'Music, Myth, and Literary Depth in the "Land ohne Musik"', Gregory Martin

[Faramir Jones]

Originally Posted by mark12_30

...and the Hobbitons have a version of that song too-- one of my other favorites. Have you heard it? You must, you must. Great song.

So-- all right, I had missed (or long forgotten ) that that song was gondorian in origin. Fair enough...

"He twinkled his feet at the thought of the meat..." always makes my son laugh and giggle and repeat "he twinkled his feet... hee hee hee.". I laugh at the part that says "He tripped unaware on a slanting stair, and like a meteor ..."

I must check that version of the song out...

My favourite bit is the punchline at the end:

For puddings of Yule with plums, poor fool,
He arrived so much too soon:
An unwary guest on a lunatic quest
From the Mountains of the Moon.

I personally think that there's a joke in Tolkien's use of 'lunatic' as an adjective. The Oxford English Dictionary defines it as

Originally, affected with the kind of insanity that was supposed to have recurring periods dependent on the changes of the moon. In mod. use, synonymous with INSANE; current in popular and legal language, but not now employed technically by physicians.

It was derived from 'luna', the Latin for moon. I don't think it's a coincidence that Tolkien used a moon-derived word to describe a mad scheme of the Moon's most famous resident.