If the Tom Bombadil encounter had happened in The Hobbit then people would say he's obviously an invention of Bilbo. Luthien's magic hair, too! Even across tonally different tales there's a consistent presence in Middle-earth of the bizarre and whimsical. "I do not think one need boggle" at an enchanted purse.
About Lúthien’s hair, raven-black like her mother’s: it has a “genetic dominance”, and that’s why most of her descendants are black haired. Elrond’s father had golden hair, but he got the raven-black hair from his mother Elwing. Arwen was granddaughter of Celeborn and Galadriel, and her hair was like her father’s, and so on. “For are they not of the children of Lúthien? Never shall that line fail, though the years may lengthen beyond count”, paraphrasing Legolas.
As I think of it, interestingly, the only other speaking item we know of in Middle-earth is Gurthang, which also happens to be linked to Eöl. Now, Gurthang's ability only manifests after its reforging and subsequent change of name, but we could still plausibly conceive a story where Eöl had a knack at imbuing objects with talking, and if it was backpack-sized, Maeglin could have had a logical reason to take the "purse" with him to Gondolin, as he would probably need to carry some items for that journey. He was also the lord of the House of the Mole in Gondolin, and as such probably had his own household, possessions and estates, and he wouldn't take everything with him when he left Gondolin, so that also makes sense. To be clear, I don't think those are clues for a storyline Tolkien had in his mind and wanted to hint at, and I'm not saying that's how it definitely happened, but I find those coincidences amusingly sort of fitting.
That is indeed a fun idea. Btw it seems like the objects take on their holder's way of talking, Gurthang uses words like Túrin would, the troll and the purse speak equally rough
Going off what you said if the troll had no use for a purse to put anything in it, then maybe he was carrying it for the sole purpose of amusement because it actually did talk.
Let's not forget the Watchers. Those were stone statues that performed a specific task (a security system of sorts) aimed at keeping out interlopers. So, the magic necessary to make inanimate objects performance security tasks exists. The Watchers even sounded an alarm when Frodo and Sam got through. The purse is just doing the same thing on a smaller scale.
To be clear, what was more going through my mind was that the swords came to the trolls from Gondolin through Moria, which was basically what Elrond said. The Dwarves lived in Moria. Hence, I did not think it was too far-fetched to imagine Dwarf-plunder and Elf-plunder. Thank you for engaging this theory. I like your own take on it. I agree that from Tolkien's perspective, it is done because it is a children's story, but I do think this is an interesting subject if one wishes to consider how The Hobbit fits into the larger world of Middle-Earth. I did not think enough of the size of the purse. It is described to be "as big as a bag to Bilbo", so maybe it was meant as more of a Dwarvish large bag, I suppose. I agree Dwarves probably could not imbue a purse with a mind of its own, but still, it does only say one sentence, so I don't think it requires a mind. As you said, Dwarves love their gold. It is rather definitive that Stone Trolls talk from reading the Appendices, but maybe it was less sophisticated than Bilbo gave it. Still, if Huan the Hound or Tom Bombadil or any character named "Sam Gamgee" were in The Hobbit, people might doubt that also, so I am still a bit hesitant to say it did not happen on that account.
So...let me get this straight. Bilbo has a story about getting captured and almost eaten by Trolls and chooses to embellish it with a talking purse? Sorry dude I'm not buying it. If he was being honest about all the other stuff why wouldn't he be honest about that? 😂
Honestly, I could see the troll's names really being Tom, Bert, and William. Keep in mind that Tolkien wrote The Hobbit for a younger audience, but yes, I could also see Bilbo giving them those names.
It's been years since I last read THE HOBBIT, so I might have to go back and read that part again. However, I do remember thinking that it was NOT the purse that was speaking, but it was something or someone INSIDE the purse. Which is why we never see what's inside. I thought it was one of Tolkien's ways to let the reader know that the story was just a small part of a much wider world with stories and beings beyond the knowledge of both Bilbo and the reader. Again, I might be off-base,, because this is a years-old memory and my interpretation may be skewed, so after I re-read that chapter I may update my thoughts.
More likely source for a talking bag is Hollin or the toy makers of Dale. Contents: probably pipe weed. The use of enchanted objects is mentioned in passing as if it was a rare but not too unusual occurance. Didn't the Great Took possess a pair of cufflinks that would fasten/ unfastened themselves on command.
Trolls aren't going to be buying anything with money… Hmm… somehow I have the feeling the one in "Perry-the-Winkle" might take issue with that statement.
The purpose of its speaking was exactly what happened in The Hobbit: to alert its owner of theft. Edit: To clarify, this is a rebuttal to the idea that it was given full consciousness as you state. Edit: That being said, maybe the embellishment is that it had a cockney accent, but realistically it just whistled or something.
