Gnomes and Fairies

[Formendacil]

Perhaps I should have seen it coming, but a side-question I had on The Book of Lost Tales Read-Through has produced what I already think deserves its own thread, because of a point brought up by Galadriel55.

First, what I wrote:

Originally Posted by Formendacil

I also have another question to ponder, one that comes down to linguistic taste: how do you feel about the Book of Lost Tales terminology? And I don't mean the prose here (though that is far game to discuss); I'm thinking more of the vocabulary: the use of "fairies" as a synonym for "Elves," the use of "gnomes" at all. I get a huge kick out of Tombo the gong myself, though it does not "feel" very Middle-earth to me.

Then, Galadriel55:

Originally Posted by Galadriel55

Once again, I can't comment very much on this having never read the book, but I have seen several such excerpts (thanks to you educated Downers ). The use of gnome and fairy really bugs me. It does not bring the right image to mind. Especially the word gnomes - Russian has adopted that word to refer to little people (like garden gnomes), and in LOTR the word is actually used to signify Dwarves. Gnom Gimli is a perfectly sound combination. Gnom Legolas makes me doubt my sanity. Each time I have to remind myself that gnomes are Elves, or at one point I think it referred specifically to the Noldor, but either way they are not Dwarves and are nothing like Dwarves (and each time I encounter that word first thing that comes to mind is something akin to Andvari, but also eager to make mischief and craft things like a LOTR Dwarf.).

And on top of that there's the common modern meaning of "gnomes" and "fairies" - a meaning significantly different from what it once used to be. On one hand the choice of name is a bad thing, since the modern image interferes with how the reader understands the character. But on the other hand, for careful readers it revives the idea that fairies and princesses and etc are not what Disney makes them out to be, but the lore behind them is much deeper (and quite different!). Seriously, though - have you never heard of a child saying "that can't be Cinderella, she doesn't have a blue dress"? The same goes for fairies. They don't have to be little winged sparkly things fluttering around, and people need a reminder of that.

Continuing the main thrust of the Gnomes/Fairies/How-do-you-like-them? discussion, part of the reason I brought it up in the first place is that, yes, the connotations of "gnomes" and "fairies" brings up the diminutive and the modern connotations. But... before The Lord of the Rings made its influence felt on the collective vocabulary, that's the way we felt about "Elves" too.

I suppose this can only come down to a "what-if" scenario, but although I've never reread the HoME to the extent of the LotR, I *have* read it (or parts of its earlier volumes, which are the relevant ones here) that I can slide between the normal meanings and the early-Tolkien meanings without too much difficult. Personally, I regret the loss of "gnomes" more than the loss of "fairies."


The second point I wanted to make, and the one that really pushed me into opening this as a separate thread is the note of translation. Galadriel55 says that Russian uses "gnom" to translate "dwarf," so my question is: do other translations do this?

(Actually, my first question was "what about the use of 'gnome' in The Hobbit, but in Googling that to catch the exact quote, I ended up discovering that the reason I couldn't remember it by heart is because I've never read it--it was only there in the first edition and second editions. It was revised for the third edition, contemporary with the LotR's second edition, but even so, 1966 is fairly late; The Hobbit had been out for nearly 30 years by then and had seen a few translations.

These translations include the Portuguese one, O Gnomo from 1962, published four years before the references to gnomes were removed from The Hobbit!

Here's Wikipedia's table of The Hobbit translations, whence comes my information. Interestingly, this translation would be replaced in 1995 by separate (Brazilian and Portugal-Portuguese) translations that would change O Gnomo to O Hobbit. Russian seems to be in the clear; the earliest translation noted on this list dates to the 1970s.

I'm curious. People of multi-linguicity help me out: does English have an absurd number of names for small, "faerie" creatures (Elves, Fairies, Dwarfs, Gnomes--and now Hobbits) that need to be translated, or is this a function of most languages? I'm especially curious about those which are farther from being cognate to English, ones that don't share as closely the same mythological roots.

[Galadriel55]

Oooh, now a whole thread for this! Thanks, Form!

Originally Posted by Formendacil

Continuing the main thrust of the Gnomes/Fairies/How-do-you-like-them? discussion, part of the reason I brought it up in the first place is that, yes, the connotations of "gnomes" and "fairies" brings up the diminutive and the modern connotations. But... before The Lord of the Rings made its influence felt on the collective vocabulary, that's the way we felt about "Elves" too.

True. I didn't really think about that, maybe because the use of Elves was less common in my English language sphere before I read LOTR, so I don't have any wrong associations there - actually, it's the opposite: when I encounter the word "elf" in the diminutive context, I have to remind myself that they aren't LOTR Elves. It also helps that the Russian translation uses the same word to refer to them, and the word "elf" isn't really used in the language in general.

Originally Posted by Formy

I'm curious. People of multi-linguicity help me out: does English have an absurd number of names for small, "faerie" creatures (Elves, Fairies, Dwarfs, Gnomes--and now Hobbits) that need to be translated, or is this a function of most languages?

