Hobbits and faeries

[Raynor]

In the Hobbit, chapter 1, it is stated that:

As I was saying, the mother of this hobbit - of Bilbo Baggins, that is - was the fabulous Belladonna Took, one of the three remarkable daughters of the Old Took, head of the hobbits who lived across The Water, the small river that ran at the foot of The Hill. It was often said (in other families) that long ago one of the Took ancestors must have taken a fairy wife

What do you think? Is this a mere hobbit legend/gossip (as the story-teller calls this idea "absurd") or is it a reflection of past Men-Elves relations (Tolkien does admit that Silmarillion is the only book the Hobbit is related to at the time of its writting)?

 

[YOSSARIAN]

Due to the way this passage is worded, I'd have to say this is just hobbit gossip, an easy way for decent hobbits to voice disapproval of those strange Tooks and Bagginses without being rude.

 

[Shoegaze99]

(Tolkien does admit that Silmarillion is the only book the Hobbit is related to at the time of its writting)

And in fact not even that. While he inserted references to Gondolin and such in The Hobbit, it was not initially a "sequel" to the tales he was writing as The Silmarillion and despite the references was not taking place in a shared world. The two works were related in a few shared references, yes, but as initially intended not in the real, tangible way that later developed. He really just wanted to throw in some names to give the appearances of a larger world. It wasn't until a sequel to The Hobbit was asked for and underway that he decided to truly link the stories of The Hobbit and The Silmarillion in an "official" way, with The Lord of the Rings serving as the bridge between the two works.

Give the Tolkien Letters a read if you haven't already. He discusses this and other related issues, such as the notion that the "Necromancer" in The Hobbit as Sauron being a bit of revisionist history on his part. It all ended up connected in the end, but as originally conceived, the unpublished Silmarillion was one thing, The Hobbit was another, and despite some name-dropping there was no connection between.

 

[Raynor]

Yet letters #25 and #136 do point to a strong relation between them - although developed in time:

My tale is not consciously based on any other book - save one, and that is unpublished: the 'Silmarillion', a history of the Elves, to which frequent allusion is made.

The Hobbit was originally quite unconnected, though it inevitably got drawn in to the circumference of the greater construction; and in the event modified it.

 

[cornelius]

1) yes a gossip
2) link between hobbit and silmarillion are circomstancial, just a few refferences, that's all.

 

[Brian G Turner]

So there's no real elven lineage in the Took's?

 

[Beowulf]

It is 'gossip', 'Folklore Gossip'. In Folklore many people are 'accused' (I use that word in jest) of having 'Elf-blood'. Someone said to have Elf-blood is usually long-lived, strong and clever like Hagen and Dietrich of Germanic Mythology.

I doubt there is any Elf-blood in the Took family.