Bruce N H
Active Member
Hi all,
Bit of a roundabout intro to my question. I'm listening to Morte d'Arthur on audiobook and interspersing chapters with re-listening to the Mythgard Academy classes on the book. Corey raises and rejects the suggestion that the knight Sir Balin was the inspiration for the dwarf Balin, suggesting rather that Tolkien just liked the rhyme with Dwalin. This makes sense to me - most of the names of Thorin's companions come from from the Elder Edda, but not Balin, but we can group them into rhyming pairs - Balin and Dwalin, Fili and Kili, Oin and Gloin - a rhyming trio - Dori, Nori, Ori - and the last three don't rhyme but make a fun alliterative group with Bifur, Bofur, Bombur.
Anyway, this got me thinking. For an author who loves to sprinkle poems throughout his work, why doesn't Tolkien ever write a poem that takes advantage of all of these rhyming names? It seems a no brainer. There are 13 poems in the Hobbit (unless I missed one) (I didn't count the riddles), and the only use I see is in an internal rhyme in the first Tra-la-la-lalley poem:
What brings Mister Baggins,
And Balin and Dwalin
down into the valley
in June
ha! ha!
Am I missing any? Or are there any other poems in Tolkien's body of work that incorporate these rhymes. I mean, if the dwarves had run into Bombadil he would have had a field day with their names.
Bruce
Bit of a roundabout intro to my question. I'm listening to Morte d'Arthur on audiobook and interspersing chapters with re-listening to the Mythgard Academy classes on the book. Corey raises and rejects the suggestion that the knight Sir Balin was the inspiration for the dwarf Balin, suggesting rather that Tolkien just liked the rhyme with Dwalin. This makes sense to me - most of the names of Thorin's companions come from from the Elder Edda, but not Balin, but we can group them into rhyming pairs - Balin and Dwalin, Fili and Kili, Oin and Gloin - a rhyming trio - Dori, Nori, Ori - and the last three don't rhyme but make a fun alliterative group with Bifur, Bofur, Bombur.
Anyway, this got me thinking. For an author who loves to sprinkle poems throughout his work, why doesn't Tolkien ever write a poem that takes advantage of all of these rhyming names? It seems a no brainer. There are 13 poems in the Hobbit (unless I missed one) (I didn't count the riddles), and the only use I see is in an internal rhyme in the first Tra-la-la-lalley poem:
What brings Mister Baggins,
And Balin and Dwalin
down into the valley
in June
ha! ha!
Am I missing any? Or are there any other poems in Tolkien's body of work that incorporate these rhymes. I mean, if the dwarves had run into Bombadil he would have had a field day with their names.
Bruce