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Tip-toe Through the Toponymy - Page 9

© Michael Martinez

This explains why the Mayor of Michel Delving was also the Mayor of the Shire. Michel Delving must, therefore, be the oldest community in the Shire -- or one of the oldest. The West Farthing may therefore have been settled along with the other Farthings. And the Mayoralty could have been established as a civil office under the King's authority even in the day of Marcho and Blancho. It is interesting to note the rarity of Viking-style placenames in the Shire. No town names end with "-by", for example. "Rushey" is an example of a Norse-derived name ("ey", "oy", "isle/island"). David Salo proposed "Scary" derives from Norse "Skerig" (a root for Tolkien's suggested "scar" -- "rocky cliff"). But if Norse place-names are rare, the Icelandic method of forming place-names is not. The river name "Shirebourn" follows the Icelandic convention. Overhill, a small town just north of the Hill (where Bag End was located) is a another example. "Bywater" and "Tookbank" are two more examples. Shire toponymy and personal names are more cosmopolitan than the toponymy and nomenclature of Rohan. There are Frankish, Celtic, Anglo-Saxon, Scandinavian, and Latin names scattered across the Shire. The Shire nomenclature represents the Hobbits' amalgamation of dialects and languages from across the map through a period of at least two thousand years. Some of the idiomatic similarities of the various regions imply the ancient kinship of the dialects and languages to one another. It should have been faily easy for travelers from the Shire to understand people in Dale, Rohan, and Gondor, because although Westron was the Common Tongue for these lands, their native languages were all related to Westron, and undoubtedly each contributed something to Westron. It might actually be possible to trace an ethnic pattern across the Shire, using place-names and clan-names, and given the fact that the Stoors settled mostly in the Marish. Tolkien divided the Hobbits into three major groups: Harfoots, Fallohides, and Stoors. The Fallohides were absorbed into the other groups, and the Harfoots were more numerous than the Stoors. Still, the Hobbits had been spread across Eriador at one point. The families with the most Celtic names may have been closely associated with either Bree or Dunland prior to colonizing the Shire. The families with Frankish or Anglo-Saxon names may have lived in a different region from the families with Norse or Latin names. The Bree-land is generally thought of as having only Celtic-style names (Bree, meaning "hill"; Archet, meaning "by the wood" according to David Salo; and Chetwood). "Chetwood" is, in fact, a combination Celtic-English word (and "Chet" means "wood", according to Tolkien. But Staddle is an English name, which Tolkien said means "'foundation', of buildings, sheds, ricks, and so forth". Hence, the Bree-land represents a mingling of two linguistic traditions, which should not be surprising, given the fact it was a historical crossroads.

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