It would have been so good if when the mouth of Sauron came through the black gate to parlay with Aragorn it was in fact the talking purse on a dead horse! 😎
I find it interesting that one of the trolls displayed pity for Bilbo and said to let him go. Bilbo's embellishment or demonstration for the possibility for the redemption of trolls?
We do actually have confirmation of Trolls speaking from outside The Hobbit! Though we don't get an actual quote by one of them, as we are told that Sauron's Olog-hai spoke the Black Speech.
Maybe Maeglin stuffed the young Eärendil in the talking purse and it had such a potty mouth at the time that the Elven loremasters decided not to mention it in their tale of the Fall of Gondolin.
You were talking about what a troll would find useful to carry around in a purse, and I'm thinking the main thing would be food. My theory is that the "purse" was a rather large sack by the standards of whichever race crafted it, of a good size to serve as a purse on the scale a troll operates at, and the "talking" purse was actually a regular purse with something inside of it that did the talking, most likely a dwarf, or maybe a human or hobbit.
About the idea of Bilbo's embellishments: What do you make of the note by Tolkien-the-translator in the intro to the 1951 edition, explaining why chapter 5 was drastically changed? "This departure from truth on the part of a most honest hobbit was a portent of great significance.... Its explanation lies in the history of the Ring, as it is set out in the chronicles of the Red Book of Westmarch, and it must await their publication." The description of Bilbo as "most honest" is apparently supposed to highlight the corrupting influence of the Ring, in preparation for the then-still-unpublished LotR. This would be greatly undercut if Bilbo were a habitually unreliable narrator. If Bilbo's account is regarded as honest, we then get a problem with this sentence: "Trolls' purses are the mischief, and this was no exception." It seems to call for a more general explanation, not one peculiar to this lone example. Did all purse-carrying trolls use bags of dwarf-make from the loot of Gondolin or other elven settlements?
When Tolkien wrote the Hobbit he included a lot of whimsical, fairytale-like elements in the book. I don't think he considered the possibility for a moment that one day, people would have arguments trying to explain all the things he just put in for comic relief. Some modern writers like George RR Martin or Brandon Sanderson go out of their way to have their universe be consistent, explainable and make perfect sense, but it's a mistake to approach Tolkien's work the same way, because Tolkien quite explicitly did not want everything to be explainable, that's what makes his world mysterious and intriguing. Middle Earth is a world of wonder Tolkien created as a contrast for the modern world of reason and technology where everything follows rules and is understood. It's the same thing with all the videos about the tax policy of Aragorn or the economy of Mordor and stuff like that. Asking the question itself is wrong, it's like reading the Odyssey and wondering what Circe's foreign policy must have been.
Tolkien did want there to be things left unexplained, but he also wanted an orderly, logical world. The way he addresses various questions and even the Hobbit retcon make that clear.
Tvtropes has a page named Early-Installment Weirdness. In long-running shows, the first couple of episodes, or even the first season might have a lot of ideas and concepts that the show abandons, either because the writers are hitting their strides or just because the show takes a different direction. I think this is very much that. The in-universe rationalisation is that Bilbo is a rather unreliable narrator, which is fine. But the real world writing explanation is that at the point when he wrote The Hobbit, Tolkien hadn't locked down so much of his world building. So we have things like universal use of handkerchiefs or a troll having a purse in its pocket. On a related subject: these trolls are clearly sentient and rational individuals. So the later rule laid down by Tolkien that "Only Illuvatar can create sentient life" is obviously only true for a very narrow definition of sentience. I think it's an elvish tenant of faith rather than a true fact of the Middle Earth metaphysics. And whenever you bring up talking trolls and dragons to an elf scholar, you'll get some variation of "No True Scotsman" back. If trolls have it, it doesn't count as "true sentience". That's my head canon anyway. Cheers
Here’s a silly lil theory I jus came up with: what if there was no talking purse at all and it was just something Bilbo made up as an excuse for why he failed and was discovered instead of just admitting he screwed up!?
