Abby Epplett, Historian

From Eru Ilúvatar singing the universe into being to the vast range of songs found in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings , the fantasy world of Arda is shaped by music. Previous scholars have paid attention to the forms in which these songs appear, while musicians have written tunes for the lyrics. Less attention has been paid to the instruments that might play the songs if the timeline of Middle-earth aligned to that of the Real World, perhaps because I appear to be the only person focused on this concept. In past essays concerning music, I previously featured the Bywater Quintet, a set of five hobbit singers who voice the widely held opinions of the population. In this essay, I am focusing on a set of instruments played in my interpretation of the Shire, especially woodwinds, strings, and drums. In a future essay, I will discuss a slightly different set of instruments played in Buckland, including horns and bones or spoons.

In this week’s essay, my loves of historic house tours and The Lord of the Rings combine for the first time as I present my map of Bag End, also spelled Bag-End by the older generations of Hobbits. Since Tolkien was a philologist, it is fitting to take a brief break to explain the naming scheme around the property, along with the clan name of the family who built it. Tolkien studies expert Tom Shippey noted in The Road to Middle-earth that “bag-end” is a literal translation of “cul-de-sac”, which was further elaborated upon by Wayne G. Hammond and Christina Scull in Reader’s Companion . The current meaning of a road terminating at a house or collection of houses dates from 1819.