[The Saucepan Man]

Originally Posted by davem

Bit difficult for you to argue the point then, isn't it?

I wasn't arguing anything. I was speculating in response to a question that you asked.

Originally Posted by davem

Neither was TH. In both Roverandom & TH Tolkien used his existing mythology to provide background & give the illusion of 'depth'. In fact Roverandom refers to the existing mythology far more specifically than TH. TH was written as a fairy story & had to be forced to fit the mythology.

You say that elements of the Legendarium are present in both Roverandom and The Hobbit, but that neither were originally written as part of it. I don't dispute that. The difference is that Tolkien never incorporated Roverandom into his history of Middle-earth. The same cannot be said of The Hobbit. You make the point yourself:

Originally Posted by davem

TH was written as a fairy story & had to be forced to fit the mythology. Therefore, unlike all JRRT's other M-e writings it was dragged in.

Personally, I would not choose the words "forced" and "dragged", but I agree with the point that you make here. Tolkien deliberately chose to incorporate The Hobbit within his history of Middle-earth. Whether that incorporation seems forced or whether one considers it smooth is not the point. It is clear from LotR that Bilbo's adventure, as relayed in The Hobbit, took place some 80 years prior to the War of the Ring.

As Mister Underhill said:

Originally Posted by Mister Underhill

Of course there are the annoying facts of the Shire, the Ring, Gollum, old fairy-tale Bilbo himself, Elrond, Gandalf, Gloin, Balin, the Beornings, the Sackville-Bagginses (Heaven forbid! Too silly by far!), etc. and so on ad infinitum with which we must contend.

I would add Frodo and co's encounter with Bilbo's Stone Trolls into the mix too. Wether they were called William, Tom and Bert or Wollyam, Tzomm and Bhat matters not. They existed. Bilbo and the Dwarves encountered them. And they ended up turned to Stone. Oh, and their cache included Glamdring and Sting, both of which played their part in the War of the Ring.

Whether you dismiss parts of Bilbo's tale as fanciful or consider them merely whimsical, the point is that the events that he related occured, within your "secondary world" as part of the history of Middle-earth.

Originally Posted by davem

Again, that's not what I said, so I don't see why I need argue.

Actually, my Walter Mitty point was not made in response to you. Yet you go on to make it applicable to you:

Originally Posted by davem

Dwarves in the Legendarium do not take out musical instruments & sing comic songs. Trolls do not have names like 'Bert, Tom & Bill. Elves do not sing 'Tra-la-la-lally'. If Bilbo Baggins says they did I'd like to know what kind of pipe-weed he was smoking.

Originally Posted by davem

Either Bilbo produced such a travesty of the facts as to call his whole account into question, or we have a totally unrelated story grafted on to the Legendarium - to the disadvantage of both.

I'm sorry, davem, your attempts to argue your point are, as always, most valiant. But, on this one, I would advise that you heed the words of your former signature.