Bilbo: an unreliable narrator? - The Barrow-Downs Discussion Forum

Priya · 03-20-2024, 04:05 PM

Unreliable narrator? Or perhaps we are ill-educated readers?

The source and mythology behind the stone-giants is most likely River Legends, 1875 by Edward Knatchbull-Huggesen (one of Tolkien’s favored authors) and the tale of The Giant Bramble-Buffer. Within that story we have colossal rock throwing mountain giants who are also characterized as shouting a lot and depicted to kick folk high in to the air. Those constituents match up splendidly with attributes featured by The Hobbit stone-giants, as does them dwelling in the Swiss Alps which correlates to Tolkien’s 1911 alpine journey (to which he professed inclusion of elements).

I’ve recently dealt extensively with what I believe is the fairy-story behind Tolkien’s stone-giant mythology as well as a ‘decent’ real-world source of the Carrock (again, from Tolkien’s 1911 adventures) on a ‘sister’ website:

http://www.lotrfanaticsplaza.com/for...pic.php?t=1165

Along with stone-giants, there might be a ‘reasonable’ explanation for those discordant troll names:

https://priyasethtolkienfan.wordpres...lorful-pair-4/

So perhaps we should not be too hasty at judging our very learned Professor!

03-20-2024, 04:05 PM	#9
Priya Animated Skeleton Join Date: Sep 2023 Posts: 28	Unreliable narrator? Or perhaps we are ill-educated readers? The source and mythology behind the stone-giants is most likely River Legends, 1875 by Edward Knatchbull-Huggesen (one of Tolkien’s favored authors) and the tale of The Giant Bramble-Buffer. Within that story we have colossal rock throwing mountain giants who are also characterized as shouting a lot and depicted to kick folk high in to the air. Those constituents match up splendidly with attributes featured by The Hobbit stone-giants, as does them dwelling in the Swiss Alps which correlates to Tolkien’s 1911 alpine journey (to which he professed inclusion of elements). I’ve recently dealt extensively with what I believe is the fairy-story behind Tolkien’s stone-giant mythology as well as a ‘decent’ real-world source of the Carrock (again, from Tolkien’s 1911 adventures) on a ‘sister’ website: http://www.lotrfanaticsplaza.com/for...pic.php?t=1165 Along with stone-giants, there might be a ‘reasonable’ explanation for those discordant troll names: https://priyasethtolkienfan.wordpres...lorful-pair-4/ So perhaps we should not be too hasty at judging our very learned Professor!