Beware the Neekerbreekers

“There were also abominable creatures haunting the reeds and tussocks that from the sound of them were evil relatives of the cricket. There were thousands of them, and they squeaked all round, neek-breek, breek-neek, unceasingly all the night, until the hobbits were nearly frantic.” [1]

Neekerbreekers (as Sam calls them) are an incessantly noisy insect species inhabiting the Midgewater Marshes, about three days’ east of Bree. In the “Nomenclature of The Lord of the Rings”, Tolkien explains that this is “[a]n invented insect-name” and that translators should render it by an “invention of similar sound (supposed to be like that of a cricket)” [2].

This is straightforward enough. Tolkien suggests the name is onomatopoeic. As Steve Walker succinctly puts it: “Neekerbreekers sound their name” [3]. My friend Mark Hooker has aptly noted a parallel in H. Rider Haggard. In his novel She, there are “sullen peaty pools” filled with “musqueteers”, “tens of thousands of the most blood-thirsty, pertinacious, and huge mosquitoes” [4]. What else can I add to these clear-cut comments? Maybe a bit more.

First, consider that the word mosquito itself, a Spanish diminutive of Latin musca “fly, gnat”, is thought to be imitative in origin too (cp. Greek μύζειν “to mutter”). Cognates in the Germanic languages include Old High German mucca, Middle High German mücke, Middle Dutch mugge, Old Saxon muggia, Old Norse mý, and Old English mycg, from which we derive the Modern English midge — as in Midgewater Marshes. That’s rather a nice coincidence, and possibly a bit of ammunition for Mark’s case that Tolkien may have had Haggard in mind.

Second, something else struck me recently. This is a bit more of a stretch, but I offer it as food for thought. Consider this passage from Laȝamon’s Brut —

Þat is a seolcuð mere | iset a middel-ærde
mid fenne & mid ræode | mid watere swiðe bræde
mid fiscen & mid feoȝelen | mid uniuele þingen
Þat water is unimete | brade nikeres þer ba[ð]ieð inne
þer is æluene ploȝe | in atteliche pole.

For those whose Early Middle English is a bit rusty: “It is a strange lake, set in Middle-earth, with marsh and with reed, with waters exceedingly broad, with fish and with fowl, with evil things. The water is immensely wide, nickers bathe in it, there elves play in the dreadful pool.”

The passage has the Dead Marshes dead to rights, don’t you think? But perhaps there is a hint of the Midgewater Marshes with its neekerbreekers as well. After all, what are these Middle English nikeres, which I translated above as nickers?

The word usually means something like a water-monster, sprite, sea-goblin, siren, mermaid, etc., depending on the tale in which it appears. It is the source of the folkloric nixie (a kind of water sprite), and it has cognates in all the Germanic tongues — e.g., MD nicker, ON nykr, OHG nichus, and OE nicor. The latter has been glossed as hippopotamus and crocodile, but OE nicor, as well as the compound nicor-hús “nicker-house”, occur throughout Beowulf to describe sea monsters and their lairs. Indeed, the haunted mere in Laȝamon’s Brut is sometimes compared in the scholarly literature to the abode of Grendel’s dam in Beowulf. As C.S. Lewis put it: “[Laȝamon’s] nikeres and their pool might have come straight out of Beowulf.” [5]

The word survived into Modern English, spelled nicker, though it has been obsolete for a long time now. The Oxford English Dictionary defines it as “a supernatural being supposed to live in the sea or other waters; a water-demon, a kelpie. Formerly also (in Middle English): a siren, a mermaid (obs.).” E.R. Eddison used it as late as 1922 in The Worm Ouroboros: “on the walls strange portraitures: lions, dragons, nickers of the sea, spread-eagles, elephants, swans, unicorns” [6], but otherwise, the word is all but dead.

Is there any reason to think Tolkien had this word in the back of his mind when he invented the neekerbreekers? Not a strong reason, certainly, though it’s fun to imagine he might have. Why not? The neekerbreeker is an abominable creature inhabiting a marshy region in Middle-earth — and precisely the same could be said of the nicker, nikere, nicor, however you wish to spell it. Admittedly, “evil relatives of the cricket” are not quite the same as water-demons, but the phonological envelopes of both the real-world word and the first part of Tolkien’s are identical. The second half is probably an imitative reduplication, not at all uncommon in English.

