Eriol
04-12-2004, 04:34 AM
I was reading a thread in the LotR forum in which people were complaining about Frodo's name, and how "Bilbo" is a better name (it is Elgee's thread about the carry-over from "The Hobbit" to LotR), and I remembered that I had read something about that. It's from Shippey's "J.R.R. Tolkien: Author of the Century", chapter IV (The Mythic Dimension). Shippey makes some very interesting speculations about Frodo's name. Here they are:
The myth of Frodo
(...) There is one very strange thing about his name, and that is that although he ought to have been ‘the famousest of hobbits’, his name is one which is never discussed or mentioned at all in the explanation of Shire-names in Appendix F.
Tolkien deals with these at considerable length. Most of them, he says, have been translated from Westron into English according to sense, though in both Westron and English the wearing-down processes of language have left many people unaware that place-name elements like ‘bottle’ (or ‘bold’) once meant ‘dwelling’, so that such names often sound stranger than they once were. When it comes to first names, Tolkien says, hobbits had two main kinds. In category (a) were ‘names that had no meaning at all in their daily language’, such as ‘Bilbo, Bungo, Polo’ etc. Some of these were, by accident, the same as modern English names, e.g. ‘Otho, Odo, Drogo’. These names were kept, but they were ‘anglicized . . . by altering their endings’, since in hobbit-names (as in Old English) –a was masculine, -o and –e were feminine. Bilbo’s name, then, was actually Bilba. However, there is also a category (b), since in some families it was the custom to give children ‘high-sounding’ first names drawn from ancient legend. Tolkien says that he has not retained these but translated them, using such faded legendary names as Meriadoc, Peregrin, Fredegar, which do not sound like, but have the same sort of feel as their hobbit originals.
The question is, what sort of name is Frodo – the one name out of all the prominent hobbit characters in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings which Tolkien does not mention or discuss? Possibly the reason is that Frodo is in a one-member category of his own, category (c). His name looks like one of the meaningless ones, such as Bilbo, in which case it would have bee, not Frodo, but Froda. However, Froda is not a meaningless name. Just like Meriadoc or Fredegar, it is a name from the heroic literature of the past, though it is one which, significantly, and appropriately to Frodo’s character, has been all but entirely forgotten. Froda was the father of the hero Ingeld whose legend the monks of Lidisfarne were censured for listening to; Beowulf refers to Ingeld, once, as ‘the fortunate son of Froda’, ,and that is all we ever heard about Froda in Old English. In Old Norse, though, the exact equivalent of Froda would be Fróđi, or Frothi, and this name appears frequently and confusingly, as if later authors were trying to make sense of different and contradictory stories. One thing that is certain, though, is that both Froda and Frothi (by rights they should have a long vowel, fróda, fróđi) mean ‘the wise one’ in Old English and Old Norse; and the most prominent of all the Norse Frothis is indeed famous for his wisdom, above all in turning away from war. According to both Saxo Grammaticus (c. 1200) and Snorri Sturluson (c. 1230), this Frothi was an exact contemporary of Christ. During his reign there were no murders, wars, thefts, or robberies, and this Golden Age was kown as the Fróđa-friđ, ‘the peace of Frothi’. It came to an end because the peace really came from the magic mill of Frothi, which he used to grind out peace and prosperity; but in the end he refused to give the giantesses who turned the mill for him any rest, and they rebelled and ground out instead an army to kill Frothi and take his gold. Their magic mill is still grinding at the bottom of the Maelstrom, says
Norwegian folk-legend, but now it grinds out salt, and that is why the sea is salty.
Has this story anything, other than the names, to do with either Beowulf or The Lord of the Rings? One point that may have struck Tolkien is the total contrast between Froda and Ingeld, father and son. The former is a man of peace, the latter the defining image, in the Northern world, of the man who would not give up the obligations of vengeance no matter what this cost him. There is something sad, ironic, and true about the fact that Ingjaldr remained a popular Norse name for generations, and even the monks of Lindisfarne wanted to hear about him, while the story of his peaceful father was rapidly turned into a parable of futility. Frothi, furthermore, is not only a contemporary of Christ, but also an analogue (of course a failed analogue), one who tries without ultimate success to put an end to the cycles of war and vengeance and heroism. He fails both personally, in being killed, and ideologically, in that his son and his people return gleefully to the bad old ways of revenge and hatred, and paganism. For after all the ‘peace of Frothi’ could just have been an accident, a unrealized reflection of the Coming of Christ, about which the pagans never learned. This composite Froda/Frothi, then, could have been to Tolkien a defining image of the ‘virtuous pagan’, a glimpse of the sad truth behind heroic illusions, a brief and soon-quenched light shining in the darkness of the heathen ages.
All this seems strongly relevant to Tolkien’s Frodo. (...)
