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telain
Lorien
Mar 31 2012, 11:58pm
Views: 313
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It appears thrushes/throstles/mavises abound in the poetic realm...
I wonder, then, why Tolkien chose the name "Bard", but that is for another post...
In response to the following:
Bilbo originally throws a stone at the bird. Did it surprise you that Bilbo, a Hobbit, should not know about the good and friendly thrushes, or that Thorin, a Dwarf, did know?
Bilbo is said to be handy with stones, and that all animals around him would scuttle for cover if he stooped (Flies and Spiders).
It's nice that Jackson honoured this with Merry and Pippin - or was this mere coincidence?
Why would Dwarves tame thrushes (or, conversely, why would thrushes be tamed by Dwarves?)
I hope you remember that the dwarves were supposed to know how to call like screech-owls and barn-owls (Roast Mutton), while Bilbo didn't!
I think there is a difference between distinguishing between friendly and unfriendly birds and knowing how to sound like a particular bird (i.e., give a particular call.) What I was going for is more of the general idea of Hobbits and Dwarves -- both spend a portion of their lives underground, where birds are few and far between, but of the two, I had imagined Dwarves to be less involved with the ways of the above-ground world than Hobbits. Tolkien is obviously suggesting otherwise -- perhaps that Hobbits are too involved in their own affairs to notice other things (like birds) or perhaps that unfriendly birds simply do not frequent the Shire. Perhaps it was just Bilbo and actually other Hobbits know all about birds?
In any event, I found the distinction Tolkien was making interesting, but I am still not sure where his intentions lie.
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