Editing Hobbit (section)

== Origins of the word ==

{{main|Hobbit (word)|l1 = ''Hobbit'' (word)}}
 
Tolkien claimed that he started ''The Hobbit'' suddenly, without premeditation, in the midst of grading a set of student essay exams in 1930 or 1931, writing its famous<ref name="Indie 2017">{{cite news |last=Sommerlad |first=Joe |title=The Hobbit at 80: What were JRR Tolkien's inspirations behind his first fantasy tale of Middle Earth? |url=https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/news/hobbit-80-jrr-tolkien-anniversary-published-lord-rings-middle-earth-fantasy-inspiration-myths-fairy-tales-a7957321.html |access-date=7 February 2021 |work=[[The Independent]] |date=2 October 2017}}</ref> opening line on a blank piece of paper: "In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit".{{sfn|Carpenter|1978|pp=175, 180–181}}{{sfn|Stanton|2013|pp=280–282}}

=== In English literature ===

{{further|Tolkien's modern sources}}

[[File:Snerg with bow.jpg|thumb|upright=0.6|A Snerg with a bow and arrows. ''[[The Marvellous Land of Snergs]]'' is seen by Tolkien scholars as an influence on Tolkien's hobbits.<ref name="GilliverMarshall2009">{{cite book |last1=Gilliver |first1=Peter |author1-link=Peter Gilliver |last2=Marshall |first2=Jeremy |last3=Weiner |first3=Edmund |title=The Ring of Words: Tolkien and the Oxford English Dictionary |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bszM-uwEQOkC&pg=PA54 |date=23 July 2009 |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |isbn=978-0-19-956836-9 |page=54}}</ref> ]]

The term "hobbit", however, has real antecedents in modern English. One is a fact that Tolkien admitted: the title of [[Sinclair Lewis]]'s 1922 novel ''[[Babbitt (novel)|Babbitt]]'', about a "complacent American businessman" who goes through a journey of some kind of self-discovery, facing "near-disgrace";<ref>{{ME-ref|Letters|Letter to Harry C. Bauer, 24 November 1966}}</ref> the Tolkien scholar [[Tom Shippey]] observes that there are some parallels here with Bilbo's own journey.{{sfn|Shippey|2005|pp=76-78}}

According to a letter from Tolkien to [[W. H. Auden]], one "probably ... unconscious" inspiration was [[Edward Wyke Smith]]'s 1927 children's book ''[[The Marvellous Land of Snergs]]''.<ref group="T">{{harvnb|Carpenter|2023|loc=Letter 163 to W. H. Auden, 7 June 1955 }}</ref> Tolkien described the Snergs as "a race of people only slightly taller than the average table but broad in the shoulders and [who] have the strength of ten men."{{sfn|Carpenter|1978|p=165}}

Another possible origin emerged in 1977 when the ''[[Oxford English Dictionary]]'' announced that it had found the source that it supposed Tolkien to have used: James Hardy wrote in his 1895 ''[[Denham Tracts|The Denham Tracts, Volume 2]]'': "The whole earth was overrun with ghosts, boggles ... hobbits, hobgoblins." Shippey writes that the list was of ghostly creatures without bodies, nothing like Tolkien's solid flesh-and-blood hobbits.{{sfn|Shippey|2005|pp=76-78}} Tolkien scholars consider it unlikely that Tolkien saw the list.{{sfn|Flowers|2017|pp=2}}

=== Rabbit ===

An additional connection is with [[rabbit]], one that Tolkien "emphatically rejected",{{sfn|Shippey|2005|pp=76-78}} although the word appears in ''The Hobbit'' in connection with other characters' opinions of Bilbo in several places.<ref name="O'Brien 1989">{{cite journal |last=O'Brien |first=Donald |title=On the Origin of the Name "Hobbit" |journal=Mythlore |date=15 December 1989 |volume=16 |issue=2 |page=Article 19 |url=https://dc.swosu.edu/mythlore/vol16/iss2/19}}</ref> Bilbo compares himself to a rabbit when he is with the [[Eagle (Middle-earth)|eagle]] that carries him; the [[Eagle (Middle-earth)|eagle]], too, tells Bilbo not to be "frightened like a rabbit".{{sfn|Shippey|2005|pp=76-78}} The giant bear-man [[Beorn]] teases Bilbo and jokes that "little bunny is getting nice and fat again", while the dwarf [[Thorin Oakenshield|Thorin]] shakes Bilbo "like a rabbit".{{sfn|Shippey|2005|pp=76-78}}

Shippey writes that the rabbit is not a native English species, but was deliberately introduced in the 13th century, and has become accepted as a local wild animal. Shippey compares this "situation of [[anachronism]]-cum-familiarity" with the lifestyle of the Hobbit, giving the example of smoking "pipeweed". He argues that Tolkien did not want to write "[[tobacco]]", as it did not arrive until the 16th century, so Tolkien invented a [[calque]] made of English words.{{sfn|Shippey|2005|pp=76-78}} 
Donald O'Brien, writing in ''[[Mythlore]]'', notes, too, that [[Aragorn]]'s description of [[Frodo Baggins|Frodo]]'s priceless ''[[mithril]]'' [[Chain mail|mail]]-shirt, "here's a pretty hobbit-skin to wrap an [[Elf (Middle-earth)|elven]]-princeling in", is a "curious echo"<ref name="O'Brien 1989"/> of the English [[nursery rhyme]] "[[Bye, baby Bunting|To find a pretty rabbit-skin to wrap the baby bunting in]]."<ref name="O'Brien 1989"/>

{| class="wikitable" style="margin: 1em auto;"
|+ [[Tom Shippey]]'s analysis of the parallels between "Hobbit" and "Rabbit"{{sfn|Shippey|2005|pp=76-78}}
|-
! Feature !! "Hobbit" !! "[[Rabbit]]"
|-
| [[Neologism]] || Tolkien, 1937 || 1398 ([[Oxford English Dictionary|OED]])
|-
| [[Etymology]] || Doubtful, see text || Unknown before [[Middle English]]
|-
| Familiar<br/>[[Anachronism]] || Smokes "pipeweed", but <br/>[[tobacco]] did not arrive<br/> until 16th century || Introduced species<br/>but accepted as native
|-
| Appearance 
| colspan=2; style="text-align:center; | Small, plump (and also edible)
|-
| Name || Called "rabbit" by Bert the [[Troll (Middle-earth)|troll]], [[Eagle (Middle-earth)|eagle]];<br/>called "little bunny" by [[Beorn]] || (both are common names)
|}

=== Fictional etymology ===

Tolkien has King [[Théoden]] of [[Rohan (Middle-earth)|Rohan]] say "the Halflings, that some among us call the Holbytlan".<ref group="T">{{harvnb|Tolkien|1954|loc=book 3, ch. 8 "The Road to Isengard"}}</ref> Tolkien set out a fictional [[etymology]] for the [[Hobbit (word)|word "Hobbit"]] in an appendix to ''[[The Lord of the Rings]]'', that it was derived from ''holbytla'' (plural ''holbytlan''),<ref group="T">{{harvnb|Tolkien|1955|loc=Appendix F, 2. "On Translation", "Note on three names: ''Hobbit'', ''Gamgee'', and ''Brandywine''"}}</ref> meaning "hole-builder". This was Tolkien's own new construction from [[Old English]] ''hol'', "a hole or hollow", and ''bytlan'', "to build".{{sfn|Clark Hall|2002|pp=63, 189}}{{sfn|Shippey|2005|pp=76-78}}

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