Teeth, Time and Tolkien

Another riddle from the chapter “Riddles in the Dark” is shared by Bilbo. This riddle is again a great example of symbolism related to teeth, but reversed from the riddles that have been discussed this far. This time, the teeth are not the hints, but the hinted at.

Thirty white horses on a red hill, First they champ, Then they stamp, Then they stand still.J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2014), 71.

In this riddle, the horses champ and stamp, which is a metaphor for chewing. Chewing alters the state of that which is chewed from solid to squishy, or from whole to broken. Bilbo’s riddle underscores an underlying connection that has been present in all of the ‘toothy’ riddles and the deer antler comb: teeth are inextricably linked to transformation.

In these riddles, teeth are always part of a metaphor that changes the reader’s perception of an object as they learn to look at it in a different way. The metaphors also change the subject of the riddles; a harmless comb can turn into a scary beast. The change does not necessarily have to be bad, as can be seen in Alcuin’s prose riddle. There, the comb is described as a marvelous beast that gently takes care of Alcuin’s hair.

As for the deer antler comb, there are three ways in which its teeth are linked to change. Firstly, combing hair can change someone’s appearance.From bed head to well-kept, or from Viking warrior to English monk (with the help of some shaving), the way you wear your hair can change who you are. Secondly, broken and/or cremated combs aided the recently deceased and their next of kin in the processes of moving on. Key here is that the combs used for this purpose were always broken, teeth were missing or destroyed to symbolize the change.

For the last and more symbolic way, I ask you to look at the comb again.