Origins of the Great Goblin

[Alfirin]

Originally Posted by Zigûr

Me too.
"There in the shadows on a large flat stone sat a tremendous goblin with a huge head." (p. 60)
I always took 'tremendous' as meaning large but also awe-inspiring, impressive, intimidating etc. Similarly it's his head specifically that is pointed out as being "huge"; I considered this as meaning that his head was particularly big in proportion to the rest of his body - which may have already been large.
I think these comparisons are interesting (I've only read Book 1 of Lost Tales, been meaning to start a thread about it actually) but I would imagine that they were probably unintentional on Professor Tolkien's part.

Agreed. The Golbins are a warlike race, I have difficulty imagining that an actually fat, out of shape leader would be able to command the neccecary respect to keep his title (or the neccecary fighting prowess to defend it if challenged) The best food argument still might hold, but only if you assume that goblins are so poorly fed that stunting due to malunutition was basically universal for all but the top of the top (a sort of version of the Chulplex society from Avrham Davidson's Masters of the Maze)