Well, firstly, once again - not all of these creatures are "etymologically" small. Some of them were just Disney-fied. And second, I think each culture has it's share of fairies and Mewlips, but they may not be used the same way in stories. Russian, specifically, leaves its grandmother's lore for children's stories. Beyond that, you don't really get fiction/fantasy involving these creatures. We didn't really have that much of a fantasy branch of our own for a while - the genre was mostly just ripped off western fantasy. And even now, the best Russian fantasy is semi-scifi. But still, in structure, our "fairies" is sort of similar to the Irish "fairies" - people/characters who can choose to sometimes appear in our world, who meddle with the world and with people's lives, who may be good or bad, and who may take on a variety of shapes. But even the children's stories modify a lot of the good characters to be small. The bad characters remain very elaborate.

Hmmm... now that I think about it, we didn't modify everyone. Characters that are more manlike remain more manlike. But as you climb deeper into superstition, you get less clear-cut descriptions and more tailoring to the story's needs (and since a lot of stories tend to use the role in the same way...). For example, a well-known spirit, the Domovoy, is the spirit of the house (dom=house). I don't know what his original size was supposed to be, but he was said to have lived either under the top step, or behind the oven (think of the big, Russian oven, which people sleep on for warmth), or in other corners of the house. It wouldn't make sense for him to be human sized, or even hobbit-sized, because he wouldn't fit, so I suppose there's no problem with depicting him as small. But stories tend to depict him as thoroughly good, without a second possibility. But traditionally the Domovye could be good or bad, could either help a family prosper or mess with their house at night if they didn't like them. Domovye could get angry at their houseowners and tangle their hair or spoil their milk or something. Or they could like them and help slean out the cobwebs on the far corners at night, or something of that sort. And that "independent" and changeable aspect of many characters is lost.

So, not to get too sidetracked with random lore, I would say that English doesn't have too many words - these words all had different meanings and applied to a vast array of different characters. But thank's first to bedtime stories and then to Disney, a lot of these creatures lost their original form and character.

Fun fact: Tolkien is quoted by the Online Etymology Dictionary on the word "fairy". I agree with him.

[Galadriel55]

Sorry about the double post, but it has just occurred to me to ask this now.

Originally Posted by Formendacil

(Actually, my first question was "what about the use of 'gnome' in The Hobbit, but in Googling that to catch the exact quote, I ended up discovering that the reason I couldn't remember it by heart is because I've never read it--it was only there in the first edition and second editions. It was revised for the third edition, contemporary with the LotR's second edition, but even so, 1966 is fairly late; The Hobbit had been out for nearly 30 years by then and had seen a few translations.

I am a young and unlearned hobbit, and none of the texts I read (aside from those quoted on the Downs) used the word "gnomes". So for me, the issue is largely moot. On the other hand, you've seen the word in context in BOLT, and also in The Hobbit (from the first editions) - what do you think it adds to / takes away from the story? From your perspective, did the taking it out alter the feel of the story in any way?

[Tar-Jêx]

Originally Posted by Galadriel55

Sorry about the double post, but it has just occurred to me to ask this now.



I am a young and unlearned hobbit, and none of the texts I read (aside from those quoted on the Downs) used the word "gnomes". So for me, the issue is largely moot. On the other hand, you've seen the word in context in BOLT, and also in The Hobbit (from the first editions) - what do you think it adds to / takes away from the story? From your perspective, did the taking it out alter the feel of the story in any way?

I think that them being called 'gnomes' and then being renamed 'elves' establishes a very strong atmosphere about them. They are certainly mystical, or magical, beings, and where elves can sometimes be thought of as not magic, 'gnome' removes that idea.

Although we know that elves are magical in the universe, people picking up the books for the first time may get the wrong idea. 'Gnomes' were never spoken of in any final products, but by reading BOLT, you can see the evolution of them.

[Galin]

In the Silmarillion it is recorded that Beor's people called the Elven-king Felagund Nóm, "Wisdom", and his people they called Nómin, "the Wise".

Okay Tolkien himself didn't publish this... but... well I think he was still going to have a version of 'gnome' one way or the other.

Take that Paracelsus!

[Morthoron]

It seems quite possible that Paracellus borrowed gnome from Greek genomos meaning "earth-dweller"; therefore, it is equally likely that Tolkien eventually eschewed gnome for its Greek roots, referring instead to Elf (Elves), which are etymologically of Scandinavian/Germanic origin as are the dwarves in his cosmology.

[Formendacil]

Originally Posted by Galadriel55

On the other hand, you've seen the word in context in BOLT, and also in The Hobbit (from the first editions) - what do you think it adds to / takes away from the story? From your perspective, did the taking it out alter the feel of the story in any way?

I feel I should make sure to clarify that I did not grow up on a diet of the earlier editions--nothing but the Third and later in my formative years.

