Bill, Bert & Tom - Yeah Really!

[Priya]

Those comical trolls in The Hobbit! The entire scene in which they feature is a mini-masterpiece!

But what really was it all about? I mean was there an underlying motive involved? Was there something more to it that nobody has yet discovered?

I think there is an awful lot Tolkien failed to inform us about. And there are very good reasons - as we shall see.

But to reveal, why Tolkien called his trolls Bill, Bert & Tom - I will need to digress:

(a) Firstly, I need to discuss the embedment of Jack (of fairy tale) parallels in Tolkien’s children’s story.
(b) Secondly, I want to emphasize and illustrate how much liking Tolkien had for ‘parody’.


(a) The Hobbit and Jack & the Beanstalk

So the time is ripe to look into Jack and the Beanstalk and comprehend its deeper enmeshment within The Hobbit.
 

Jack escaping from the Giant, ‘The History of Jack and the Beanstalk’, Benjamin Tabart, 1807

 
‘Why would Tolkien have had an interest in Jack and the Beanstalk?’ – I can imagine the wary reader question. 
‘Surely that would be the wrong kind of fairy tale. Isn’t it a nursery tale?’

Hmm … firstly it’s arguably England’s most famous handed down children’s story. And secondly, classifying it as only fit for nurseries would be rather speculative. A pronouncement of a definitive prognosis would be quite wrong. Because even nursery tales are in some instances a mere subset of fairy tales. And Tolkien wasn’t altogether convinced that an adult link to them should be casually cast aside. Indeed, this attitude is reflected by the inclusion of The Man in the Moon Stayed Up Too Late in The Lord of the Rings. A deliberate echo of our ‘modern day’ Hey Diddle Diddle – here was one long-lost and exploitable connection to English lore. Quite obviously then, if the Professor thought that modern-day nursery rhymes could have buried but meaningful links to sing-song of old, then choosing Jack and the Beanstalk is really not so strange!

Now the first known printed recording of Jack and the Beanstalk dates from 1734. Under the title of Jack Spriggins and the Enchanted Bean, the story was related in Round about our Coal Fire. Forming one of several ‘Jack tales’, the hero is a quintessential part of traditional English folklore from whom many phrases, rhymes and sayings have sprung.
 

First page of ‘Chapter IV – The Story of Jack Spriggins and the Enchanted Bean’, Round about our Coal Fire, 1734

 
However, the Professor knew that historical elements of the Beanstalk narrative were traceable much further back than the early 18th century. In remarking upon it in his famous Beowulf lecture, clearly he implied the tale preceded John Milton who died in 1674:

“… if Milton had recounted the story of Jack and the Beanstalk in noble verse … he might have done worse …”. 
– Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics, J.R.R. Tolkien, 1936

Most likely the tale went back even further with the written connection being lost in all but traces from the Elizabethan/Jacobean eras – where the famous ‘fe-fi-fo-fum’ rhyme was imbued in the dramatic plays of George Peele, Thomas Nashe and William Shakespeare:

“Fee, fa, fum, here is the Englishman, …”. 
– The Old Wives Tale, G. Peele, 1595

“… Fy, fa, fum, I smell the blood of an English-man”. 
– Have with you to Saffron-walden, T. Nashe, 1596

“Child Rowland to the dark tower came,
 His word was still, Fie, foh, and fum,
 I smell the blood of a British man.”
 - King Lear, W. Shakespeare, 1605

In more modern times it’s the tale’s 1890 recital by Joseph Jacobs in English Fairy Tales which has established itself as the one closest to the original storyline. And so it’s the one, for comparative purposes, that’s been dwelt on most. To peel away Tolkien’s exterior literary facade and expose matching underlying structural patterns, the drafts of The Lord of the Rings will be examined and then a step back further in time to The Hobbit will be seen to be extraordinarily fruitful.

