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Anyone who's read Shippey knows that Tolkien's (original at least) intent was to re-create our (England's, that is) lost mythology - re-construct it rather than invent a whole new one. And as stories of a race of small, dark people run through Celtic myth as the aboriginal inhabitants of the British Isles its clear Tolkien was drawing on these accounts. Same, obviously, with Elves, Dwarves, Dragons & all the other inhabitants of Me (even the talking foxes!).
How far do we push the idea, though? Tolkien, at least in the beginning, seems almost to have believed that there was a coherent system of beliefs which could be reconstructed to the point where we could have the mythology our ancestors had in virtually the form they had it.
To be serious for a moment, these 'hobbits' may have been the origin of the stories of the 'small, dark people' - I've read folktales which anthropologists believe originated in the stone age - tales must originate at some point, & if they are powerful or beloved enough, why wouldn't they pass down from generation to generation within oral cultures?
But this strays into 'Canonicity' - how 'true' (leave aside True) are Tolkien's stories? How much literal 'truth' is in them (again. leave aside 'moral' Truth).If 'Hobbits' have a basis in fact - however distorted the stories of them have become (because Tolkien didn't even invent the name 'hobbit' - its in the Denham Tracts) - then can we look to find Elves & Dwarves (or some race which inspired the stories of those mythical beings) in our ancient history? If not, then how else do we account for the stories?
We seem to be living in a time when legends are springing from the grass, & I suppose a Jungian would call that significant. Fifty years since the publication of LotR, the final movie about to appear, & someone digs up a fossilised hobbit. The real question, perhaps, is what that means to us.
Does it have a significance beyond the merely curious? Why do we latch onto it? Why do we connect it to 'our' beloved hobbits?Are we as free from the 'irrational' dimension as we like to believe? Is this discovery significant for scientific reasons, in that it tells us something about our history, or is it really significant because it makes it possible to believe that our dreams might not be 'just' dreams? Maybe there really were hobbits, once upon a time; & Dragons & Elves; & high beauty, purged of the gross, & a light beyond the borders of the world & all the rest of that romantic stuff.
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