I vote for the POW theory. Still, I think this points out another way in
which these elves are more like men than not. (Sorry if you've already
talked about this, I haven't been able to keep up this week.) In
particular, I think the butler and the chief of the guards are like men in that
they get drunk and steal the king's wine. I also wonder why they aren't
speaking in elvish? Why can Bilbo understand what is being said?
I looked up "dungeon" to see if I was missing an obscure meaning, but I don't
think so. I think when JRRT said "dungeon" he meant "prison" and not "the
secure main tower of a castle" or "keep."
FYI -
Encarta World English Dictionary
1. prison cell: a prison cell, often underground, especially beneath a
castle
2. castle keep: the secure main tower of a castle ( archaic )
[14th century. Via Old French donjon “castle keep” (later “secure
underground cell”) from, ultimately, Latin dominus “lord” (source of
English danger and dominion).]
The American Heritage Dictionary, 2000
The word dungeon may have gone down in the world quite literally, if one
etymology of the word is correct.
Dungeon may go back to a Medieval Latin word, domni, meaning “the lord's
tower,” which came from Latin dominus, “master.” In Middle English, in which
our word is first recorded in a work composed around the beginning of the 14th
century, it meant “a fortress, castle” and “the keep of a castle,” as well as
“a prison cell underneath the keep of the castle.” Dungeon can still mean
“keep,” although the usual spelling for this sense is donjon, but the meaning
most usually associated with it is certainly not elevated. It is also possible
that dungeon goes back to a Germanic word related to our word dung. This
assumed Germanic word would have meant “an underground house constructed of
dung.” If this etymology is correct, the word dungeon has ended up where it
began.
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Letter 27: I picture a fairly human figure, not a kind of ‘fairy’ rabbit as some of my British reviewers seem to fancy: fattish in the stomach, shortish in the leg. A round, jovial face; ears only slightly pointed and ‘elvish’; hair short . . .’