But first I will turn to early life before scrutinizing The History of Middle-earth series. To piece together a credible yarn there is also factual ‘external’ matter to consider – namely Tolkien’s childhood experiences. It is the run-ins with the ‘Black and White Ogres’ of Sarehole, Birmingham that are most interesting. We need to be particularly mindful of these formative years. Especially as Tolkien himself said:

“… it is the particular use in a particular situation of any motive, whether invented, deliberately borrowed, or unconsciously remembered that is the most interesting thing to consider.” 
– The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien, Letter #337 – 25 May 1972, Edited by H. Carpenter, 1981

As young boys, both Ronald and his brother Hilary were fascinated by the mill at Sarehole and the adjacent pond which they on and off frequented. Equally, they were terrified by the two working millers, one of whom they nicknamed the ‘White Ogre’, and a local farmer – dubbed the ‘Black Ogre’. It appears that much of the mill’s trade in those times fell to pulverizing bones (instead of grinding grain for flour). The end product subsequently found usage as farm fertilizer:

“… and now the mill’s chief work was the grinding of bones to make manure.”
 – Tolkien: A biography, Birmingham – pg. 20, H. Carpenter, 1977

The ordeals with the ‘White Ogre’ covered in bone dust and the more aggressive ‘Black Ogre’ were vivid childhood memories that remained solidified in Tolkien’s mind. Thus, one may rightfully hypothesize such experiences carried through into his books:

“As for knowing Sarehole Mill, it dominated my childhood. I lived in a small cottage almost immediately beside it, and the old miller of my day and his son were characters of wonder and terror to a small child.”
 – The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien, Letter #303 – 6 May 1968, Edited by H. Carpenter, 1981

 

The Mill and Pond at Sarehole, Birmingham

 
What was the origin of the last two lines of the classic English rhyme? :

“ ‘… Fee-fi-fo-fum,
 I smell the blood of an Englishman,
 Be he alive or be he dead 
I’ll have his bones to grind my bread.’ ” 
– English Fairy Tales, Jack and the Beanstalk – pg. 63, J. Jacobs, 1890   (my underlined emphasis)

Tolkien might have known that in medieval times bone meal was used as a nutritional supplement and was sometimes mixed in with bread. More than likely he had run across Shakespeare’s rather macabre recipe for a baked pie:

“Hark, villains! I will grind your bones to dust

And with your blood and it I’ll make a paste,

And of the paste a coffin I will rear

And make two pasties of your shameful heads, …
…

Receive the blood: and when that they are dead,

Let me go grind their bones to powder small

And with this hateful liquor temper it,

And in that paste let their vile heads be baked.” 

– Titus Andronicus, Act 5 Scene 2, W. Shakespeare, c. 1588-1593

What were the real origins of the ‘Jack tales’? Was there a logical and simple explanation? These are the sort of questions that probably rattled around in an inquisitive philologist’s mind. Could it be that the sources of the ‘fe-fi-fo-fum’ rhyme and English ogres lay in the trades of farming and milling?


…. to be continued

[Rivvy Elf]

Aaah. Never made that Jack and Beanstalk connection. I do see it, though. Isn't it interesting that the Trolls, if they were into farming and milling, eat pastoral society food like roast mutton?

[Aikári Salmarinian]

Priya: I have seen the Jack and Beanstock in a movie and read the tale in a book, years ago. Reads interesting. Are you trying to research if the singsongs of the three trolls in the Hobbit are a referencing element to the way song is constructed within the tale of the Beanstock? Has Tolkien not something in the Letters he says about the Trolls themselves, or where he was inspired about?

[Priya]

Hello Rivvy Elf

Aaah. Never made that Jack and Beanstalk connection. I do see it, though. Isn't it interesting that the Trolls, if they were into farming and milling, eat pastoral society food like roast mutton?

Well we know the trolls ate more than:

“ ‘… a village and a half …’ ” between them.

