Tighfield

From Tolkien Gateway
Tighfield
Town/Village
The Lord of the Rings Online - Tighfield.jpg
Tighfield in The Lord of the Rings Online
General Information
LocationThe Shire
TypeTown/Village
InhabitantsHobbits
GalleryImages of Tighfield

Tighfield was a village or town located somewhere in the Shire.[note 1] It was the home of several families, specifically Gamwich (later Gammidge) and Roper families.

Wiseman Gamwich came to Tighfield about two hundred years before the War of the Ring, and Wiseman's son Hob Gammidge is recorded as a roper, one of a long line of Tighfield rope-makers.[1]

Hob's son Hobson, and in turn his son Andwise, were said to have practised their craft in a rope-walk (that is, a rope-maker's yard) for many years.[2]

Hob's grandson was Hamfast Gamgee, Sam's father, who left Tighfield for Hobbiton, to start a new life as a gardener.[3]

Etymology[edit | edit source]

Tighfield's name is associated with the tradition of rope-making there and contains an old word for "rope" (see English "tie", whose spelling was assimilated to verb "tie"). It was the site of a rope-maker's yard, also called "rope-walk" because the ropes were stretched out in long lines over trestles at intervals.[4]

Tolkien notes the modern place-name elements tigh, teigh, tye, tey which are unrelated; they mean "an enclosed piece of land" and do not occur as the first element in a compound.[4]

Tolkien also noted that the term "rope-walk" in the text has confused several of his translators, to the point of imagining rope bridges.[4]

Portrayal in adaptations[edit | edit source]

2022: The Lord of the Rings Online:

Tighfield's is one of the four settlements of "the Yondershire", in the Shire's wilder north-western reaches.

Notes

  1. Tighfield's location is unknown as it is not included in the published map A Part of the Shire.

References