I don't think it's necessary to suppose the purse came from Gondolin. We know that Orcrist, Glamdring, and Sting did, because Elrond told us about the first two and Bilbo makes a reasonable inference about Sting. For the rest of the troll loot, who knows? I think we must take it that the purse really speaks, not that this is a piece of "unreliable narration," because that is the whole point of the purse. Now, who enchanted the purse is another question entirely. I don't think it was a troll; enchantment seems too intellectual an occupation for them. BUT, just before it speaks, the narration tells us that "trolls' purses are the mischief," so they seem to have a reputation. Maybe it's a troll cultural thing: no troll would be satisfied with any purse that didn't have some kind of trap in it. William was lucky to obtain one with a magic burglar alarm, and not have to settle for a spring-loaded rat trap or a caltrop. When considering who cast the spell, look at how the purse talks: "'Ere, 'oo are you?" Like the trolls, it talks in a cockney accent. Of course, neither the trolls nor the purse hail from the London area (that area probably being under a mile or two of ice at this point), so we must take the accent as "translating" some social fact about the trolls and their purses, just as the way Westron translates into modern English and Rhohirric into Old English tells us things about their speakers. A cockney accent, frankly, tells us the speakers are low-class. No problem believing that of the trolls. If the caster is an elf, it must have been a Dark Elf, certainly not any kind of High Elf. But it seems kind of a stretch to put even a Dark Elf on the same social level as trolls, so I suggest the caster was a dwarf, and certainly not a dwarf of the same class as Thorin or any of his company, who are after all, a princely dwarf and his retinue. No, this dwarf was much closer to the ones who make enchanted toys from Dale--and probably two or three cuts below even them. Doesn't mean he was evil--Sam Gamgee is low-class and is not only not evil but the hero of the whole saga, according to Tolkien himself--but he was the kind of dwarf who spoke a distinctly low-class brand of Westron, so that's what got into the alarm spell. That's my guess, anyway.
I'm pretty sure the troll talk would've been translated by Gandalf after-the-fact. Edit: The names, exactly. I think this scene required translation and embellishment on Bilbo's part. But the purse probably made noise.
From 'A Long-expected Party': "On this occasion the presents were unusually good. The hobbit-children were so excited that for a while they almost forgot about eating. There were toys the like of which they had never seen before, all beautiful and some obviously magical. Many of them had indeed been ordered a year before, and had come all the way from the Mountain and from Dale, and were of real dwarf-make." So some of the stuff the dwarves make are magical and 'frivolous', mere toys. I still agree that Bilbo's embellishments would be the most plausible explanation. We know that he is an unreliable narrator in-universe, even.
Good video! But I think you are a bit down on dwarven magic. Tolkien's magic is ritual and enchantment, not so much fireballs. Dwarves have magic hidden doors, hidden writing on maps, toys, lamps, doors that open to passwords, masks that repel dragon fire... they do loads of magic. And just as a note, in England "purse" doesn't necessarily mean a coin purse. My grandmother routinely referred to her handbag as her purse, and there was far more than coins in there!
We use purse the same way on this side of the pond, but in Medieval Europe? It might hold things other than coins but it wouldn’t be that large I don’t think.
First of all, I do not like the idea that everything from "The Hobbit" that doesn't seem to align with our own ideas about the Middle-Earth can be explained as Bilbo's inreliable narration. While I agree that it is a possible explanation, maybe it is more reasonable to question our own ideas first. Secondly, there are different kinds of trolls, and while Olog-hai / Mordor trolls only spoke Sauron's Black Speech, Stone trolls of Eriador spoke a "debased form of the Common Speech". Their names may come from the same source as the germanic/frankish names of several Hobbits (such as Isengrim, for example). Both Bert (Bertram) and Bill (Wilhelm) are definitely Germanic, and while Tom is a little bit odd, Hobbits have name Tolman, shortened as Tom, also of Germanic origin. (And of course there is Tom Bombadil.) Why those trolls use "Germanic" names, I do not know, but we know almost nothing about peoples and languages of Angmar (where those trolls seem to originate). Lastly, about the Talking Purse itself, there is another talking object in the Middle-earth - the sword Gurthang (made by Eol) responded to Turin's question in the Silmarillion. So it may be that the purse was also made by Eol and was taken by Maeglin or by Eol himself to Gondolin. It may be quite big purse or bag for travelling (or even saddle-bag, becouse both Maeglin and Eol were travelling on horseback), so it may be big enough for a troll to use. Obviously, this is not the only possible explanation of the origins of that talking purse and there are many other reasonable ones, but I do not think that "just a fanciful embellishment by Bilbo" is a good explanation. It kind of robs the Middle-earth of its magic and wonders.
You make some good points, I’ll grant, but saying that Bilbo embellished this one point hardly robs the stories of wonder and enchantment with everything else that still creates that feeling.
@@TolkienLorePodcast I agree, but I've seen this argument used quite a lot for different points like magic diamond studs of the Old Took, stone-giants, Beorn's animals, talking spiders, thrushes and ravens and so on and so forth.