In any case, I think it’s fair to say neekerbreekers are best avoided. They might be no more than noisy crickets, but maybe not. Better safe than sorry. ;)


[1] J.R.R. Tolkien. The Lord of the Rings. 50th anniversary ed. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2004, p. 183.

[2] J.R.R. Tolkien. “Nomenclature of The Lord of the Rings.” The Lord of the Rings: A Reader’s Companion. Ed. Wayne G. Hammond and Christina Scull. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2005, p. 760.

[3] Steve Walker. The Power of Tolkien’s Prose: Middle-earth’s Magical Style. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009, p. 23.

[4] Mark T. Hooker. A Tolkienian Mathomium: A Collection of Articles on J.R.R. Tolkien and His Legendarium. Llyfrawr, 2006, p. 148.

[5] C.S. Lewis. Studies in Medieval and Renaissance Literature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1966, p. 28. And for much more on the mythological background of the nicor, including older theoretical underpinnings in Roman and Greek mythology, see Jacob Grimm’s Deutsche Mythologie, especially Vol. II, Ch. XVII.

[6] E.R. Eddison. The Worm Ouroboros. New York: Albert & Charles Boni, 1926, p. 192.

Word of the Day: Fart

I recently received a birthday wish that included the following charming observation: “Thou art an old fart […] but the most awesomest anglo saxon speaking one that I know.” I replied that fart was a word known to the Anglo-Saxons. In fact, like the words for many bodily parts and functions, it goes much further back than this. It turns out there are quite a few interesting things to say about this word and some of its relatives, so I decided — even at the risk of lowering our collective brows — to write a post on it. Rest assured: I’ll find ways to elevate the conversation again. (“Mr. Shakespeare, your cue in five minutes.”)

The Old English word for a fart is attested in only one form and only one place (that I know). That form is feorting — a bit surprisingly, this is a feminine noun. Yes, women fart too, though they usually won’t admit it. But if you want to look it up in any of the major Anglo-Saxon dictionaries, don’t expect to see the Modern English fart. Most bodily terminology has been glossed with euphemism, often in Latin. In the great Bosworth/Toller dictionary, feorting is glossed as crĕpĭtus ventris, which is Latin for a “chattering of the belly” — cute, eh? The Latin crĕpĭtus is an imitative word, from which we also derive the Modern English words crepitation, i.e., “a crackling (e.g., of the joints)”; and decrepit, i.e., “creaking with old age”. I did just turn forty, after all.

In John R. Clark Hall’s dictionary (even the revised edition of 1960, ed. Herbert Meritt), it’s defined with Latin pēdātio. This is actually the direct Latin cognate given in Ælfric’s glossary, but unless you’re familiar with this word, it’s not much help. It doesn’t appear in the average student dictionary of Latin, but it comes from the pēdĕre “to break wind”, a verb which can be traced back to the Indo-European root √pezd “to fart”, again probably imitative of the sound. This root also gave us the Sanskrit पर्दते and Ancient Greek πέρδομαι, with the same meaning. The word also passed far and wide, as farts tend to do, into Avestan, Lithuanian, Latvian, Albanian, Russian, Welsh, etc.

Among the Germanic languages, the word was also rather widely attested too — and anyone who has experienced a particularly noxious chattering of the belly will not be surprised at its reach. Though we can only extrapolate the unattested Old English verb *feortan, we have evidence of Old High German ferzan, Old Saxon fertan, Old Norse freta, and various forms in the later medieval languages as well, e.g., Middle High German, Middle Dutch, and of course Middle English. Chaucer, it must be said, leet fle a fart rather often in his verses. (But Norman Davis omits the word from A Chaucer Glossary, tsk tsk tsk.)

There are two surprising offspring of the humble fart. The first, thanks to our friend William Shakespeare, has become an old saw, though not many realize it ever had anything to do with breaking wind. Recall the ominous lines from the close of Act III of Hamlet: “For ’tis the sport to have the engineer / Hoist with his own petard” (III.4:207–8). Poor Rosencrantz and Guildenstern!

A petard was a small bomb used to breach castle walls or gates. The word comes to us from the French pétard, literally a “farter”, in turn from Middle French péter “to fart”. The bomb had a long fuse — think of this image and you’re on the right track — which made a sputtering, “farting” sound as it burned down. The French word comes down from the Latin pēditum, in turn derived from the verb whose acquaintance we’ve already made above. Cognates include Italian petardo and obsolete Spanish petar.

