Ah, but who introduced JRRT to pipes? If it turns out to be the guy from KY, a permanent mental association may have been born.
![MrGreen :D](./images/smilies/icon_mrgreen.gif)
Yes, albeit rather obscure. In the Bolger family tree that didn't make it into the appedices but is published in HoME 12 we find a Nina Lightfoot married to Theobald Bolger (they're the parents of the Wilibald Bolger who married Bilbo's 2nd cousin Prisca Baggins)MithLuin wrote:Lightfoots (is that a hobbit name?)
…the one that flows into the Thames at Oxford, is the Cherwell...I think he derived the name from Old English *cier-welle, the first element coming from cierran, ‘to turn’: so, ‘the turning stream, the winding stream’, which is what the Cherwell is…Finally, ‘withy’ is simply the old word for ‘willow’, frequent in English place-names, like the Warwickshire Withybrook. The Withywindle is a combination of the Cherwell itself, and words for its two main features, its willows and its slowly twisting course.
In his wonderful Annotated Hobbit, Douglas Anderson points this out too:Parmamaite wrote:As for Bilbo, I think a more plausible source of the name would be:
bil·bo2 n. Archai. pl. bil·boes A sword, especially one having a well-tempered blade. (from American Heritage Dictionary)
As for the name "Baggins", he points out that:According to Thomas Wright's Dictionary of Obsolete and Provincial English (1857), a bilbo was "a Spanish sword, so named from Bilbao, where choice swords were made. A swordsman was sometimes termed a bilboman." However, there is no evidence that Tolkien derived the name from this word.
Whew! That was a lot more then I had originally intended to quote. Anyone who does not own Anderson's Annotated Hobbit is missing out on a fantastic resource.In The Road to Middle-earth, Tom Shippey notes that baggins probably comes from bagging, a term that the Oxford English Dictionary says is "used in the northern counties of England for food eaten between regular meals; now, especially in Lancaster, an afternoon meal, 'afternoon tea' in substantial form." It is therefore an appropriate name to be found among hobbits, who we are told have dinner twice a day, and for Bilbo, who later in Chapter 1 sits down to his second breakfast. In the Prologue to The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien notes that hobbits were fond of "six meals a day (when they could get them)."
Shippey states that "the OED prefers the 'politer' form bogging,but Tolkien knew that people who used words like that were almost certain to drop the terminal -g" (p.66). The word also appears in a phonetically spelled form as baggin in Walter E. Haigh's A New Glossary of the Dialect of the Huddersfield District (1928), to which Tolkien wrote an appreciative foreword. Haigh defines baggin as "a meal, now usually 'tea,' but formerly any meal; a bagging. Provably so called because workers generally carried their meals to work in a bag of some kind."
Huddersfield was probably the most isolated part of the south of Yorkshire through the end of the eighteenth century, and in its dialect there survivied many words that died out elsewhere. Tolkien's foreword shows how Haigh's work sheds light on some obscure words and phrases in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.
Tolkien came to know Haigh in 1923, when he joined the Yorkshire Dialect Society. Walter Edward Haigh (1856-1930) was a native of the Huddersfield district and, at the time of the publication of his glossary, Emeritus Lecturer in English at the Huddersfield Technical College.
It occured to me that Baggins isn't really a surname - it was a name invented by Tolkien (afaik). So, I was surprised to see that there were 2 actual Bagginses from KY. BUT....they were both named BilboBrianIsSmilingAtYou wrote:Kentucky Searches
I just picked out a random sample of the names, all had hits.
Boffin
Brandybuck
Barefoot
Took
Gamgee
Sandyfoot
Bracegirdle
Goodbody
Hornblower
Sackville
Maggot
Bolger
Baggins
BrianIsAtYou
See my long quote from Douglas Anderson's Annotated Hobbit, above.MithLuin wrote:It occured to me that Baggins isn't really a surname - it was a name invented by Tolkien (afaik).
That is why I put the result for Baggins last. I assumed that people would look at it and say someone is pulling my leg.MithLuin wrote:
It occured to me that Baggins isn't really a surname - it was a name invented by Tolkien (afaik). So, I was surprised to see that there were 2 actual Bagginses from KY. BUT....they were both named BilboSo, Brian, either someone was having fun with your source, or someone had their name legally changed to Bilbo Baggins, or something....very strange.
Gil-estel added:'bag' didn't appear in my vocab lists, but I'm assuming it's 'pera'. One of the cool things about translations is that they replicate much more than the original meaning. 'Perans' (being the present participle of a verb 'pero') will mean 'bagging' I think. I was just wondering if there was a better word but I'll check my dictionary and get back to you. 'Bilbo Perans' somehow doesn't have the same ring to it.
Earendilyon (who is doing the Latin translation) responded:For a different option to translate bag, have you considered saccus 'bag' or sacculus 'small bag'. These derive from the Greek sákkos. It means i. 'coarse haircloth, sackcloth' and ii. anything made of such cloth and specifically 'sack, bag'.
Pera is from the Greek píra (the vowel should be eta, not iota but I can't do it here). This means 'leathern pouch, wallet'.
So it really depends on whether you mean a 'bag' of cloth or leather.
Gil-estel returned with:Thanx for the support and reactions all!!
Pera is indeed a bag; it can be translated as backpack or knapsack. When I "made" the name Perans, I didn't check whether a verb perare exists, but I did now. It doesn't seem so. A pero, though, is a boot.
So "Pera" is "a bag". Interestingly, Hobbits in Sindarin are Periannath, which may be a clever side joke on Tolkien's part, naming the whole race of Hobbits in a roundabout way after the surname of the prototypical Hobbit, Bilbo Baggins.Just for my own interest I decided to check out pi*ra in modern Greek. It currently means 'bag' or 'wallet'.
I like the way you have used pera as the basis for 'Baggins' and saved saccus for 'Sackville'. Nicely done.
Here is the text of the "ribald" joke from the Tolkien letter?MithLuin wrote:(Of course, I haven't read it, so I have no idea how racy it is.)
This is available online in numerous places:A young man wished to buy a birthday gift for a lady friend. After much
meditation and consideration he decided on a pair of gloves as being
appropriate. As his sister had some shopping to do, he accompanied her to a
ladies wearing apparel shop. While he was selecting the gloves, his sister made
a purchase of a pair of drawers for
herself. In delivering the parcels that afternoon, by mistake the drawers were
left at his sweetheart's door with a note as follows:-
Dear Velma,
This little token is to remind you that I haven't forgotten your birthday. I
didn't choose it because I thought you needed them, or because you haven't been
in the habit of wearing them, or because we go out evenings. Had it not been for
my sister, I would have gotten long ones, but she said they are wearing the
short ones- with one button. They are a very delicate color, I know, but the
lady clerk showed me a pair she had worn for three weeks, and they were scarcely
soiled at all. How I wish I could put them on you for the first time! no doubt
many other gentlemen's hands will touch them before I get a chance to see you
again, but I hope you will think of me every time you put them on. I had the
lady clerk try them on and they looked very neat on her. I did not know the
exact size, but I should be capable of judging nearer than anyone else. When you
put them on for the first time, put a little powder in them and they will slip
on easier. When you remove them, blow on them a little as they will naturally be
a little damp from wearing. Hoping that you will accept them in the same spirit
in which they are given, and that you will wear them to the dance Friday night,
I remain,
Lovingly Yours,
John
P.S. Note the number of times I will kiss the back of them in the coming year!