horncall of buckland

[mark12_30]

Originally Posted by skip spence

But surely you can see where we are coming from though? I mean, there's no reason why the talking purse would bother a casual reader of the Hobbit and it does add some fun to the story. But many of us here are übernerds who have even ploughed through various volumes of HoME (and that ain't always easy) in order to better understand the metaphysics of this fictional world, and from this perspective the idea of cockney Trolls with talking purses fits poorly into the later, more elaborate world of Arda that Tolkien develoved.

Skip, I can definitely see where you are coming from. I have ploughed through a fair amount of HoME myself. I am very intense about canonicity (reference the thread of that name) and, now that I think about it in this vein, if I were writing a fanfic (or an RPG) and a cockney troll's talking purse entered the scene, my red pen would be out in a flash. Ditto for a talking sword.

However, and on the other hand-- I personally do not choose to criticise the professor for indulging his whimsy in a children's tale nor for introducing something uber-mytological into his mythology. He has that right.

Farmer Giles of Ham does not stand well beside Elrond of Rivendell, but that doesn't mean I would edit either one.

In case you have not yet guessed, my canonicity vote goes heartily towards "the author".