Save the Hungry Hobbit

[Lalaith]

Not really sure where this should go, I suppose it ties indirectly to the films, but still, how can anyone legally object to the use of a word now in dictionaries?

What would Bilbo say? Hungry Hobbit told to change its name (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2064748/Hungry-Hobbit-cafe-told-change-Lord-Rings-author-JRR-Tolkiens-estate.html)

[Inziladun]

That article is misleading. We all know Christopher (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Blofeldpleasance67.jpg) is really behind it. ;)

I daresay CT's motives for defending copyrights are rather more well-intentioned, at least, than the movie co. in this case.

[davem]

A Hobbit is a creature from English Folklore, around long before JRRT was born - as mentioned in the Denham Tracts, collected in the mid 19th Century http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denham_Tracts

"What a happiness this must have been seventy or eighty years ago and upwards, to those chosen few who had the good luck to be born on the eve of this festival of all festivals; when the whole earth was so overrun with ghosts, boggles, Bloody Bones, spirits, demons, ignis fatui, brownies, bugbears, black dogs, spectres, shellycoats, scarecrows, witches, wizards, barguests, Robin-Goodfellows, hags, night-bats, scrags, breaknecks, fantasms, hobgoblins, hobhoulards, boggy-boes, dobbies, hob-thrusts, fetches, kelpies, warlocks, mock-beggars, mum-pokers, Jemmy-burties, urchins, satyrs, pans, fauns, sirens, tritons, centaurs, calcars, nymphs, imps, incubuses, spoorns, men-in-the-oak, hell-wains, fire-drakes, kit-a-can-sticks, Tom-tumblers, melch-dicks, larrs, kitty-witches, hobby-lanthorns, Dick-a-Tuesdays, Elf-fires, Gyl-burnt-tales, knockers, elves, rawheads, Meg-with-the-wads, old-shocks, ouphs, pad-foots, pixies, pictrees, giants, dwarfs, Tom-pokers, tutgots, snapdragons, sprets, spunks, conjurers, thurses, spurns, tantarrabobs, swaithes, tints, tod-lowries, Jack-in-the-Wads, mormos, changelings, redcaps, yeth-hounds, colt-pixies, Tom-thumbs, black-bugs, boggarts, scar-bugs, shag-foals, hodge-pochers, hob-thrushes, bugs, bull-beggars, bygorns, bolls, caddies, bomen, brags, wraiths, waffs, flay-boggarts, fiends, gallytrots, imps, gytrashes, patches, hob-and-lanthorns, gringes, boguests, bonelesses, Peg-powlers, pucks, fays, kidnappers, gallybeggars, hudskins, nickers, madcaps, trolls, robinets, friars' lanthorns, silkies, cauld-lads, death-hearses, goblins, hob-headlesses, bugaboos, kows, or cowes, nickies, nacks, waiths, miffies, buckies, ghouls, sylphs, guests, swarths, freiths, freits, gy-carlins[2] , pigmies, chittifaces, nixies, Jinny-burnt-tails, dudmen, hell-hounds, dopple-gangers, boggleboes, bogies, redmen, portunes, grants, hobbits, hobgoblins, brown-men, cowies, dunnies, wirrikows, alholdes, mannikins, follets, korreds[3] , lubberkins, cluricauns, kobolds, leprechauns, kors, mares, korreds, puckles, korigans, sylvans, succubuses, blackmen, shadows, banshees, lian-hanshees, clabbernappers, Gabriel-hounds, mawkins, doubles, corpse lights or candles, scrats, mahounds, trows, gnomes, sprites, fates, fiends, sibyls, nicknevins, whitewomen, fairies, thrummy-caps[4] , cutties, and nisses, and apparitions of every shape, make, form, fashion, kind and description, that there was not a village in England that had not its own peculiar ghost. Nay, every lone tenement, castle, or mansion-house, which could boast of any antiquity had its bogle, its spectre, or its knocker. The churches, churchyards, and crossroads were all haunted. Every green lane had its boulder-stone on which an apparition kept watch at night. Every common had its circle of fairies belonging to it. And there was scarcely a shepherd to be met with who had not seen a spirit!"[5]


For the Estate/Tolkien Enterprises to try & claim it as their own by issuing threats to innocent traders is sadly typical of the shady behaviour of a lot of big companies at the moment. Folklore, by its nature, is public domain. What are they going to claim to own next - 'Elves', 'Dwarves', 'Holes'. This is like Disney claiming to own Snow White or Cinderella.

[Inziladun]

The article makes mention of the Estate, but it also leads one to believe the Saul Zaentz Company is the driving force. The letter makes a point of saying the use of "Hobbit" implies the business is "licensed, authorised, sponsored, or endorsed by SCZ or somehow affiliated with SCZ".

[Eönwë]

A Hobbit is a creature from English Folklore, around long before JRRT was born - as mentioned in the Denham Tracts, collected in the mid 19th Century http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denham_Tracts
Someone should reallly tell them that.

[davem]

Someone should reallly tell them that.

Christopher reads all my stuff.

[dreeness]

The word "hobbit" can also refer to an archaic unit of measure for grains etc, similar to a bushel.

And the word "Hobbit" is a surname, derived from the name Hubert.


"Hobbits" fought in the American Civil War.

(Somebody should make a movie about that.)