#<< my old english tag which i'll probably co-opt for lotr-related things as well

[berkeley-mews]

wait hold on i just started reading lotr for the first time & i noticed something really interesting!! according to the prologue, the word mathom is used by hobbits for things that they 'had no immediate use for, but were unwilling to throw away,' such as old weapons. i realised that mathom sounds very similar to the old english word maþum, which actually means 'treasure' or an otherwise 'precious or valuable thing'!! (i'm using the bosworth-toller dictionary's spelling & definition here.) it would be fascinating if that were also the original meaning of the hobbit mathom, applied to items considered valuable or important in the past -- but as they outgrew their utility over the centuries (as was very much the case with weapons), that meaning was forgotten & the word came to signify 'useless things' instead :D