 This solution occurred to Tolkien when he was searching for an explanation of the Eddaic names of the dwarves already published in "The Hobbit".Tolkien, a philologist, with a special interest in Germanic languages, pretended that the names and phrases of Old English were translated from Rohirric, just as the English used in The Shire was supposedly translated from Middle-earth's Westron or Common Speech.Examples include words such as "éored" and "mearas" (another Old English word for "horses", which survives into Modern English as "mares").