I agree with the Eol theory or his son would have made more than 1 talking object, and crafters make items for a purpose. Similar to the glowing blades, even for a troll, could be purposed as an alarm for Orcs and thieving pals. Used as such by the trolls weather they understood rural Doriath Sindarin or not, Bilbo translating for his readers in a simpletons version of Westron in Hobbit style. Same pattern with the wise never using a contraction, and used by Frodo to show Suramon’s downfall in book 6.
I admire your lawyerly qualities and your persistence in digging into something as you think you need to, but here I suspect your methods are a bit of overkill. The episode (Bilbo and the Trolls) is a silly tale meant to enchant and entertain children. It was not written from the same viewpoint as LOTR. That's why JRRT's inclusion of the story into the Fellowship rings (no pun intended) so false. It doesn't at all mesh with the serious tone of the larger work. Tom Bombadil (who probably seems silly to many but assuredly is not) does, but that's a different issue entirely.
If you’re trying to say you think the Troll adventure didn’t happen at all, that’s clearly wrong since it is referred to in LOTR. If not, what are you trying to say?
Thanks for the response. You're correct, and I did not explain myself well. OF COURSE, the story is related in the Hobbit so, yes, it did happen. What I'm suggesting is that the path of the Five (four Hobbits plus Strider) did NOT have to go by the troll's lair and rehash the story. It seemed like a silly reminder to me that did nothing for the story and detracted from the serious peril Frodo faced. I would have quietly avoided it, but I'm sure JRRT knew best (and for continuity reasons), as I suspect you are reminding me.@@TolkienLorePodcast
You very well may be in the right here. Peace. And I, too, am glad that you're again posting about things ME. If not for your reviews of the Amazon Ring-a-dings, I may have had to watch some of them. Oh, the horror!!!!!..........@@TolkienLorePodcast
here's one idea I kind of had but am not sure how likely it is to even make it a good video. Essentially it was going to be about what the indo-europeans are in Tolkiens world, because Tolkien must have heard the theory as it had been around like forty years before he was born at least, and he was a linguist, but I wonder if say the Atlantic Megalithic culture is meant to be remnants of Numenor or the cheap copies of what Numenor could make, making the Numenorians the descendants of the Early European Farmers. But in that case the Indo-Europeans, the ones bringing Germanic and Latin and Celtic to western Europe would be the Easterlings? Although I'm not sure if Tolkien subscribed to the steppe hypothesis or the Anatolian hypothesis (most today think the steppe is more likely though back in late 20th century the Anatolian was more popular, but then again the steppe was popular before the nazis so who knows.) In this case the Druedain would have be the western hunter gatherers which interestingly enough had dark skin (though they had european dna and phenotypes) and they probably hid in the woods away from the farmers. Essentially the question is, is how much archaeology did Tolkien know about, and how much of it did he incorporate into Middle Earth to try and make the history match up?
Yes, even if the story was reconciled in a clumsy, unconvincing fashion. Sometimes addressing a problem with silence is a better choice.@@TolkienLorePodcast
![BLACK BAG - Official Trailer [HD] - Only in Theaters March 14](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/Du0Xp8WX_7I/mqdefault.jpg)
When money talks, trolls listen.
😆 Compare the bag of talking coins that Schmendrick tried to steal from Drin in "The Last Unicorn."
If the Tom Bombadil encounter had happened in The Hobbit then people would say he's obviously an invention of Bilbo. Luthien's magic hair, too! Even across tonally different tales there's a consistent presence in Middle-earth of the bizarre and whimsical. "I do not think one need boggle" at an enchanted purse.
Giant magic talking eagles are taken at face value when that, in and of itself is strange and whimsical.
About Lúthien’s hair, raven-black like her mother’s: it has a “genetic dominance”, and that’s why most of her descendants are black haired. Elrond’s father had golden hair, but he got the raven-black hair from his mother Elwing. Arwen was granddaughter of Celeborn and Galadriel, and her hair was like her father’s, and so on.
“For are they not of the children of Lúthien? Never shall that line fail, though the years may lengthen beyond count”, paraphrasing Legolas.
Its funny you mentioned Eol because he made a sword that ended up talking to Turin so hey maybe he made the purse too why not
As I think of it, interestingly, the only other speaking item we know of in Middle-earth is Gurthang, which also happens to be linked to Eöl. Now, Gurthang's ability only manifests after its reforging and subsequent change of name, but we could still plausibly conceive a story where Eöl had a knack at imbuing objects with talking, and if it was backpack-sized, Maeglin could have had a logical reason to take the "purse" with him to Gondolin, as he would probably need to carry some items for that journey. He was also the lord of the House of the Mole in Gondolin, and as such probably had his own household, possessions and estates, and he wouldn't take everything with him when he left Gondolin, so that also makes sense.
