The Eye” (Season 1 Episode 7) of “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power”. I believe it is written by producer Jason Cahill and not composer Bear McCreary as most of the other songs in the series, but that is not confirmed as yet.

Thanks to the hard work of fans, we have the full (known) lyrics of the song, transcribed here (by “Veni-Vidi-ASCII”) and also the various scattered verses spliced together on a YouTube video here. The transcription of the song:

“Old Bolgerbuck went snailin'
One autumn day so fine
He found a hundred big ones 
I wish that they were mine

And while he was a snailin'
Upon that autumn day
His babe he left a-wailin'
The stream took her away

[And while she] floated down it
So loudly she did wail
The King of the Frog Fishies
Turned her into a snail

Old Bolgerbuck he caught her
So juicy and so sweet
They say his little daughter
He could not help but [eat]”

-- “Old Bolgerbuck went snailin” by Poppy Proudfellow in “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power” (Season 1 Episode 7: The Eye)

This folktale has a dark ending to its cautionary story of the dangers of not taking care of your children and also not being a glutton. It seems to fit right in with the Harfoot culture portrayed in Amazon Studio’s television series where there lives are fraught with danger and loss.

There is also a fairy element to it, a magical being further down the stream known as “The King of the Frog Fishies”. There is no Legendarium lore within Tolkien’s works on such a being and even in external folklore there doesn’t seem to be a good match. In Fenian Cycle of Irish myth there is a Salmon of Knowledge but that story is about the magical salmon being eaten and providing worldly wisdom.

There are many fairy-tales of frog princes of course but besides a few allusive references to a Celtic legend about a prince being rescued from an evil witch by frogfish (mentioned on a blog page here), there are only unrelated stories such as the Frog King known as Iron Henry (Iron Heimrich) here and in Roald Dahl’s “The Toad and the Snail” story from Dirty Beasts (1984) has a young boy go on an adventure to France on the back of a frog who later turns into a snail. In mythology, Nerites, son of the sea god, is turned into a snail in two variations, one cursed by Aphrodite and the other by Poseidon. This was a story by natural historian Aelian (2nd century CE). 

A frogfish itself is a real creature however and is another name for a type of Anglerfish.

Shaggy Frogfish (anglerfish). Source.

The name appears in a 1905 edition of “Gaelic names of beasts (mammalia), birds, fishes, insects, reptiles, etc” by Alexander Robert Forbes. There is an accessible digital version from the Blair Collection in the National Library of Scotland which can be viewed here.

“English-Gaelic Names of Fishes” Title from “Gaelic names of beasts (mammalia), 

birds, fishes, insects, reptiles, etc” by Alexander Robert Forbes (1905). Source.

“Angler” entry (with my annotated red underline of frog-fish) from “Gaelic names of beasts (mammalia),
birds, fishes, insects, reptiles, etc” by Alexander Robert Forbes (1905). Source.

There is a story in Aesop’s Fables about frogs who desire a king, are gifted with a log dropped from the sky, who they reject as being lazy, and end up with a stork who eats them all up. Arthur Rackham (1867–1939) brought this story to life in a 1917 illustration. Here the frogs sit and hop on top of the log. In other illustrations the stork is shown eating the frogs.

“King Log” by Arthur Rackham (1917) in Aesop’s “The Frogs Asking for a King”. Source (Cropped).

There is one other line in the “Old Bolgerbuck went snailin” song that has drawn some attention online:

“So juicy and so sweet”

This seems to be a nod towards Gollum in Peter Jackson’s film adaption of “The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers”:

“The rock and pool,
is nice and cool,
so juicy sweet.

Our only wish,
to catch a fish,
so juicy sweet!”

-- Gollum’s Fish Song from “The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers” film

In the book version, Gollum sings a longer verse, which appears to be part riddle, whilst in the Dead Marshes in “The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers” (Book Four Chapter 2: The Passage of the Marshes):

“Alive without breath;
as cold as death;
never thirsting,
ever drinking;
clad in mail,
never clinking.
Drowns on dry land,
thinks an island
is a mountain;
thinks a fountain is a puff of air.
So sleek, so fair!

What a joy to meet!
We only wish to catch a fish,
so juicy-sweet!”

-- Gollum, “The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers” (Book Four Chapter 2: The Passage of the Marshes)

This is definitely a direct nod between the song of Poppy (a Harfoot) and Gollum’s song (a River Hobbit), both involved with the consumption of an animal.

For now, the King of the Frog-fishes remains an elusive catch, I’ll keep searching for a source but as a folktale this is a wonderful addition to Hobbit song and lore.

📗 Final thoughts

Tolkien built Hobbit history around folktales and legend to create a past lost to time but also with wonderful glimpses of magical stories. Hobbit song and poetry fulfilled his own love of verbal storytelling. It is this elusive but vibrant folklore that draws me to the Hobbits and also the portrayal of Harfoots in Amazon Studio’s “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power” and I think the showrunners and writers of that television show have hit the right notes in drawing upon and hinting at Tolkien’s Legendarium through the Stranger, Harfoot culture and their songs.

📗 Relevant Twitter threads I have written previously

📜 Hobbits as storytellers
📜 “Harfoots on the Landscape:Exploring their Wandering Days from the Vale of Anduin to the Brown Lands and beyond.”
📜 The Man in the Moon
📜 Poppy’s song

📗 References

Fimi, Dr Dimitra
“Hobbit Songs and Rhymes: Tolkien and the Folklore of Middle-earth” (March 2009)
https://dimitrafimi.com/articlesandessays/hobbit-songs-and-rhymes-tolkien-and-the-folklore-of-middle-earth/

Fimi, Dr Dimitra
“Riddles, Heroes, and Folktales Come True: Folklore in J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings”(Folklore Thursday, 27 July 2017)
https://folklorethursday.com/creative-corner/riddles-heroes-and-folktales-come-true-folklore-in-j-r-r-tolkiens-the-lord-of-the-rings/

Gavin, Jamila
“Go deeper: Fables and fairy tales, myth and reality” (British Library)
https://www.bl.uk/childrens-books/articles/fables-and-fairytales-myth-and-reality