philologist, to develop, explore, and play with the etymologies and relationships of the names of his characters, something that he much enjoyed. Fourthly, the family trees helped to guide him while writing to avoid mistakes in describing relationships. Fifthly, the Hobbit-style genealogies imitate the hobbitic fascination with family history; Tolkien maintained the framing fiction that The Lord of the Rings was, in fact, the Red Book of Westmarch written entirely by Hobbits. Tolkien says as much in the novel's prologue: Yet another function was to show how different ancestries, and hence different aspects of character, come together in some of the characters. Bilbo Baggins, eponymous protagonist of The Hobbit, was born to a genteel Baggins and an adventurous Took, while his cousin (often familiarly described as his nephew) and heir Frodo was the child of a Baggins and a relatively outlandish Brandybuck. Finally, the trees mention which Hobbits had children and which did not, thus giving the impression that the story continues after the end of the book, reinforcing the impression of depth. Fisher states that in The Silmarillion, the family trees work the same way, but the tales, told as ancient legends rather than in-the-moment action, are narrated from the points of view of Elves or sometimes of Men (Edain). Here the trees help with a different function, namely to visualise the splitting and mixing of family lines, mirroring the bitter family feuds among The Silmarillions Elves. Construction Malcolm Forbes, reviewing Catherine McIlwaine's exhibition of Tolkien's Middle-earth artefacts at the Bodleian Library, commented that "his realm of Middle-earth [is] the product of a fecund imagination, fierce intelligence and creative prowess. Few fantasy writers so meticulously map their kingdoms, or invent legends, family trees and even languages for their characters." Dwayne Thorpe comments in Mythlore that family trees are one of the elements that Tolkien used to make Middle-earth seem real: Notes References Primary This list identifies each item's location in Tolkien's writings. Secondary Sources Middle-earth Fictional family trees Themes of The Lord of the Rings