What do you think? I hardly know anything about those legends (though I had heard about the mill in the sea). Is Shippey being too imaginative here, or did Tolkien (perhaps unconsciously) perceive those nuances about the name of Frodo?
The myth of Frodo
(...) There is one very strange thing about his name, and that is that although he ought to have been ‘the famousest of hobbits’, his name is one which is never discussed or mentioned at all in the explanation of Shire-names in Appendix F.
Tolkien deals with these at considerable length. Most of them, he says, have been translated from Westron into English according to sense, though in both Westron and English the wearing-down processes of language have left many people unaware that place-name elements like ‘bottle’ (or ‘bold’) once meant ‘dwelling’, so that such names often sound stranger than they once were. When it comes to first names, Tolkien says, hobbits had two main kinds. In category (a) were ‘names that had no meaning at all in their daily language’, such as ‘Bilbo, Bungo, Polo’ etc. Some of these were, by accident, the same as modern English names, e.g. ‘Otho, Odo, Drogo’. These names were kept, but they were ‘anglicized . . . by altering their endings’, since in hobbit-names (as in Old English) –a was masculine, -o and –e were feminine. Bilbo’s name, then, was actually Bilba. However, there is also a category (b), since in some families it was the custom to give children ‘high-sounding’ first names drawn from ancient legend. Tolkien says that he has not retained these but translated them, using such faded legendary names as Meriadoc, Peregrin, Fredegar, which do not sound like, but have the same sort of feel as their hobbit originals.
The question is, what sort of name is Frodo – the one name out of all the prominent hobbit characters in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings which Tolkien does not mention or discuss? Possibly the reason is that Frodo is in a one-member category of his own, category (c). His name looks like one of the meaningless ones, such as Bilbo, in which case it would have bee, not Frodo, but Froda. However, Froda is not a meaningless name. Just like Meriadoc or Fredegar, it is a name from the heroic literature of the past, though it is one which, significantly, and appropriately to Frodo’s character, has been all but entirely forgotten. Froda was the father of the hero Ingeld whose legend the monks of Lidisfarne were censured for listening to; Beowulf refers to Ingeld, once, as ‘the fortunate son of Froda’, ,and that is all we ever heard about Froda in Old English. In Old Norse, though, the exact equivalent of Froda would be Fróđi, or Frothi, and this name appears frequently and confusingly, as if later authors were trying to make sense of different and contradictory stories. One thing that is certain, though, is that both Froda and Frothi (by rights they should have a long vowel, fróda, fróđi) mean ‘the wise one’ in Old English and Old Norse; and the most prominent of all the Norse Frothis is indeed famous for his wisdom, above all in turning away from war. According to both Saxo Grammaticus (c. 1200) and Snorri Sturluson (c. 1230), this Frothi was an exact contemporary of Christ. During his reign there were no murders, wars, thefts, or robberies, and this Golden Age was kown as the Fróđa-friđ, ‘the peace of Frothi’. It came to an end because the peace really came from the magic mill of Frothi, which he used to grind out peace and prosperity; but in the end he refused to give the giantesses who turned the mill for him any rest, and they rebelled and ground out instead an army to kill Frothi and take his gold. Their magic mill is still grinding at the bottom of the Maelstrom, says
Norwegian folk-legend, but now it grinds out salt, and that is why the sea is salty.
Has this story anything, other than the names, to do with either Beowulf or The Lord of the Rings? One point that may have struck Tolkien is the total contrast between Froda and Ingeld, father and son. The former is a man of peace, the latter the defining image, in the Northern world, of the man who would not give up the obligations of vengeance no matter what this cost him. There is something sad, ironic, and true about the fact that Ingjaldr remained a popular Norse name for generations, and even the monks of Lindisfarne wanted to hear about him, while the story of his peaceful father was rapidly turned into a parable of futility. Frothi, furthermore, is not only a contemporary of Christ, but also an analogue (of course a failed analogue), one who tries without ultimate success to put an end to the cycles of war and vengeance and heroism. He fails both personally, in being killed, and ideologically, in that his son and his people return gleefully to the bad old ways of revenge and hatred, and paganism. For after all the ‘peace of Frothi’ could just have been an accident, a unrealized reflection of the Coming of Christ, about which the pagans never learned. This composite Froda/Frothi, then, could have been to Tolkien a defining image of the ‘virtuous pagan’, a glimpse of the sad truth behind heroic illusions, a brief and soon-quenched light shining in the darkness of the heathen ages.
All this seems strongly relevant to Tolkien’s Frodo. (...)
What do you think? I hardly know anything about those legends (though I had heard about the mill in the sea). Is Shippey being too imaginative here, or did Tolkien (perhaps unconsciously) perceive those nuances about the name of Frodo?