To be clear, I don't think those are clues for a storyline Tolkien had in his mind and wanted to hint at, and I'm not saying that's how it definitely happened, but I find those coincidences amusingly sort of fitting.
That is indeed a fun idea. Btw it seems like the objects take on their holder's way of talking, Gurthang uses words like Túrin would, the troll and the purse speak equally rough
Going off what you said if the troll had no use for a purse to put anything in it, then maybe he was carrying it for the sole purpose of amusement because it actually did talk.
A talking purse is not so unbelievable. I have an old bag at my place that complains constantly, and I suspect it's having an affair with my wallet.
😮
The purse could have actually been an industrial sized dwarven sack. Made to hold something considered valuable and worth stealing.
Fair point 😂
Let's not forget the Watchers. Those were stone statues that performed a specific task (a security system of sorts) aimed at keeping out interlopers. So, the magic necessary to make inanimate objects performance security tasks exists. The Watchers even sounded an alarm when Frodo and Sam got through. The purse is just doing the same thing on a smaller scale.
Perhaps it goes something like this:
Elven knife = hobbit sword
Dwarves' sack = troll's purse?
This is the best Tolkien channel because you go deep into small but interesting topics like this.
And also into the big topics 👍🏼
To be clear, what was more going through my mind was that the swords came to the trolls from Gondolin through Moria, which was basically what Elrond said. The Dwarves lived in Moria. Hence, I did not think it was too far-fetched to imagine Dwarf-plunder and Elf-plunder.
Thank you for engaging this theory. I like your own take on it. I agree that from Tolkien's perspective, it is done because it is a children's story, but I do think this is an interesting subject if one wishes to consider how The Hobbit fits into the larger world of Middle-Earth.
I did not think enough of the size of the purse. It is described to be "as big as a bag to Bilbo", so maybe it was meant as more of a Dwarvish large bag, I suppose. I agree Dwarves probably could not imbue a purse with a mind of its own, but still, it does only say one sentence, so I don't think it requires a mind. As you said, Dwarves love their gold. It is rather definitive that Stone Trolls talk from reading the Appendices, but maybe it was less sophisticated than Bilbo gave it.
Still, if Huan the Hound or Tom Bombadil or any character named "Sam Gamgee" were in The Hobbit, people might doubt that also, so I am still a bit hesitant to say it did not happen on that account.
Tackling the tough subjects! Thank you, brother!
love your videos brotha !!!
So...let me get this straight. Bilbo has a story about getting captured and almost eaten by Trolls and chooses to embellish it with a talking purse? Sorry dude I'm not buying it. If he was being honest about all the other stuff why wouldn't he be honest about that? 😂
What makes you think he was completely honest about the rest of it?
"Roast Mutton": the least canon part of the canon
No Id say that would be Pippin exclaiming " Presto"!.
Honestly, I could see the troll's names really being Tom, Bert, and William. Keep in mind that Tolkien wrote The Hobbit for a younger audience, but yes, I could also see Bilbo giving them those names.
Well whos to say all of the troll hoard came from Gondolin? There could have been several different hoards present all piled togethor.
I did mention that lol.
It's been years since I last read THE HOBBIT, so I might have to go back and read that part again. However, I do remember thinking that it was NOT the purse that was speaking, but it was something or someone INSIDE the purse. Which is why we never see what's inside. I thought it was one of Tolkien's ways to let the reader know that the story was just a small part of a much wider world with stories and beings beyond the knowledge of both Bilbo and the reader. Again, I might be off-base,, because this is a years-old memory and my interpretation may be skewed, so after I re-read that chapter I may update my thoughts.
That's actually maybe even better than the original idea
More likely source for a talking bag is Hollin or the toy makers of Dale. Contents: probably pipe weed.
The use of enchanted objects is mentioned in passing as if it was a rare but not too unusual occurance. Didn't the Great Took possess a pair of cufflinks that would fasten/ unfastened themselves on command.
Indeed he did!
Trolls aren't going to be buying anything with money…
Hmm… somehow I have the feeling the one in "Perry-the-Winkle" might take issue with that statement.
Ok but that’s hardly the same kind of troll 😂
I think it is Bilbo embellishing the tale to be told to little Hobbitses
The purpose of its speaking was exactly what happened in The Hobbit: to alert its owner of theft.
Edit: To clarify, this is a rebuttal to the idea that it was given full consciousness as you state.
Edit: That being said, maybe the embellishment is that it had a cockney accent, but realistically it just whistled or something.
