[overflow] [Fwd: hobbit names from Kentucky]

[Lee Gold <leeway@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Dan Goodman wrote:
> 
> "...I began plying questions as soon as I knew I was talking to a man who
> had been at Oxford as a classmate of Ronald Tolkien's.  He was a history
> teacher, Allen Barnett.  He had never read _The Hobbit_ or _The Lord of
> the Rings_.  Indeed, he was astonished and pleased to know that his friend
> of so many years ago had made a name for himself as a writer.
> 
> "'Imagine that!  You know, he used to have the most extraordinary interest
> in the people here in Kentucky.  He used to make me repeat family names
> like Barefoot and Boffin and Baggins and good country names like that.' .
> 
> "Practically all the names of Tolkien's hobbits are listed in my Lexington
> phone book, and those that aren't can be found over in Shelbyville."  Guy
> Davidson, _The Geography of the Imagination_ Pantheon Books, 1992.
> 
> Dan Goodman
> dsgood@visi.com
> http://www.visi.com/~dsgood/index.html
> Whatever you wish for me, may you have twice as much.