Proverbs in The Lord of the Rings

The author J. R. R. Tolkien uses many proverbs in The Lord of the Rings to create a feeling that the world of Middle-earth is both familiar and solid, and to give a sense of the different cultures of the Hobbits, Men, Elves, and Dwarves who populate it.

In "The Council of Elrond", Gandalf tells of his anger – she notes that he is known for his fiery temper – on finding that Butterbur had failed to send on his letter to Frodo, and humorously combines two proverbs about dogs to describe himself.

The differing styles of the races build up a picture in the reader's mind, he writes, of the diversity of Middle-earth, and dramatises the debates on ethics between the characters; the statements of the dwarves indicate "a kind of unyielding scepticism".

The implied message is that what appears as luck to the protagonists – if they keep up their courage, and ignore, in a similar manner as Frodo and Sam, "their bewilderments, infatuations, sense of being lost and abandoned" – is indeed a higher purpose and that all can work out well.

[20] One exchange of sentiments that Shippey states "sound like proverbs"[21] is between the Dwarf Gimli and his friend the Elf Legolas as they examine the stonework of Minas Tirith, the city of the Men of Gondor.

[21] Shippey remarks that the seed lying in the dust recalls the New Testament Parable of the Sower, and wonders if Tolkien is having these "soulless creatures", Dwarf and Elf, talk about the coming of Jesus to save the world.

He points out that this would be "an odd effect" in a book that Tolkien described in a letter as "a fundamentally religious and Catholic work; but all the same, not a contradiction, as in his view it would make sense for the virtuous pagans to have an inkling that a Saviour might one day come.

In his view, eight of the proverbs are Wellerisms, humorous sayings with facetious sequels,[22] giving as example[1] "'Where there's life there's hope', as my Gaffer used to say; 'and need of vittles', as he mostways used to add", said Sam.Boswell notes the presence of several figures of speech in the proverbs, including (in decreasing order of frequency) antithesis, alliteration, metaphor, personification, hyperbole, synecdoche, and (once each) assonance, simile, metonymy, litotes, and onomatopoeia.

A. Afanasiev and C. B. Krivopustova write that the multiple features of Tolkien's proverbs, sometimes including both direct and figurative meanings, make them exceptionally difficult to translate.

Finding none of these translations satisfactory, they supply their own version, "Nadezhda voznikayet tam, gde podstupayet t'ma k vratam" (Hope arises where darkness approaches the gates).