I’m sure a fair percentage would have been cereal crop farmers (growing barley for ale, and wheat for bread). And some of those unfortunate folk had to have processed the grain, so I guess some of them would also have been millers.

So we can loosely say that those man-eating trolls had farming and milling in their blood !!!

But joking aside - what I’m trying to do is put myself in Tolkien’s boots - and in doing so follow his thought process and example per his 1939 OFS lecture paper in which he discussed the source of fairy tales. In particular, I note how he offered up the origin of the Norse god Thor as potentially being derived from exaggerated folk tales based upon a red-bearded ‘farmer’.

Similarly, I’m suggesting that Tolkien might well have thought that the origins of tales about English ogres possibly derived from exaggerated accounts of ‘millers and farmers’. And to boot, he had firsthand experience which reinforced such an idea!


Hello Aiks

Are you trying to research if the singsongs of the three trolls in the Hobbit are a referencing element to the way song is constructed within the tale of the Beanstock?

No - I’m going to try and extract the origin of the troll names Tolkien came up with. But I think that The Hobbit had many underlying links to Jack and the Beanstalk - which I’m trying to bring out into the open too.

Has Tolkien not something in the Letters he says about the Trolls themselves, or where he was inspired about?

I don’t remember that he had anything specific to say about what inspired him to name the trolls: Bert, Tom and William - though I haven’t checked out everything in the newish ‘expanded’ Letters.

———

Continued from last post ….

Yes, milling was a dangerous job; if by mishap an unlucky person got trapped by a millstone – there was no escape. Even those alive would be ground to pieces. As for farming – what would the young, uneducated and impressionable have thought of sacks of ground bone bits laden on a cart about to be sent to a farmer’s barn? : 

“… they would … run round to the yard where the sacks were swung down on to a waiting cart.”
 - Tolkien: A biography, Birmingham – pg. 20, H. Carpenter, 1977

Sarehole Mill Loading Zone, c. 1890

 
Cementing the whole shebang is the English fairy tale of The Giant that was a Millar (see Fairy Gold, 1907 by Ernest Rhys). Indeed – here we have a fairy-story involving Jack, a giant (who ground men’s bones to make his bread) and a mill. Though I cannot prove Tolkien read it – we know (for that OFS lecture) that he definitely loaned the book !!!

Whatever the truth, the boys were certainly terrified of the ogrish farmer and miller; and it’s this fragment of knowledge that leads to an insightful supposition that Farmer Maggot was intended as the original Jack and the Beanstalk linking ogre for The Lord of the Rings. Mark Hooker in The Hobbitonian Anthology has examined the etymological origin of ‘Maggot’ and offered ‘Goemagot’ as a possible source.

Goemagot (also known as Gogmagog and Goemagog) is a giant in the legend of the founding of Britain by Geoffrey of Monmouth (see Historia regum Britanniae, c. 1136). And Gogmagog (as we have seen on the front page of Chapter IV from Round about our Coal Fire) was also the earliest recorded giant featuring in the various versions of the Jack and the Beanstalk tales. Apart from etymological similarity, Hooker offers other evidence of farmer Maggot being quite an ‘ogre’ from The Return of the Shadow. In one draft variant he is portrayed as:

“… a violent and intransigeant character, …”,
 - The Return of the Shadow, A Short Cut to Mushrooms – pg. 287, The Second Phase, 1988

and possessed an appearance different to hobbits.

Piecing together another snippet leads to a credible idea that Tolkien intended the farmer’s lands, known as Bamfurlong* to be the legendary site of Jack’s beanstalk:

“Bamfurlong. An English place-name, probably from bean ‘bean’ and furlong (in the sense of a division of a common field), the name being given to a strip of land usually reserved for beans.”
 - Nomenclature of the Lord of the Rings, Place-Names, J.R.R. Tolkien   (Italicized emphasis on first bean and furlong)

Did Tolkien envision a long line of farmed beanstalks intertwining into each other giving rise from afar to one that looked singular and gigantic?