It would have been so good if when the mouth of Sauron came through the black gate to parlay with Aragorn it was in fact the talking purse on a dead horse! 😎
I find it interesting that one of the trolls displayed pity for Bilbo and said to let him go. Bilbo's embellishment or demonstration for the possibility for the redemption of trolls?
It indicates that there is more than blood lust driving them
Almost 6 thousand years is too much for any leather. We can rule out Gondolin, I think
Not if it was magical elven leather.😆
Maybe Trolls are skilled ventriloquists.😜
We do actually have confirmation of Trolls speaking from outside The Hobbit! Though we don't get an actual quote by one of them, as we are told that Sauron's Olog-hai spoke the Black Speech.
Olog Hai know the Black Speech.
Maybe Maeglin stuffed the young Eärendil in the talking purse
and it had such a potty mouth at the time that the Elven loremasters decided not to mention it in their tale of the Fall of Gondolin.
The glorious pinnacle of geekdom: speculating on the speech capabilities/skills of trolls!
You were talking about what a troll would find useful to carry around in a purse, and I'm thinking the main thing would be food. My theory is that the "purse" was a rather large sack by the standards of whichever race crafted it, of a good size to serve as a purse on the scale a troll operates at, and the "talking" purse was actually a regular purse with something inside of it that did the talking, most likely a dwarf, or maybe a human or hobbit.
About the idea of Bilbo's embellishments: What do you make of the note by Tolkien-the-translator in the intro to the 1951 edition, explaining why chapter 5 was drastically changed? "This departure from truth on the part of a most honest hobbit was a portent of great significance.... Its explanation lies in the history of the Ring, as it is set out in the chronicles of the Red Book of Westmarch, and it must await their publication." The description of Bilbo as "most honest" is apparently supposed to highlight the corrupting influence of the Ring, in preparation for the then-still-unpublished LotR. This would be greatly undercut if Bilbo were a habitually unreliable narrator.
If Bilbo's account is regarded as honest, we then get a problem with this sentence: "Trolls' purses are the mischief, and this was no exception." It seems to call for a more general explanation, not one peculiar to this lone example. Did all purse-carrying trolls use bags of dwarf-make from the loot of Gondolin or other elven settlements?
But even this raises the question of how he would know such a general rule about troll’s purses lol
I think the Talking Purse may be of Dwarvish make. It sounds like the kind of thing Dwarves might make. But from the Third Age, not the First.
When Tolkien wrote the Hobbit he included a lot of whimsical, fairytale-like elements in the book. I don't think he considered the possibility for a moment that one day, people would have arguments trying to explain all the things he just put in for comic relief.
Some modern writers like George RR Martin or Brandon Sanderson go out of their way to have their universe be consistent, explainable and make perfect sense, but it's a mistake to approach Tolkien's work the same way, because Tolkien quite explicitly did not want everything to be explainable, that's what makes his world mysterious and intriguing. Middle Earth is a world of wonder Tolkien created as a contrast for the modern world of reason and technology where everything follows rules and is understood.
It's the same thing with all the videos about the tax policy of Aragorn or the economy of Mordor and stuff like that. Asking the question itself is wrong, it's like reading the Odyssey and wondering what Circe's foreign policy must have been.
Tolkien did want there to be things left unexplained, but he also wanted an orderly, logical world. The way he addresses various questions and even the Hobbit retcon make that clear.
Its more of that fact that, when the Hobbit was written it wasn't really supposed to connect to the larger work.
The answer is simple. Only two artifacts ever in a legendary speak. Eol the dark elf is the creator of both. That's the answer.
Tvtropes has a page named Early-Installment Weirdness. In long-running shows, the first couple of episodes, or even the first season might have a lot of ideas and concepts that the show abandons, either because the writers are hitting their strides or just because the show takes a different direction.
I think this is very much that. The in-universe rationalisation is that Bilbo is a rather unreliable narrator, which is fine. But the real world writing explanation is that at the point when he wrote The Hobbit, Tolkien hadn't locked down so much of his world building. So we have things like universal use of handkerchiefs or a troll having a purse in its pocket.
On a related subject: these trolls are clearly sentient and rational individuals. So the later rule laid down by Tolkien that "Only Illuvatar can create sentient life" is obviously only true for a very narrow definition of sentience. I think it's an elvish tenant of faith rather than a true fact of the Middle Earth metaphysics. And whenever you bring up talking trolls and dragons to an elf scholar, you'll get some variation of "No True Scotsman" back. If trolls have it, it doesn't count as "true sentience".
That's my head canon anyway.
