Letter 25

The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien
← Letter 25 →
Recipient	The editor of the Observer
Date	Printed in the Observer on 20 February 1938
Subject(s)	The Hobbit

Letter 25 is a letter written by J.R.R. Tolkien and published in The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien.

Background

On 16 January 1938 the Observer newspaper published a reader's letter asking about the The Hobbit's links to Beowulf and other branches of mythology, as well as the literary and philological origins of Tolkien's Hobbits.

Tolkien wrote this thorough reply intended only to be forwarded to the original letter-writer as an "ill-considered joke". He had written another, "short and fairly sane" reply for publication. However the editor did not use it, and instead printed this jestful "long and ridiculous" letter in the newspaper on 20 February 1938.

Summary

In this letter, Tolkien confirmed the debt he owed to Beowulf, though he thought it was largely unconscious. Concerning Hobbits he did not remember precisely where he 'got the idea' and had not encountered the "old fairy tale" that the letter-writer vaguely remembered also contained furry creatures called "Hobbits" (Tolkien therefore suspected they are only accidental homophones, and pointed out that his Hobbits did not live in Africa and were not furry).

Tolkien then gave the origins of some of the names he can trace: Gandalf and the dwarves' from the Elder Edda, Smaug's from the Germanic Smugan ("to squeeze through a hole") and Hobbits' from "Obvious Sources" (he gives "the full list of their wealthier families...: Baggins, Boffin, Bolger, Bracegirdle, Brandybuck, Burrowes, Chubb, Grubb, Hornblower, Proudfoot, Sackville, and Took"). He also discussed his idiosyncratic use of the plural dwarves—he "knew no better"—and runes.