 

A Field of Runner Beans

 
In an area of the Shire where the microclimate was particularly rainy – on an overcast day, when the clouds were low – would Jack (whoever he was) on a trek towards the Maggot residence have felt from a perspective standpoint that he was climbing alongside an endless beanstalk reaching into the sky?

Was the path to Maggot’s high-walled residence seen as an approach to a forbidding mansion occupied by an ogre-like individual? One maddened by the sporadic theft of his treasure – his precious crops. So taken together, were these sets of circumstances contrived ideas to stitch in much of Jack and the Beanstalk?

The answers to all the above is – we can’t say for sure – but quite possibly: yes! Until of course Tolkien abandoned the idea of making:

“… Maggot not a hobbit, but some other kind of creature …”,
 - The Return of the Shadow, Tom Bombadil The First Phase – pg. 117, 1988

and supplanted him by the Black Riders as the real chasing ‘ogres’ in the final story. A story which in a way paralleled the ‘Jack tales’ in that little people lived proximate to beings much larger than themselves. This was after all an attempt:

“… to restore to the English an epic tradition and present them with a mythology of their own: …”. 
– The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien, Letter #180 – 14 January 1956, Edited by H. Carpenter, 1981

In the end Tolkien was left with little choice when it came to “tradition”. Some elements of the widespread stories about Jack had to be embedded within his mythology to obtain specific English fairy tale linkage and restore, or rather subcreate, a deserved “epic”. Unfortunately not much of great quality existed to build upon. Much ancient fairy-story material was:

“… impoverished chap-book stuff.” 
– The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien, Letter #131 – late 1951, Edited by H. Carpenter, 1981


… more to come

[Aikári Salmarinian]

Hello Priya! : I did check thus on the Tolkien Wiki to find more out, and yes, there is unsent letter nr. 153 in the book Letters of Tolkien, Allen and Unwin 1981. Gotta take a look... ouch quite some text. About the three Trolls is a big paragraph in the letter you have to read yourself, because it is too much to copy for me online by hand.

"I think they are mere counterfeits and hence when you allow Trolls to speak you give them a power that in our world indicates the possession of a soul. I don't agree that my trolls show any sign of doing anything 'good', strictly and unsentimentally speaking. I'm not saying William felt pity."

Tolkien is referencing on the subject Pity, what these three trolls, Bert, Tom and William don't have at all. I quoted what I felt is the most important thing in the paragraph?

[Priya]

Greetings Aiks

I will get to this very important letter (#153) in my thread on ‘Goldberry’ very shortly. For it concerns not just trolls, but her too.

It’s notable that in the same letter Tolkien also remarked that:

“… I should not have called the troll William.”

But he doesn’t say why!

—————

Jack in The Hobbit

Now over in Chrysophlax Dives ‘Bombadil’ thread - I’ve tried to expose how ‘Jack’ fragments were buried in The Fellowship of the Ring – based of course on logically connecting dispersed information. Out of more than curiosity, for it would be a dereliction of a researcher’s duty, the right thing to do now – is to take another look at The Hobbit. Had ‘Jack’ been subtly buried in there too?

Funnily enough right at the beginning of the book the careful reader is alerted to a possible allusion to the eponymous English hero through the unexplained background of:

“… tales … about … giants … and the unexpected luck of widows’ sons?”
 – The Hobbit, An Unexpected Party

Though it’s insinuated the persons and events are within ‘The Hobbit mythology’, given how Tolkien desired to engage the young reader – the early placement may have been made with the intent to get his audience to think about their own world’s fairy tales. As perhaps the insertion of: 

“Poor Bilbo sat in the dark thinking of all the horrible names of all the giants and ogres he had ever heard told of in tales, …”, 
– The Hobbit, Riddles in the Dark

was to remind them of the likes of Blunderbore, Thunderdell and Cormoran. 

