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Abstract
RAINER NAGEL'S BOOK, HOBBIT PALCE-NAMES, is divided into four parts, the first of which contains general discussions relevant to the book's topics, and the latter three giving Nagel' s analyses of the place-names in the Shire and Breeland. In his entry on the Bonfire Glade, Nagel mentions the possibility of a Hobbit tongue-in-cheek joke referring to a celebratory fire, and I would offer the idea that, with the sentient trees of the Old Forest, we could possibly speak of funeral fire, or even of a fire made of the bones of the trees, taking us back to the original meaning, "bone-fire" (16In) which Nagel also mentions. Despite referring to "the many philological jests found in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings" (3) Nagel is more hesitant to claim to have found one of these than some other Tolkien linguists, for which I would praise Nagel: I sometimes find that claims to have discovered yet another such "philological jest" stretch believability beyond breaking-point.