Hobbit Tales Today: Stories of Small People from Flores (Indonesia)

Robert James Smith, Concilianus Laos Mbato

Abstract


There are many stories of little people worldwide. Recent archaeological discoveries in Flores have been combined with story to give tantalizing suggestions of pre-historic survival into modern times. A range of Western accounts is considered, from press releases to creative online response. The human need for story, and particularly for it to be local, is affirmed. Finally, local story is given voice and considered afresh.


Keywords


Flores; Hobbits;

Full Text:

PDF

References


Bertel, Erik John, Flores Girl: The Children God Forgot, [eBook] (Centereach, NY: Millenniuim Writing, 2008)

[accessed 10 November 2011].

Briggs, Katharine, The Fairies in Tradition and Literature (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1967).

Carey, John, William Golding (London: Faber and Faber, 2009), Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics, ed. by James Hastings, 13 vols (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1912).

‘Fairy’, Wikipedia [accessed 3 November 2011].

Golding, William, The Inheritors (London: Faber and Faber, 1955).

The Good People: New Fairylore Essays, ed. by Peter Narvaez (Lexington, KY: University Press of Kentucky, 1997).

The Irish in Us: Irishness, Performativity and Popular Culture, ed. by D. Negra (Durham, NS: Duke University Press, 2006).

Luomala, Katharine, The Menehune of Polynesia and Other Mythical Little People of Oceania (Honolulu: Bernice P. Bishop Museum, 1951).

Roberts, Rhoda, Stories of the Bundjalung: As Told by Rhoda Roberts (Artarmon NSW: ABC Audio Tape, 1993).

Roberts, Richard, ‘Villagers speak of the small, hairy Ebu Gogo’, The Telegraph [UK], 28 October 2004),

[accessed 2 November 2011].

Scott, Bill, Shadows Among the Leaves (Richmond, Vic: Heinemann, 1984).

Sereno, Martin I., ‘Language Origins Without the Semantic Urge’, Cognitive Science Online, 3.1 (2005), 1-12.

Wells, Rosemary, ‘The Making of an Icon: The Tooth Fairy in North American Folklore and Popular Culture’, in The Good People: New Fairylore Essays, ed. by Peter Narváez (Lexington, KY: University Press of Kentucky, 1997).

Witthoft, John, and Wendell S. Hadlock, ‘Cherokee-Iroquois Little People’, Journal of American Folklore, 59 (Oct-Dec 1946), 413-422.

Wrightson, Patricia, The Haunted Rivers (Maclean, NSW: Eight State Press, 1983).

Wrightson, Patricia, A Little Fear (Ringwood, Vic: Puffin, 1983).

Wrightson, Patricia, The Nargun and the Stars (Ringwood, Vic: Penguin, 1973).

Zipes, Jack, When Dreams Came True: Classical Fairy Tales and Their Tradition, 2nd edn (New York: Routledge, 2007).


Refbacks

  • There are currently no refbacks.




Copyright (c) 2011