Thus ever so subtly, an undertone of ‘Jack’ creeps in. Because Jack of course is a widows’ son in the Beanstalk tale and a multiple ogre/giant slayer of all the above. Which leads one automatically to think back about Bilbo himself. Why? Because Bilbo was once a widows’ son too. And so with that as a starting point, once we probe deeper – some further remarkable likenesses emerge.

As ‘simple’ (perhaps we can say naive) bachelors – both Bilbo and Jack embark on a quest with courage but no personal heroic pedigree behind them. Yes, by design Bilbo followed in the footsteps of Jack – a remarkably resourceful and dexterous fellow, of quite ordinary stock:

“The story and its sequel are … about the achievements of specially graced and gifted individuals.” 
– The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien, Letter #281 – 15 December 1965, Edited by H. Carpenter, 1981

“… I love the vulgar and simple as dearly as the noble, and nothing moves my heart … so much as ‘ennoblement’ …”.
 – The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien, Letter #180 – 14 January 1956, Edited by H. Carpenter, 1981   (Tolkien’s emphasis)

“There are of course certain things and themes that move me specially. The inter-relations between the ‘noble’ and the ‘simple’ (or common, vulgar) for instance. The ennoblement of the ignoble I find specially moving.”
 – The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien, Letter #165 – 30 June 1955, Edited by H. Carpenter, 1981   (Tolkien’s emphasis)

Because of course – both have adventures, return home rich, become famous and then live happily ever after. More pointedly, endowed with extraordinary luck – both become highly successful burglars!

The purpose behind both tales was not to portray the heroes as common thieves or roguish robbers – rather as something more acceptable, almost to the point of the dubious profession having a chivalrous side. Stealing from a home (a giant’s castle or a dragon’s lair) was really not that insidious a crime – because both Jack and Bilbo were rightfully taking back a former owner’s belongings who no doubt had been forcefully dispossessed. In each case there are three ‘significant’ thefts (or attempts):

Jack: Bag of gold, The Hen that lays golden eggs and a Magic Harp

Bilbo: Troll Purse, Gold Cup and the Arkenstone.

Remarkably bags of gold, magic harps and a jewel that is perhaps not too far off in size or shape to a hen’s egg, feature in The Hobbit thus resonating with Jack’s takings. And while the purse doesn’t show up in the Beanstalk tale, it does appear in another English fairy tale involving giant folk called Mollie Whuppie:

“ ‘… if ye would … steal the purse that lies below the giant’s pillow, …’ … And Molly said she would try. So she set out for the giant’s house, and slipped in, … and waited till the giant … was snoring sound asleep. She … slipped her hand below the pillow, and got out the purse; but just as she was going out the giant wakened, and ran after her; …”.
 - English Fairy Tales, Mollie Whuppie – pg. 127, J. Jacobs, 1890

 

‘Mollie Whuppy steals the Giant’s Sword’, English Fairy Tales, Joseph Jacobs, 1890

 
Mollie is the female equivalent to Jack – who bit by bit similarly steals an ogre’s treasure and outwits him too. What we see then is a blended amalgamation for the ‘Troll scene’ in The Hobbit. Therein the purse acts like the harp from Jack and the Beanstalk in its vocal alert. Yes a talking harp and a talking purse. Both knew they were being stolen from their current owner!

Also noteworthy is that in both Jack and the Beanstalk and The Hobbit – the main monstrous denizens are at home and asleep when first burgled and that both become aware of the presence of foes through the act of sniffing. And if Tolkien had taken up his initial storyline – Bilbo, like Jack – would have been the one to directly slay the enemy.

Whether Tolkien shaped his plot intentionally to subtly give the young reader a sense of comforting familiarity is unknown. It is quite possible that this was all accidental or even subconsciously present. However, the possibility also exists that themes within The Hobbit has purposely woven in features reminiscent of classic English fairy tale:

“… the tale it is, … derived from (previously digested) epic, mythology, and fairy-story – not, however, Victorian in authorship, …”.
 – The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien, Letter #25 – January/February 1938, Edited by H. Carpenter, 1981   (my underlined emphasis)

Whatever the truth – as near to certainty as one can reasonably be – what was deliberately contrived, with mischief in mind, were Tolkien’s trolls!

