This has to be the WEIRDEST thing that JRR Tolkien created

Added: 2026-05-12

[00:00:00]So, I just finished reading The Lord of the Rings for the first time in my life.

[00:00:02]It was an incredible read. And after that, I just dove into The Hobbit. I am about two chapters into The Hobbit, and it is an incredible novel. I love this so much. I am all about children's literature.

[00:00:12]But, I just came across something that is probably one of the weirdest things that I came across in any novel that I've ever read. It is bizarre for anybody to write this, much less J.R.R.

[00:00:23]Tolkien. And it's not just like it just feels like a really out of place thing, and I'm kind of curious what people think about this part of the novel because it's a section where they are surrounded by the three trolls, and Bilbo is about to pick a troll's pocket when something really weird happens that I did not expect that when I was reading this for the first time, I almost had to stop and process through this because I I thought I had read it wrong. Now, J.R.R. Tolkien is no stranger to putting weird things in novels. He's had ents who are kind of really strange. He has a talking fox. He has trolls, sometimes trolls with two heads, sometimes trolls that talk, sometimes trolls that don't talk. He has all sorts of weird things in his novel, but this is maybe the thing that takes the cake. I just, again, finished Lord of the Rings for the first time.

[00:01:08]Very logical novel, even though, you know, it's a Middle-earth and there's all sorts of crazy things. It just flows. There's nothing that feels out of place except for maybe that fox that talks in the beginning or thinks.

[00:01:18]But, in The Hobbit, it's a little bit different because it's children's literature. And this is the one section, again, they are surrounded by these trolls, and Bilbo is about to pick the pocket of one of them because he's a burglar. Now, the trolls' names are Bert, Tom, and William. And this is what the paragraph before says before the really weird section happens that I don't understand yet.

[00:01:38]It says Bert and Tom went off to the barrel. William was having another drink. Then Bilbo plucked up courage and put his little hand in William's enormous pocket.

[00:01:49]There was a purse in it as big as a bag to Bilbo.

[00:01:54]"Ha," thought he, warming to his new work as he lifted it out carefully.

[00:01:59]This is a beginning."

[00:02:02]It was.

[00:02:03]Troll's purses are the mischief.

[00:02:06]And this was no exception.

[00:02:08]"Ere, who are you?" It squeaked as it left the pocket. And William turned round at once and grabbed Bilbo by the neck before he could duck behind the tree.

[00:02:18]What the heck is that? I don't understand this. This is a a talking purse.

[00:02:24]This seems very out of character for J.R.R. Tolkien. Actually, let me say this. This feels out of character for a Lord of the Rings writer to be writing this, but The Hobbit was written first, and The Hobbit is a lot more of a children's story. So, I understand this in the narrative of Tolkien is trying to make children laugh and trying to entertain people. That makes perfect sense. In the narrative of all of Middle-earth, this doesn't make an ounce of sense. Actually, now that I take it back, maybe I just need to expand my understanding because there's swords that kind of glow in the dark and that like blind people when they're drawn.

[00:02:55]So, maybe this makes somewhat sense, but something that talks, a purse that talks, feels like something more like C.S. Lewis's work. Something that doesn't quite make sense in his world.

[00:03:05]And I'm actually shocked because I know there's a big controversy with C.S.

[00:03:09]Lewis's work and Tolkien's work and how Tolkien didn't like C.S. Lewis's work. I think I might be totally wrong about this, but I think I've heard that he didn't like the Narnia series because it was like he was picking mythologies from everywhere and he just couldn't stay consistent and it none of it made sense. Like he had Saint Nicholas in there along with like, you know, a satyr and all sorts of other weird creatures.

[00:03:31]If that's the case, The Hobbit doesn't follow that necessarily perfectly as well. Now, again, this is probably the same mythology. He's creating a mythology for for Europe and for England. And so, it doesn't fail to do that, but within his like larger mythology in The Hobbit where you have trolls, talking trolls, The Hobbit is a deviation from from The Lord of the Rings series. And I know that I was talking about this today, but I would love The Hobbit written from an adult's perspective. And some people said that Tolkien actually tried to do that and he scrapped that because he didn't like the idea or it wasn't coming out good.

[00:04:05]But that would be so fascinating to me because I wonder if Tolkien would explain this. Like Tolkien is a kind of person that doesn't just throw something in there like a talking purse willy-nilly. Now, he does do that when he's writing to children. But if he wrote The Hobbit for adults, I would be so fascinated to know what his explanation for this would be. Because you know that Tolkien would have some kind of backstory behind this purse that can talk.

[00:04:26]I don't know. Maybe one of the blue wizards animated this purse.

[00:04:29]>> [laughter] >> And it just happened to come across a troll because these trolls also have two insane swords in their mitts, which is Glamdring and Orcrist. Orcrist Orcrist?

[00:04:41]Orcrist. And these are from The Fall of Gondolin high elves high elven swords from The Fall of Gondolin. I don't really know about Gondolin yet. No spoilers in the chat.

[00:04:49]But there's some weird stuff that there's weird objects that happen in in this realm. And it also makes me potentially want to connect it with Tom Bombadil and that when he picks up that brooch in the Fog on the Barrow-downs chapter and he like is thinking about something long off. I'm like, maybe this purse has some kind of correlation with that. But a talking purse just feels like a deviation for J.R.R. Tolkien. I don't know if there's been any explanation for this or if he's talked about this in any letters.

[00:05:16]And so, I guess the end of this video is just me asking if he has talked about this in any form of his letters or has talked about this in any other way in The Lord of the Rings, can you let me know in the comments? Let me know what J.R.R. Tolkien has said about this talking purse or if you have any theories on what this talking purse could potentially be. Cuz I don't know of anything that can in can animate an inanimate object. That just is crazy. Is this even a purse? Is this like a being that you know, is being pulled out of this thing? Is this like an end skin that still has some personality to him?

[00:05:50]I don't know what in the world is going on here. There is just It just seems like there is nothing like this that is in Middle-earth, and this is the only instance of it. So, I don't know. Let me know in the comments below what you think about this whole instance. Um you can also like the video. You can subscribe for more of this kind of content if you made this far in the video. You can become a member for some members-only content and really actually videos and stuff like that. And as always, remember to look to our Numenor that was and beyond to Elvenhome that is and to that which is beyond Elvenhome and will ever be. I'll see you in the next one.