highlights from Hobbit-Era Worldbuilding:
according to tolkiengateway these were-worms are never again mentioned (occupying a similar mythological space as mermaids and turtle-fish and dumbledors/hummerhorns), and the Last Desert is in fact the Gobi Desert
dragons established a breeding population sometime between the end of the War of Wrath and the beginning of the Hobbit
dragons have an innate sense of the market value of precious metals
one troll has a talking purse, which is also never again mentioned
The entirety of the moon-letters?? and also the riddle-game
gollum has pockets, apparently
okay so at this point in the lore chances are this is either irrelevant or metaphorical. but imagine if gollum survived 500 yrs with the ring because he randomly has a fire-fea, like some weird ancient hobbit equivalent of feanor
gandalf's "also naughty little boys that play with fire get punished" sounds very much like it was tacked on there as part of the bedtime story edition lol.
the Eagles regularly random shepherds' flocks
matches exist and are commonly in use, except for by dwarves
the Lord of the Eagles might not be gwaihir on account of the lack of a crown in gwaihir's later descriptions
forget bombadil, where did beorn come from. he's probably related to the tompolle dancing bears of numenor, but where did *those* bears come from. and who are these ancient giants (the thunder-battlers?)
how many dancing-bear skin-changers are there in rhovanion?? or is beorn just hosting dance parties with regular bears
The sleep river and eyes and white deer are probably the mirkwood equivalent of the nan dungortheb too-many-ainur-in-one-place weirdness
also "his people neither mined nor worked metals or jewels, nor did they bother much with trade or with tilling the earth." what was doriath even doing
dragons do the dolphin sleep thing
...so this bit of dragon etiquette is definitely turin's fault
and come to think of it, the wearing-hoards-as-armor is definitely from azaghal stabbing glaurung
bilbo has coined a lot of proverbs
hey that was gandalf's original name. it's a noldorin/gnomish name now and not attributed to a numenorean, so was bladorthin like. gil galads successor or something.
i had forgotten how much this sounds like the Oath
the Iron Hills dwarves have some sort of superfine maille?
sorry thorin, that's what you get for calling him a rat
imagine the Wars of Beleriand with added bilbo commentary
