The Coalbiter Phenomenon

[Andorinha]

I have not actually found a letter of Tolkien's that details the formation of the Koalbitar Club started up in 1926 where JRRT and several others would meet to read/ translate the Norse sagas. But I think this thread still belongs here under the "Letters" topic as it provides a point of departure for talking a bit about the life-influences of Tolkien.

[Andorinha]

I got my introduction to the Kolbitar from Humphrey Carpenter's little book J.R.R. Tolkien: a biography. In the chapter detailing "Oxford Life" Carpenter follows a "typical day" in the life of JRRT, and approaches the subject thusly:

"After dinner he [JRRT] makes his excuses and leaves early, crossing the town to Balliol College where there is to be a meeting of the Coalbiters in John Bryson's rooms. The Koalbitar, to give it the Icelandic title (meaning those who lounge so close to the fire in winter that they 'bite the coal'), is an informal reading club founded by Tolkien somewhat on the model of the Viking Club in Leeds, except that its members are all dons. They meet for an evening several times each term to read Icelandic sagas." (H. Carpenter, "Biography," p. 127)

I probably would have left things right here, a simple definition of the name, and the fact that it represented a reader's club where Tolkien hoped to further an understanding of the sagas in their original tongue, hoped to create a wider interest in "Northern" learning at Oxford.

But yesterday, as I was reading (in English translation, of course!) through the Ketil Saga,* the term Coal Biter came frequently before me. Apparently the term came from the Old Norse period, and acted as a sort of descriptive "kenning" for Ketil. From this modest beginning I did a quick search under the terms koalbitar, coalbiter, and coal biter and came up with some startling information: there were a whole host of saga figures referred to by this name, in fact, as Peter Hallberg** soon made clear, "the coal biter" was a recognized genre, a "character type" found in many of the sagas. The "coal biter" was a sort of reluctant hero, someone who starts out looking like a hopeless wastrel, a n'eer do well, perhaps even an agoraphobic misanthrope -- but someone who has greatness thrust upon him, someone who finally rises to the occasion and winds up doing some great deed(s) and unexpectedly becomes the protagonist in a saga.

Here I thought of Bilbo Baggins first, and shortly thereafter of Frodo and Sam, and Pippin and Merry and... Certainly the entire "race" of the Hobbits exhibited this characteristic often, they were almost all "coal biters."

More as time allows...
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*
The Saga of Ketil Trout trans by Gavin Chappell online at:

www.northvegr.org/lore/oldheathen/012.php

**Peter Hallberg, The Icelandic Saga, 1962, pp 139-41.