The Lord of the Rings (Illustrated Edition) - J. R. R. Tolkien [689]
Elves has been used to translate both Quendi, ‘the speakers’, the High-elven name of all their kind, and Eldar, the name of the Three Kindreds that sought for the Undying Realm and came there at the beginning of Days (save the Sindar only). This old word was indeed the only one available, and was once fitted to apply to such memories of this people as Men preserved, or to the makings of Men’s minds not wholly dissimilar. But it has been diminished, and to many it may now suggest fancies either pretty or silly, as unlike to the Quendi of old as are butterflies to the swift falcon - not that any of the Quendi ever possessed wings of the body, as unnatural to them as to Men. They were a race high and beautiful, the older Children of the world, and among them the Eldar were as kings, who now are gone: the People of the Great Journey, the People of the Stars. They were tall, fair of skin and grey-eyed, though their locks were dark, save in the golden house of Finarfin; 1 and their voices had more melodies than any mortal voice that now is heard. They were valiant, but the history of those that returned to Middle-earth in exile was grievous; and though it was in far-off days crossed by the fate of the Fathers, their fate is not that of Men. Their dominion passed long ago, and they dwell now beyond the circles of the world, and do not return.
Note on three names: Hobbit, Gamgee, and Brandywine.
Hobbit is an invention. In the Westron the word used, when this people was referred to at all, was banakil ‘halfling’. But at this date the folk of the Shire and of Bree used the word kuduk, which was not found elsewhere. Meriadoc, however, actually records that the King of Rohan used the word kûd-dûkan ‘hole-dweller’. Since, as has been noted, the Hobbits had once spoken a language closely related to that of the Rohirrim, it seems likely that kuduk was a worn-down form of kûd-dûkan. The latter I have translated, for reasons explained, by holbytla; and hobbit provides a word that might well be a worn-down form of holbytla, if that name had occurred in our own ancient language.
Gamgee. According to family tradition, set out in the Red Book, the surname Galbasi, or in reduced form Galpsi, came from the village of Galabas, popularly supposed to be derived from galab- ‘game’ and an old element bas-, more or less equivalent to our wick, wich. Gamwich (pronounced Gammidge) seemed therefore a very fair rendering. However, in reducing Gammidgy to Gamgee, to represent Galpsi, no reference was intended to the connexion of Samwise with the family of Cotton, though a jest of that kind would have been hobbit-like enough, had there been any warrant in their language.
Cotton, in fact, represents Hlothran, a fairly common village-name in the Shire, derived from hloth, ‘a two-roomed dwelling or hole’, and ran(u) a small group of such dwellings on a hill-side. As a surname it may be an alteration of hlothram(a) ‘cottager’. Hlothram, which I have rendered Cotman, was the name of Farmer Cotton’s grandfather.
Brandywine. The hobbit-names of this river were alterations of the Elvish Baranduin (accented on and), derived from baran ‘golden brown’ and duin ‘(large) river’. Of Baranduin Brandywine seemed a natural corruption in modern times. Actually the older hobbit-name was Branda-nîn ‘border-water’, which would have been more closely rendered by Marchbourn; but by a jest that had become habitual, referring again to its colour, at this time the river was usually called Bralda-hîm ‘heady ale’.
It must be observed, however, that when the Oldbucks (Zaragamba) changed their name to Brandybuck (Brandagamba), the first element meant ‘borderland’, and Marchbuck would have been nearer. Only a very bold hobbit would have ventured