[Aikári Salmarinian]

Priya: Sure, I read about it there. The misschief of the trolls is another chapter.

[Priya]

Hello Aiks

The mischief of the trolls is I believe a deliberately contrived parody. But to help convince readers of this thread - the rest of the post focuses on how much Tolkien enjoyed this type of humor. In my next post I will reveal who Bert, Bill & Tom were named after, and begin providing substantiating evidence too.

————

Tolkien & Parody

If we step back and take an honest look at Tolkien’s non-academic works, from what we know – satire and parody played a subtle part in much of the corpus. We know Tolkien was not shy of using parody himself and admitting to it:

“ ‘The King of the Green Dozen’ is the story of the King of Iwerddon … The Story, which is set in Wales, parodies the ‘high’ style of narrative.” 
– The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien, Notes to Letter #33, 31 August 1938, Edited by H. Carpenter, 1981 (my underlined emphasis)

“The toponymy of The Shire … is a ‘parody’ of that of rural England, …”.
 - The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien, Letter #190 – 3 July 1956, Edited by H. Carpenter, 1981   (my underlined emphasis, Tolkien’s emphasis in quotes)

“… I had the remarkable, and in the event extremely enjoyable, experience in Holland … The dinner … speeches were interleaved between the courses. … My final reply was I hope adequate, … It was partly a parody of Bilbo’s speech in Chapter I.” 
– The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien, Letter #206 – 8 April 1958, Edited by H. Carpenter, 1981   (my underlined emphasis)

Adding to the above scholars have noted numerous other examples. We can throw in Farmer Giles of Ham:

‘Farmer Giles of Ham’, J.R.R. Tolkien (1978 Edition)

“Farmer Giles of Ham represents Tolkien’s only medieval parody that both imitates a medieval form or genre and also burlesques medieval literary conventions, ideas, and characters …”.
 – Tolkien’s Art: A Mythology for England, Chapter 4, J. Chance, 2001 (my underlined emphasis)

Additionally we have:

“The Battle of the Eastern Field. Poem, first published … (March 1911) … the poem is a parody of ‘The Battle of the Lake Regillus’ from the Lays of Ancient Rome by Thomas Babington Macaulay.” 
– The J.R.R. Tolkien Companion and Guide 2017 Edition, Reader’s Guide, The Battle of the Eastern Field – pgs. 110-111, W. Hammond and C. Scull   (my underlined emphasis)

There is also the ‘Doworst Parody’, a manuscript created before December 1933, being a:

“Humorous verse ‘report’, relating remarkable errors committed by nervous students in oral English examinations at the University of Oxford. … in the style and metre of the fourteenth-century alliterative poem Piers Plowman, and parodies its vision of ‘dobest’.” 
– J.R.R. Tolkien Companion and Guide, Reader’s Guide 2017 Edition, Doworst – pg. 304, C. Scull & W. Hammond (my underlined emphasis)

We can also include The Notion Club Papers – an Oxford based discussion club loosely modeled as a nostalgic parody of Tolkien’s own closely knit literary circle, the Inklings. Nor should we ignore Leaf by Niggle – an oft conjectured self-parody.


Then is it so unbelievable that The Hobbit could contain parody?


…. more to come

[Aikári Salmarinian]

Priya: Oh a deliberate converted parody? I see. Hehe, I know that the toponymy of the Shire has a link to that of England. Has Tolkien been in Holland? Curious detail. I'll read in Letter 206. Just to know it for myself. That little book I have myself, but somehow never read it. Oh I believer there are parodies everywhere in Tolkien's works, intentionally as well not.