May 8, 2003

JK Rowling, Tolkien, and 'Dumbledore'
Colin

In my previous contribution to the unfortunately protracted Harry Potter / LOTR debate, I suggested that 'Dumbledore' was a somewhat suspicious borrowing from a Tolkien poem. I'd like to clarify this:

Tolkien used a slightly amended spelling in his poem 'Errantry':

He battled with the Dumbledors,
the Hummerhorns, and Honeybees,
and won the Golden Honeycomb,and running home on sunny seas,
in ship of leaves and gossamer,
with blossom for a canopy,
he sat and sang, and furbished up,
and burnished up his panoply.

The point I want to make now is that Tolkien didn't invent the word in question - 'dumbledore' is defined first as 'A humble-bee or bumble-bee'.
The 'dore' part is separately defined in the OED under 'dor' or 'dorr' as, among other things, 'An insect that flies with a loud humming noise'. The 'dumble' part is defined separately under 'dummel', meaning stupid, slow, or dull. I guess we could translate 'dumbledore' into our own vernacular as something like 'dullbuzzer'.

Sorry for the lexicography, but I've realised now that I was unfair to JK Rowling in suggesting that she may have actively plagiarised from Tolkien. The coincidence is probably just that, nothing more sinister! There are other similarities that I and many other posts have identified, but I wanted to set the record straight on this issue.