Lintips

Lintips were mysterious "gleaming spirits" mentioned only in the poem "Once upon a Time" and it’s earlier version.

History

Lintips were said to spawn at night under the moon. Tom Bombadil noticed them from their "mousey" smell and wondered whether they had slid down from the moon or come in star-winks. One night, they came too early and Tom told them to drink the sweet dew of the grass, but to mind his feet. However, they laughed at him and ran away, leaving Tom in dismay, as he had wished them to stay.

Behind the scenes

The poem "Once Upon A Time", along with its earlier version, "An Evening in Tavrobel", was published in the appendix of the 2014 edition of The Adventures of Tom Bombadil, which is presented as an actual translation from the Red Book of Westmarch, wherefore the poems could be simply hobbit folklore, and not reflective of true events. For this reason, the canonical status of the contents of the collection is uncertain. However, some scholars have still tried to identify the nature of the lintips and other creature mentioned in the poems. For example, Rhona Beare has proposed that "An Evening in Tavrobel" was probably the basis of "Once Upon A Time, and that therefore the lintips could correspond to the spirit-like creatures that danced and sipped radiance from the buttercups.^[1] Ultimately, J.R.R. Tolkien never confirmed the nature or the source of lintips.^[2]

Etymology

The etymology of lintips is unclear, but because the poem is set in "an elvish land", the stem of the name may be Quenya (from lint "soft stuff" or linte "swift") - however, the ending -ip is clearly not Elvish.^[3]

References