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Citera:
8 (I: 17). An astonishing habit: they imbibed or inhaled, through pipes of clay or wood, the smoke of the burning leaves of a herb, which they called pipe-weed or leaf, a variety probably of Nicotiana. -- Tolkien began this section of the Prologue as a lecture by Merry to Théoden, the King of Rohan, in Book III, Chapter 8, but moved it when it grew too long.
Pipe-weed here substitutes for tobacco, though Tolkien’s mention of Nicotiana indicates that they are one and the same; or rather that pipe-weed refers to the same group of plants, tobacco being the name for any plant of the genus Nicotiana. Pipe-weed is a more 'hobbitish' word, incorporating weed in the sense 'tobacco' which dates at least to the early seventeenth century, whereas tobacco, from Spanish tabaco (from American Indian origin), would have seemed linguistically out of place in Middle-earth. Tobacco itself is a New World plant, imported to England; compare tomatoes, likewise an American import, mentioned in the first edition of The Hobbit (1937), altered to pickles in the revision of 1966. (But see also potatoes, note for p. 22.) There were tobacco plantations in England in the seventeenth century, notably in Worcestershire and Gloucestershire, despite government prohibitions against the growth of the plant domestically, in favour of importation by the Virginia Company. Pipe-weed is similarly not native to Middle-earth, but (as Tolkien has Merry 'suspect') was 'originally brought over the Sea by the Men of Westernesse' (p. 8, I: 17). See further Anders Stenström (Beregond), 'Något om pipor, blad och rökning' ('Some notes on Pipes, Leaf, and Smoking', in Swedish with a summary in English), Arda 4 (1988, for 1984).
Tolkien himself had the same 'astonishing habit' of smoking a pipe.
Citera:
357 (I: 372). the long defeat -- This echoes Elrond' s comment in Book II, Chapter 2: 'I have seen three ages in the West of the world, and many defeats, and many fruitless victories' (p. 243, I: 256), and reiterates an underlying theme of The Lord of the Rings: that no victory is complete, that evil rises again, that even victory brings loss.
Citera:
464 (II: 67). Fangorn is my name according to some, Treebeard others make it. -- Fangorn is Sindarin for 'beard-(of)-tree' (see Appendix F), including the element orn 'tree'. The Oxford English Dictionary defines Treebeard as a name for the lichen Usnea barbata, and also for Tillandsia usneoides, both of which produce long trailing beardlike growths. (Compare, p. 459, II: 62, on the trees of Fangorn forest. 'Great trailing beards of lichen hung from them, blowing and swaying in the breeze.')
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