Even apart from "garden gnomes" (not something I have ever really encountered firsthand even then), I knew the word from one of the Oz books--the third one, maybe? I never read the entire L. Frank Baum series, just the few that were in our local library, and did not reread them to the extent that they were drilled into my head like a Tolkien book, but I did have the initial impression of them as small, unlovely, creatures--perhaps more similar to goblins than Elves.

That said, I like the word itself. (Good catch, by the way, Galin--without the "g" at the front, I'd never noticed the similarity in "Nóm"--Tolkien may have dropped the concept, but perhaps he hadn't quite done so without some regret.) The Grecian roots of the word work to my linguistic aesthetics, and I like the idea that there was a Common Speech word for "Noldo."

I don't know if I've been as clear I should be, so I'll put it on the record just in case: "the Gnomes" refered to the Noldor--who were the Noldoli in the Book of Lost Tales, but the term Gnome lasted past the change from Noldoli to Noldor by nearly two decades. "Gnomes" was not replaced by "Elves," but dropped, in the same way that "Fairies" was dropped as a synonym of "Elves"--but with a difference: All Gnomes (Noldor) were Elves (Eldar).

Actually, now that I think about it--even though I don't personally like the use of fairies (I'm indifferent there, whereas I genuinely miss Gnomes), I wonder if Tolkien impoverished himself potentially. If Gnomes=Noldor, and Elves=Eldar (RATHER than Quendi), Fairies could have been used to be the Common Speech/English equivalent of Quendi (the entire species).

I should pay closer attention to how Tolkien uses the two words in the BoLT as we read forward. Elves and Fairies are PROBABLY just straight-up synonyms, but I wonder if maybe there's a nuance. (Of course, Quendi subdivided into Eldar and Avari is a later, post-BoLT terminology, but there was a similar structure in the BoLT: the Elves who went to Kor and the "Ilkorins," the ones who did not).

[Mithalwen]

Gnome makes me smile because I was Sixer of the Gnomes in the Brownies back when God was a boy (or girl). But I have started reading BoLT today, and so far so, good. Once again, I am struck by just how well Christopher Tolkien writes. And by his rather dry sense of humour.

[jallanite]

Any author may use any word to describe any fantasy race. Tolkien dropped fairy as a synonym for elf because he felt that its use by Victorian fantasy writers, principally children’s writers, had somewhat spoiled the word.

Tolkien also refers to the use of fairies by Shakespeare and Michael Drayton in particular.

I remember as a child not distinguishing clearly fairy and angel, not noticing in particular that angels in pictures had bird wings while fairies had insect wings. But fairies might be diminutive or human-sized while elves were always diminutive in the books I read. Also fairies were generally female while elves were male. The word gnome was usually usually not clearly distinguished from elf. Santa Claus had as assistants elves and gnomes.

I of course gradually learned better.

So I don’t recall when I first read The Hobbit as a child being particularly surprised by Tolkien’s human-sized, wingless elves. I may have then imagined Tolkien’s elves as being taller than Tolkien’s hobbits but shorter than human beings. I don’t remember exactly.

Later I recall a talk with my father who knew of my enthusiasm for The Lord of the Rings and read Fellowship to understand it. He did not like the book at all, being put off by the constant appearance of little folk: hobbits and elves. I remember explaining to him that Tolkien’s Elves were human-sized, not small.

That Tolkien dropped the word fairy and the word fay after The Book of Lost Tales makes full sense to me. Tolkien knew that fairy was a corruption of French Faërie, meaning the realm of the fées. And the French feminine noun fée came from the Latin word fata, taken as a feminine noun although it was in fact the neuter plural of the Latin word fatum, past participle of the infinitive fari ‘to speak’ meaning ‘thing spoken, decision, decree’ and used to mean ‘prophetic declaration, prediction’, hence ‘destiny, fate’. Better to use the Germanic word elf which is not known to be a corruption of a corruption.

Still, Tolkien’s word quendi for the original name of the Elves was said by him to mean ‘speakers’ which may reflect the genuine etymology of fée.

Gnome is even better dropped, in my opinion, as gnome is a known invented word of Paracelsus and is used in fairy tales and common use mostly for beings of the Dwarf type, hence the use of gnom for Dwarf in the Russian translations. See https://www.google.cca/search?q=gnom...w=1200&bih=740 .

[Galadriel55]

Originally Posted by jallanite

Still, Tolkien’s word quendi for the original name of the Elves was said by him to mean ‘speakers’ which may reflect the genuine etymology of [I]fée.

Possibly, but it's a pretty logical thing to have a name that reflects the ability to speak. If you are the first species that can speak and understand that it's the first species that can speak, I see no reason for them not to boast the fact. As a real-life example, one of the two main theories for the origins of the root slav, slavyane is slovo: word, so slavyane are people who speak with words (Wikipedia has a nice page about it, but sadly I don't think this one has an English version). Surely Quendi are no worse.