- "This is a story of long ago."
- —First words of The Hobbit
The prefatory note is the prologue of J.R.R Tolkien's The Hobbit, akin to the Foreword of The Lord of the Rings.
Summary[]
J.R.R. Tolkien, as the narrator, explains that because the story is set a long time ago, the languages used are vastly different from modern English, which required translation. He goes on to note two points. The first point is that he used the terms dwarves and dwarvish for Thorin and Company rather than dwarfs and dwarfish. The second point is that while the term Orc occurs in a couple of places in the story, it is a Westron or Hobbit-speech word which he translated to English as Goblin and Hobgoblin. In the same point, Tolkien notes that the Orcs in the story are not connected to the term "applied to sea-animals of dolphin-kind"; clearly referring to the Orca.
Tolkien then goes on to explain Runes and that during his story, they were only regularly used by the Dwarves. Finally, Tolkien notes the details on Thrór's Map and the moon-letters.
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