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Nerwen
To your first point - possibly, but I think it’s actually a positive for the theory. Given The Hobbit is littered with unfamiliar names - Bill, Tom & Bert stand out like a sore thumb. Why? – one might ask oneself.
And then of course there could have been a host of additional short names chosen. Why not Ted or Ben or Fred or Jim etc. etc. ? Why these particular three?
Mere chance? If chance you call it!
As for the 'rabbit issue' - your logic appears reasonable – yet Tolkien does use the word coney (actually ‘conies’). And thus we have to deal with it. So why use it all? And to add to the matter he employs it in a confusing manner – namely involving squirrels. Given that - the inquisitive child would have had to look up the definition in a dictionary any way.
Ms. Seth doesn’t bring this point out strongly enough – but ‘conies’ is associated to a ‘furrier’ by Bilbo. And a ‘furrier’ is one who is involved in ‘skinning’. It’s a nasty trade that makes me think Tolkien was in a way poking fun of the same terminology used by Elizabethan coney-catchers.
My own feeling is that the Roast Mutton Chapter is a piece of Tolkien genius. The whole troll episode looks carefully contrived. Again Ms. Seth does not bring this out – but if one were to review the drafts (see John Rateliff’s: The History of the Hobbit), there are very few made against the Troll scene compared to say similar length sections in other chapters. It’s almost as if Tolkien drafted and practically perfected it out separately and then just neatly slotted it in.
I’m sure you would agree that if Tolkien wanted to create a parody – he was well capable of doing so. The troll scene is a comic masterpiece – and I just have this feeling that it’s just a touch out of place. Let’s just say, there’s an awful lot of individual coincidences if it isn’t a parody and all that Ms. Seth pointed out is purely accidental.
"Huggessen" - Thanks – my proof-read second time round!
I don't have any problem with the rest of your views. Yes I agree - Ogres don’t make much of a showing. But Bilbo does mention them in The Hobbit. So presumably there they existed within 'The Hobbit mythology'.
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