Cheers
Well I guess Morgoth could "create" sentient beings when spirit beings and beasts merge without him actually creating new life
Here’s a silly lil theory I jus came up with: what if there was no talking purse at all and it was just something Bilbo made up as an excuse for why he failed and was discovered instead of just admitting he screwed up!?
7:29 W a i t ... yes, Celebrimbor o Eregion hain echant - C of E made these ... not Narvi, he just wrote the text.
I don't think it's necessary to suppose the purse came from Gondolin. We know that Orcrist, Glamdring, and Sting did, because Elrond told us about the first two and Bilbo makes a reasonable inference about Sting. For the rest of the troll loot, who knows?
I think we must take it that the purse really speaks, not that this is a piece of "unreliable narration," because that is the whole point of the purse. Now, who enchanted the purse is another question entirely. I don't think it was a troll; enchantment seems too intellectual an occupation for them. BUT, just before it speaks, the narration tells us that "trolls' purses are the mischief," so they seem to have a reputation. Maybe it's a troll cultural thing: no troll would be satisfied with any purse that didn't have some kind of trap in it. William was lucky to obtain one with a magic burglar alarm, and not have to settle for a spring-loaded rat trap or a caltrop.
When considering who cast the spell, look at how the purse talks: "'Ere, 'oo are you?" Like the trolls, it talks in a cockney accent. Of course, neither the trolls nor the purse hail from the London area (that area probably being under a mile or two of ice at this point), so we must take the accent as "translating" some social fact about the trolls and their purses, just as the way Westron translates into modern English and Rhohirric into Old English tells us things about their speakers. A cockney accent, frankly, tells us the speakers are low-class. No problem believing that of the trolls.
If the caster is an elf, it must have been a Dark Elf, certainly not any kind of High Elf. But it seems kind of a stretch to put even a Dark Elf on the same social level as trolls, so I suggest the caster was a dwarf, and certainly not a dwarf of the same class as Thorin or any of his company, who are after all, a princely dwarf and his retinue. No, this dwarf was much closer to the ones who make enchanted toys from Dale--and probably two or three cuts below even them.
Doesn't mean he was evil--Sam Gamgee is low-class and is not only not evil but the hero of the whole saga, according to Tolkien himself--but he was the kind of dwarf who spoke a distinctly low-class brand of Westron, so that's what got into the alarm spell.
That's my guess, anyway.
'T was a dwarf growing up in Gondolin's equivalent to fleabottom
Happy Hobbit Day!
I'm pretty sure the troll talk would've been translated by Gandalf after-the-fact.
Edit: The names, exactly. I think this scene required translation and embellishment on Bilbo's part. But the purse probably made noise.
From 'A Long-expected Party':
"On this occasion the presents were unusually good. The hobbit-children were so excited that for a while they almost forgot about eating. There were toys the like of which they had never seen before, all beautiful and some obviously magical. Many of them had indeed been ordered a year before, and had come all the way from the Mountain and from Dale, and were of real dwarf-make."
So some of the stuff the dwarves make are magical and 'frivolous', mere toys.
I still agree that Bilbo's embellishments would be the most plausible explanation. We know that he is an unreliable narrator in-universe, even.
well then maybe Eöl or Maeglin brought it
Good video! But I think you are a bit down on dwarven magic. Tolkien's magic is ritual and enchantment, not so much fireballs. Dwarves have magic hidden doors, hidden writing on maps, toys, lamps, doors that open to passwords, masks that repel dragon fire... they do loads of magic. And just as a note, in England "purse" doesn't necessarily mean a coin purse. My grandmother routinely referred to her handbag as her purse, and there was far more than coins in there!
We use purse the same way on this side of the pond, but in Medieval Europe? It might hold things other than coins but it wouldn’t be that large I don’t think.
First of all, I do not like the idea that everything from "The Hobbit" that doesn't seem to align with our own ideas about the Middle-Earth can be explained as Bilbo's inreliable narration. While I agree that it is a possible explanation, maybe it is more reasonable to question our own ideas first.
Secondly, there are different kinds of trolls, and while Olog-hai / Mordor trolls only spoke Sauron's Black Speech, Stone trolls of Eriador spoke a "debased form of the Common Speech". Their names may come from the same source as the germanic/frankish names of several Hobbits (such as Isengrim, for example). Both Bert (Bertram) and Bill (Wilhelm) are definitely Germanic, and while Tom is a little bit odd, Hobbits have name Tolman, shortened as Tom, also of Germanic origin. (And of course there is Tom Bombadil.) Why those trolls use "Germanic" names, I do not know, but we know almost nothing about peoples and languages of Angmar (where those trolls seem to originate).
