Badgers are relatively large burrowing animals with generally grey coats, though their heads are distinctively striped in black and white. They delve networks of underground tunnels known as setts,4 and can become ferocious when threatened.5 No badger appears directly in any of the tales of Middle-earth, but they are referred to obliquely often enough to make it clear that they were well known from the Shire to Rohan.
When Frodo and his companions stayed with Tom Bombadil, among the many tales Tom told them was a story of badgers and their peculiar ways; this seems to be a reference to certain events in the poem "The Adventures of Tom Bombadil", in which Tom was briefly captured by badgers, but quickly persuaded them to let him go on his way. That poem uses the old word 'brock' for a badger, and the same word can be seen in the place-name Brockenbores, 'badger-burrows', a village in the Eastfarthing of the Shire.
Notes
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There are various different kinds of badgers found in different parts of the world, but Meles meles, the European badger, is the only species found in western Europe (where it is relatively common). This would undoubtedly have been the badger that Tolkien would have had in mind, especially given that he also uses its old name of 'brock'.
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2 |
At least, based on the name, Brockenbores seems to have been the site of badger burrows (and presumably quite extensive ones, for the village to be named after them). We have another account of a badger sett in the poen "The Adventures of Tom Bombadil", in which (among many other mishaps and adventures) Tom blunders into the sett of 'Badger-brock' and his family. This seems to have been quarried into a hill near the Withywindle in the Old Forest, and was large enough to have at least two entrances.
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3 |
The etymology of the word 'badger' is not known with certainty, but most sources connect it the old word bage (modern 'badge'). The suggestion is that the animal would originally have been known as a badgeard or something similar (meaning 'badged one', in reference to the distintive black and white markings on its face). An alternative etymology suggests instead a connection to the French word bêcheur or 'digger'.
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As the Company of the Ring explored Moria, Sam Gamgee exclaimed that the Dwarves must have been 'busier than badgers for five hundred years to make all this' (The Fellowship of the Ring II 4, A Journey in the Dark), a typically rustic comparison of the tunnelings of the Dwarves with the setts made by badgers.
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At bay in the Hornburg, Théoden insists that he will not '...end here, taken like an old badger in a trap' (The Two Towers III 7, Helm's Deep). He means that, though he'll fight as fiercely as a cornered badger, his position appears to be ultimately hopeless.
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- Updated 7 December 2024
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