The second surprising relative is the partridge — ironic, since one of my favorite etymologists (Eric Partridge) bears that surname. From Middle English partrich, in turn from Old French pertris, perdriz, from Latin perdix, from Green πέρδιξ, the partridge was so named because of the whirring sound of his wings. What a proud bird for such a lowly etymology! Cognates include Scottish partrick, Old Italian perdice, Spanish perdiz, Catalan perdiu, etc.

All of this from the sound of breaking wind. And since it’s Christmastime, if you’ll permit me: “And a partridge in a pear treeeeeeee … pffffftht!!” Excuse me! Okay, that was a new low for Lingwë.

Mythlore 111/112

My copy of the new Mythlore arrived a couple of days ago, and while I haven’t had time to read it all yet, I do have a few initial comments — beginning with the fact that the Mythopoeic Society is using a new printer (Sheridan; previously, the University of Oklahoma Press). I’m not sure how many readers will notice the differences, but I certainly did. For one thing, the type looks better. For another, Sheridan doesn’t trim the pages as much, so the margins are what they were always meant to be.

This issue contains my first essay for Mythlore, “Dwarves, Spiders, and Murky Woods: J.R.R. Tolkien’s Wonderful Web of Words.” I’m delighted to have an essay in Mythlore at long last; it’s been on my to-do list for ages. Here’s how editor Janet Brennan Croft introduced my paper: “We begin this issue of Mythlore with frequent reviewer Jason Fisher’s first article for us, a surprisingly engaging linguistic study of the Mirkwood episode in Tolkien’s The Hobbit, which he uses as a typical example of the depth and interwoven complexity of the author’s linguistic invention.” (p. 3)

While on the subject, I must apologize for a spelling error in my essay. I was really dismayed to see that I had written Petri Tikki instead of the correct spelling, Petri Tikka (on p. 10). My sincere apologies, Petri. It was just a slip, and I wish I’d been more careful. I certainly don’t like it when people misspell my name.

Next, this issue contains my review of Dimitra Fimi’s book, Tolkien, Race and Cultural History: From Fairies to Hobbits (running on pp. 167–72). Petri, I cited your paper, “The Finnicization of Quenya”, and I spelled your name correctly here! Phew, thank heavens! :)

Speaking of dwarves, fairies, and hobbits, there’s an interesting letter in this issue: “The Origins of Dwarves”, sent in by Pierre H. Berube (pp. 163–4). He raises some very intriguing research questions which I, for one, will probably try to take a look at. Also right up my alley, from a quick skim, is Richard J. Whitt’s “Germanic Fate and Doom in J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Silmarillion.” Anyone who quotes from Old English, Old Norse, and Old Saxon works, in the original languages, all in the same essay, is my idea of a drinking buddy! Richard, if ever we meet, I hope it’s to share a medu-benc. :)

And finally, a book to which I contributed is reviewed in this issue of Mythlore: Bradford Lee Eden’s Middle-earth Minstrel: Essays on Music in Tolkien (running on pp. 183–6). Here’s what reviewer Emily A. Moniz, a Ph.D. student at CUA, has to say about my essay:

The book is strong right out of the gate. Jason Fisher’s analysis of Rohirric verse, “Horns of Dawn: The Tradition of Alliterative Verse in Rohan” is quite fine and sets a clear tone for the kind of work contained therein. Fisher carefully examines Tolkien’s influences for Rohan, various traditions of Old English and Germanic alliterative poetry, and the connections between languages both real and fictional. What is even more delightful than his scholarship itself is that he somehow manages to do it all without losing a reader who admittedly knew nothing about Germanic alliterative verse or the Saxon kingdom of Mercia until she had finished the essay. While there are many outstanding pieces in Middle-earth Minstrel, Fisher’s piece stood out and one could not ask for a stronger opening than “Horns of Dawn.” (p. 184)

Needless to say, I was humbled and delighted to read this. I am especially pleased that my essay comes across well to readers — or at least, to one reader — without a strong background in the subject matter. It is always my goal to take abstruse topics like medieval philology and make them accessible and interesting to anyone — ideally, to everyone. A bit later, Moniz adds that “[t]he two essays by Fisher and Wilkins [sic] alone are worth the price of admission” (p. 185) — a compliment I hope I deserve; and Peter Wilkin definitely does. Other readers are invited to add their tuppence.