Lastly, about the Talking Purse itself, there is another talking object in the Middle-earth - the sword Gurthang (made by Eol) responded to Turin's question in the Silmarillion. So it may be that the purse was also made by Eol and was taken by Maeglin or by Eol himself to Gondolin. It may be quite big purse or bag for travelling (or even saddle-bag, becouse both Maeglin and Eol were travelling on horseback), so it may be big enough for a troll to use.
Obviously, this is not the only possible explanation of the origins of that talking purse and there are many other reasonable ones, but I do not think that "just a fanciful embellishment by Bilbo" is a good explanation. It kind of robs the Middle-earth of its magic and wonders.
You make some good points, I’ll grant, but saying that Bilbo embellished this one point hardly robs the stories of wonder and enchantment with everything else that still creates that feeling.
@@TolkienLorePodcast I agree, but I've seen this argument used quite a lot for different points like magic diamond studs of the Old Took, stone-giants, Beorn's animals, talking spiders, thrushes and ravens and so on and so forth.
I agree with the Eol theory or his son would have made more than 1 talking object, and crafters make items for a purpose. Similar to the glowing blades, even for a troll, could be purposed as an alarm for Orcs and thieving pals. Used as such by the trolls weather they understood rural Doriath Sindarin or not, Bilbo translating for his readers in a simpletons version of Westron in Hobbit style. Same pattern with the wise never using a contraction, and used by Frodo to show Suramon’s downfall in book 6.
I’ve only seen the hobbit movies. I’ve read and watched the lord of the rings. I’ll need to see about this reading the book.
its a nice short easy read. Very different to the movies though
I admire your lawyerly qualities and your persistence in digging into something as you think you need to, but here I suspect your methods are a bit of overkill. The episode (Bilbo and the Trolls) is a silly tale meant to enchant and entertain children. It was not written from the same viewpoint as LOTR. That's why JRRT's inclusion of the story into the Fellowship rings (no pun intended) so false. It doesn't at all mesh with the serious tone of the larger work.
Tom Bombadil (who probably seems silly to many but assuredly is not) does, but that's a different issue entirely.
If you’re trying to say you think the Troll adventure didn’t happen at all, that’s clearly wrong since it is referred to in LOTR. If not, what are you trying to say?
Thanks for the response. You're correct, and I did not explain myself well. OF COURSE, the story is related in the Hobbit so, yes, it did happen. What I'm suggesting is that the path of the Five (four Hobbits plus Strider) did NOT have to go by the troll's lair and rehash the story. It seemed like a silly reminder to me that did nothing for the story and detracted from the serious peril Frodo faced. I would have quietly avoided it, but I'm sure JRRT knew best (and for continuity reasons), as I suspect you are reminding me.@@TolkienLorePodcast
I rather suspect the point of it is to lift the spirits of both the reader and Frodo, which is important given the nature of his peril.
You very well may be in the right here. Peace.
And I, too, am glad that you're again posting about things ME. If not for your reviews of the Amazon Ring-a-dings, I may have had to watch some of them. Oh, the horror!!!!!..........@@TolkienLorePodcast
here's one idea I kind of had but am not sure how likely it is to even make it a good video.
Essentially it was going to be about what the indo-europeans are in Tolkiens world, because Tolkien must have heard the theory as it had been around like forty years before he was born at least, and he was a linguist, but I wonder if say the Atlantic Megalithic culture is meant to be remnants of Numenor or the cheap copies of what Numenor could make, making the Numenorians the descendants of the Early European Farmers. But in that case the Indo-Europeans, the ones bringing Germanic and Latin and Celtic to western Europe would be the Easterlings?
Although I'm not sure if Tolkien subscribed to the steppe hypothesis or the Anatolian hypothesis (most today think the steppe is more likely though back in late 20th century the Anatolian was more popular, but then again the steppe was popular before the nazis so who knows.)
In this case the Druedain would have be the western hunter gatherers which interestingly enough had dark skin (though they had european dna and phenotypes) and they probably hid in the woods away from the farmers.
Essentially the question is, is how much archaeology did Tolkien know about, and how much of it did he incorporate into Middle Earth to try and make the history match up?
That I don’t know, and I do t think I have the resources for lol
I don’t remember this part of the hobbit
I don't think Tolkien would have liked everyone to analyze every word, in his mythology. It's Fantasy, not National Geographic.
And yet he constantly analyzed his own work.
Yes, that's true, but when he wrote The Hobbit, it wasn't meant to be part of the big picture.@@TolkienLorePodcast
True, but once it was he committed to reconciling it.
Yes, even if the story was reconciled in a clumsy, unconvincing fashion. Sometimes addressing a problem with silence is a better choice.@@TolkienLorePodcast
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