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#81 |
Shade of Carn Dûm
Join Date: Jun 2007
Posts: 435
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NOW I remember where I heard the name Sackville-Bagg, it, was when I was a kid. When I was a (very young) child I read a group of books about a boy whome made friends with a family of vampires (I look it up it was the My friend, the Vampire series by Angela Sommer-Brondberg) Sackville-Bagg was the Vampire family's surname. It's just one of those hypenated names that always seems to pop up like Neville-Smythe or Donnel-Smith
on distillation another thought occurs. In our world, while distillation was largely unkown in Europe in the Middle Ages, I was well known in the Arab world, hence the world alcohol (it derives from the same word as "khol" (the eye makeup) since that was the first thing made using a refining process simar to distallation and al-khol came into parlance as a word to describe sothing that had been refined to its purest form (hence al-khol of wine). So in ME, maybe distillation is known by the men of Near Harad. I'm sure someone said this earlier but given who her husband is theres a chuckle in the fact that (for most people) the first thing they think of when the hear the name "belladonna" is the plant (deadly nightshade) not the words "beautiful woman" (though as you point out that is the literal transation. Also isn't mirabella a kind of plum (or is that mirabelle) wonder what color her compexion was? come to think of it when I head the word "bradywine" my first thought is of a large pink fleshed type of tomato. |
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#82 | |
Princess of Skwerlz
Join Date: Jan 2002
Location: where the Sea is eastwards (WtR: 6060 miles)
Posts: 7,500
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'Mercy!' cried Gandalf. 'If the giving of information is to be the cure of your inquisitiveness, I shall spend all the rest of my days in answering you. What more do you want to know?' 'The whole history of Middle-earth...' |
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#83 | |
Spectre of Decay
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Belladonna and Mirabella are both botanical names, the former for Deadly Nightshade as Guinevere pointed out, the latter for the Mirabelle plum (Tolkien preferred Italian to French, so it's not surprising that he'd use an Italian form). Donnamira is the odd one out, since it doesn't refer to any common plant species. I must admit to a mistake above: mira tends to mean 'wondrous' or 'marvellous' more than 'remarkable' (Lat. mira, mirus). Although that might mean that the sisters were all beautiful, knowing Tolkien's sense of humour they could just as easily have been extremely plain.
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#84 |
Ghost Prince of Cardolan
Join Date: Jan 2008
Location: Back on the Helcaraxe
Posts: 733
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In botanical taxonomy, Mirabella is also associated with a cactus and a member of the four o'clock family. So perhaps one might look at these names as meaning Belladonna had a rather poisonous personality, and Mirabella was either prickly or lazy, inclined to bestir herself only rather late in the day. As Tolkien says that Hobbits were fond of flower names for girls, I wouldn't be at all surprised if he occasionally had such things in mind.
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#85 | ||
Cryptic Aura
Join Date: May 2002
Posts: 5,990
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#86 | |
Dread Horseman
Join Date: Sep 2000
Location: Behind you!
Posts: 2,743
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Could this be a clue to the nature of hobbit resiliency? Whereas Men and Elves are always falling into despair over this that or the other, hobbits are able to endure even the grimmest of situations by injecting a little humor into them. |
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#87 |
Spectre of Decay
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Tolkien's jokes in Rohan and Gondor are few and far between. It seems that he restricted his humorous asides to the Shire. I shan't belabour the well-known meanings of many Rohirric names in Old English, but it might be worth mentioning them again: Theoden, Goldwine, Thengel and Walda are all more or less poetic words for 'king', 'lord' or 'ruler' (gold-wine = 'gold-friend'). Eorl is much the same as Norse Jarl (the English word only gained its current meaning during Norse rule in England) and means 'lord' (modern English earl); Fengel means 'prince'. Aldor can mean 'age', but also 'chief', so is doubly applicable, and Gamling contains the element gamol (old age), so probably means 'old man'. The Mark itself has a name that is just a modernisation of OE mærc (mod. Eng. march, 'border land'), and which is probably better known in its Latinate form Mercia.
