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from the mixed-up files
Oct. 18th, 2008 01:59 pmRemember the plagiarism suit eight years ago against J.K. Rowling by the woman who'd written a children's book with the word "muggles" in it and characters named Potter? Here's the original news article.
Reading this at the time was the most recent occasion, I think, that inspired me to write a full-scale parody, which I posted to a mailing list I belong to. I just came across it in my files and thought it might be found amusing:
***
The article about the suit against Harry Potter interested me, because
I just read another article with an almost uncanny similarity ...
> REYKJAVIK (AP) -- Snorri Sturluson, a 12th-century Icelandic poet,
> today filed suit against J.R.R. Tolkien for plagiarizing dwarf-names
> from his work, The Prose Edda.
> Mr. Sturluson, who emerged from a volcano in western Iceland where
> he has been hibernating for 800 years, said that he had only recently
> learned of the similarities between his work and Prof. Tolkien's The
> Hobbit.
> "Just look at it," said Mr. Sturluson when interviewed today. "I've
> got a Thorin; he's got a Thorin. I've got a Gandalf; he's got a
> Gandalf. I've got Bifur, Bofur, Bombur, Dori, Nori, and Ori: so has
> he. Coincidence? I think not!"
> Mr. Sturluson said that Tolkien had almost certainly read the Edda
> while studying Icelandic in his student days, and had probably stored
> the names in a leaf-mould in his back yard for twenty years while
> preparing to use them in his book.
> "He wantonly and deliberately used my characters' names," said the
> white-bearded Icelander. "I'm thinking of reporting him to the
> woman who's suing the author of Harry Potter, too. Those books
> stole the name Lily Potter from this poor woman, and Tolkien had a
> hobbit called "Old Pott" in The Adventures of Tom Bombadil. And
> there's a hobbit named Lily in the family trees in The Lord of the
> Rings, too, so there!"
> Mr. Sturluson added that he was planning to expand his suit to cover
> Peter Jackson's film production of The Lord of the Rings, the BBC for
> their dramatization, the makers of Gandalf modems, and the cartoonist
> Dori Seda. "A guy's got to live, you know," he said. "I haven't had
> anything to eat in 800 years."
> To a reporter's comment that Mr. Sturluson's work merely quoted the
> dwarf names from an earlier, anonymous poem, The Elder Edda, the
> author expressed no concern. "Yeah, but I acknowledged it right up
> front," he said. "And nobody ever made a valid claim to have
> written the Elder Edda. I was the first person to use those names
> in an attributed work, so they're mine.
> "Besides, Nancy Stouffer (the woman who filed the
> suit) wasn't the first children's fantasy author to use the word
> Muggles. It was the name of Carol Kendall's heroine in The Gammage
> Cup forty years ago, and if Stouffer can claim trademark ownership
> of a word she didn't originate, then I don't don't see why I can't
> do the same with a few lousy dwarf names."
Reading this at the time was the most recent occasion, I think, that inspired me to write a full-scale parody, which I posted to a mailing list I belong to. I just came across it in my files and thought it might be found amusing:
***
The article about the suit against Harry Potter interested me, because
I just read another article with an almost uncanny similarity ...
> REYKJAVIK (AP) -- Snorri Sturluson, a 12th-century Icelandic poet,
> today filed suit against J.R.R. Tolkien for plagiarizing dwarf-names
> from his work, The Prose Edda.
> Mr. Sturluson, who emerged from a volcano in western Iceland where
> he has been hibernating for 800 years, said that he had only recently
> learned of the similarities between his work and Prof. Tolkien's The
> Hobbit.
> "Just look at it," said Mr. Sturluson when interviewed today. "I've
> got a Thorin; he's got a Thorin. I've got a Gandalf; he's got a
> Gandalf. I've got Bifur, Bofur, Bombur, Dori, Nori, and Ori: so has
> he. Coincidence? I think not!"
> Mr. Sturluson said that Tolkien had almost certainly read the Edda
> while studying Icelandic in his student days, and had probably stored
> the names in a leaf-mould in his back yard for twenty years while
> preparing to use them in his book.
> "He wantonly and deliberately used my characters' names," said the
> white-bearded Icelander. "I'm thinking of reporting him to the
> woman who's suing the author of Harry Potter, too. Those books
> stole the name Lily Potter from this poor woman, and Tolkien had a
> hobbit called "Old Pott" in The Adventures of Tom Bombadil. And
> there's a hobbit named Lily in the family trees in The Lord of the
> Rings, too, so there!"
> Mr. Sturluson added that he was planning to expand his suit to cover
> Peter Jackson's film production of The Lord of the Rings, the BBC for
> their dramatization, the makers of Gandalf modems, and the cartoonist
> Dori Seda. "A guy's got to live, you know," he said. "I haven't had
> anything to eat in 800 years."
> To a reporter's comment that Mr. Sturluson's work merely quoted the
> dwarf names from an earlier, anonymous poem, The Elder Edda, the
> author expressed no concern. "Yeah, but I acknowledged it right up
> front," he said. "And nobody ever made a valid claim to have
> written the Elder Edda. I was the first person to use those names
> in an attributed work, so they're mine.
> "Besides, Nancy Stouffer (the woman who filed the
> suit) wasn't the first children's fantasy author to use the word
> Muggles. It was the name of Carol Kendall's heroine in The Gammage
> Cup forty years ago, and if Stouffer can claim trademark ownership
> of a word she didn't originate, then I don't don't see why I can't
> do the same with a few lousy dwarf names."
