Thrór’s Map: is the first rune of MAY drawn as a D?

[stajo]

Hello all,

I’ve been reading the runes on Thrór’s Map closely and have come across something I can’t explain. I’d be grateful if someone could tell me whether it is already known.

The red inscription in the left margin of the map reads, as everyone knows, FIVE FEET HIGH THE DOOR AND THREE MAY WALK ABREAST · TH · TH. In both my copies of The Hobbit (HarperCollins 2007 and 2012, the first rune of MAY (fourth line, the word after THREE) looks to me exactly like the D rune (ᛞ). I compared it with the two certain D runes in the same inscription, the D of DOOR and the last letter of AND, and I can’t see any difference. I’d have expected ᛗ, where the diagonals meet higher up and leave the bottoms of the two uprights open.

The printed rune line in the opening note (“From the side a hand pointed to this, and under it was written:”) shows the same thing: the first rune of MAY is the same character as the D of DOOR. So the typesetting seems to follow the map faithfully rather than introduce an error.

Photos of both are attached.

My questions:

1. Is this a known feature of the map? Has it been discussed anywhere, for example in The Art of The Hobbit, The Annotated Hobbit or The History of The Hobbit?
2. Does the first edition of 1937, or Tolkien’s original drawing, show the same form?
3. Did Tolkien distinguish M and D in his hand-drawn runes, or is this simply how he wrote M? Neither inscription has another M to compare with, so I can’t tell from the map alone.

Best regards
Staffan

 

[Server Room Gremlin]

Hi @stajo , and welcome.

Do you mean this rune (outlined below in blue)?

If so, that looks like an M rune to me. The two upright strokes are longer, and stick out like small tails at the bottom. It might not be as extreme and visible as this: ᛗ
However if you compare it side by side with the two D runes, it does look different.

This is probably just an effect of how Tolkien wrote the runes, as you said.