Other Rohirric names contain horse elements, hence Éowyn, 'horse-joy' (OE eoh, 'war-horse, charger', wyn, 'joy, glory'; Éomer, 'horse-famous' (OE mære, 'great, excellent, distinguished, famous, sublime, etc.') There aren't really any jokes there except for the fact that for most of the Lords of the Mark, the style "[name] King" is a tautology. As for Gondor, since its names are either Sindarin or Adûnaic I'll defer to others who know more about Tolkien's own languages. So what does this mean? Personally I think that in the Shire and there alone Tolkien felt free to make jokes at the expense of the English. Like the hobbits, we are sitting on thousands of years of history that is still present in the language and more so in names; and like the hobbits, most of us are completely unaware of it. How many people called Alfred really know that their names mean 'Elven-counsel'? How many people called Septimus are seventh sons? Our place-names often reveal layers of ignorance covering a thousand years, so that we have names like Bredon on the Hill ('hill-hill on the hill'), the Bree-land Chetwood ('wood-wood'), and the several rivers in England called River Avon (Welsh afon, 'river'). The Hobbits are out of touch with their past, but their past is still there for those with eyes to see and with a power to affect the present. In Gondor and the Mark, still more so in the realms of the Elves, the inhabitants are more aware of their history, which makes this sort of humour a little more difficult to apply. [EDIT] cross-posted with Underhill.
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#88 |
shadow of a doubt
Join Date: Jan 2008
Location: Back on the streets
Posts: 1,125
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In modern Swedish and Norwegian gammal means 'old' and the Danes also use a very similar word. Furthermore, gamling is in Swedish a widely used word for 'old person', more often than not used on men, so for us Swedes Gamling is basically an old man whose name is 'old man'.
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#89 |
Shade of Carn Dûm
Join Date: Jun 2007
Posts: 435
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"gamling" also always reminded me of "gamy" in the British colloquial sense of injured or lame (when referring to a limb) which also fits with the "old and doddering man" image
You referece to Septimus was interesting as I reminded of a musing I once had. Given the general tendecy (at least in European and or western cultures) toward smaller familes I wonder how many people are walking around with the given names Septimus, Octavian (or Octavia) and Decimus (I'm sure there is some name for "nine" but I've just never heard of someone named with it (it would be someting like Nonian or Nonius, right) for whom it is actually accurate. For that matter (in a magic/power sense) how many seventh sons of seventh sons are their still? |
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#90 | |
Banshee of Camelot
Join Date: May 2002
Location: Switzerland
Posts: 5,830
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I always wondered why the Mirkwood spiders were so enraged by Bilbo calling them "Attercop", since I know that "edderkopp" in Norwegian means simply spider.
Here's what I found in the internet: Quote:
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#91 | |
Curmudgeonly Wordwraith
Join Date: Jun 2007
Location: Ensconced in curmudgeonly pursuits
Posts: 2,506
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I am at work, but I know there is a discussion regarding the term Attercop in The Annotated Hobbit. If no one has access to it, I'll look it up when I get home.
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#92 | |
Cryptic Aura
Join Date: May 2002
Posts: 5,990
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Or that Tolkien's sense of humour could not be directed to such cultures. ![]()
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I’ll sing his roots off. I’ll sing a wind up and blow leaf and branch away. |
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#93 | |||
Curmudgeonly Wordwraith
Join Date: Jun 2007
Location: Ensconced in curmudgeonly pursuits
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I had forgotten to look up the mentions of Attercop and the other insults Bilbo throws at the spiders in The Annotated Hobbit, so here goes:
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And your little sister's immaculate virginity wings away on the bony shoulders of a young horse named George who stole surreptitiously into her geography revision. |
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#94 |
Banshee of Camelot
Join Date: May 2002
Location: Switzerland
Posts: 5,830
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Thank you, Morthoron, that was indeed interesting!
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Yes! "wish-fulfilment dreams" we spin to cheat our timid hearts, and ugly Fact defeat! |
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#95 |
Shady She-Penguin
Join Date: Dec 2004
Location: In a far land beyond the Sea
Posts: 8,093
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Those who like this thread might also find this one
Words and Names in Tolkien's Work interesting. It's shorter than this thread, and maybe a bit more serious, but there are some interesting things.
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Like the stars chase the sun, over the glowing hill I will conquer Blood is running deep, some things never sleep Double Fenris
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#96 |
Newly Deceased
Join Date: Mar 2024
Posts: 1
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Hi. Do you have the full text of "'This house deplores the occurrence of the Norman Conquest..." I read it in a Tolkien biography years ago and now need it for a paper I'm writing. Your help would be much appreciated. Thanks!
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