In some degree, friendship is present in all of Tolkien’s writings, but it is never so vivid and developed as it is in The Lord of the Rings. The overall importance of friendship in the War of the Ring is hinted at even by the subtitle of the first volume, The Fellowship of the Ring. Yet we must keep in mind that a title is usually a result of an argument between the author and his editor or publisher in which the latter one’s word has greater weight, because he knows better what would attract the readers. So the choice of ‘the fellowship’ may or may not indicate how big a role friendship played in Tolkien’s imaginative world of Middle-earth. But knowing what a pedantic writer Tolkien was, it can be assumed that there must have been some reason why he agreed upon this particular subtitle.

It is certain that the problem of appropriate subtitles for the three volumes of the book was a matter of lengthy discussion between Tolkien and his publisher and friend, Rayner Unwin, that lasted about half a year, as it is briefly mapped out in Carpenter’s collection (2006, pp. 165-170). The very first subtitles Tolkien suggested after his intention to publish it as a one volume book failed, were more closely related to the Ring and its actual position during the journey. There were originally six, one for each book. These were later dropped when the publisher desired only one title for each volume. Only after Rayner’s personal visit did Tolkien settle on the current subtitles. “The Fellowship of the Ring will do, I think; and it fits well with the fact that the last chapter of the Volume is The Breaking of the Fellowship” he reasoned (ibid., p. 170).

Apropos of The Breaking of the Fellowship, a remarkable fact is that the word ‘company’ in reference to the Nine Walkers was used in the text over 130 times, whereas the term ‘fellowship’ appeared only in nine cases apart from the title of the chapter and the volume, plus once in the Prologue and three times in Appendix B. And out of that, in one instance they both happened to be used in the same sentence as equal synonyms (Tolkien, 2011, p. 955). Moreover, the phrase ‘the Fellowship of the Ring’ with a capital first letter in ‘fellowship’ was used only once! It is when Aragorn said farewell to his friends at the end of the story: “Here then at last comes the ending of the Fellowship of the Ring” (ibid., p. 981).

Why then did Tolkien prefer ‘fellowship’ rather than ‘company’ for the titles, when he so seldom used it in the text? An answer to this may be found in the philological description of these words. Though nowadays the words ‘fellow’ and ‘companion’ are often used interchangeably as synonyms, their meanings slightly vary and Tolkien, as a professor of philology, was well aware of this.

‘Companion’ comes from Old French compaignon, originally from Latin companio meaning literally “one who shares bread”. It indicates someone who associates or goes along, accompanies another; who shares in an activity with another or spends time with him, often only by a chance. In the past it mostly denoted people who were travelling together. Similarly, ‘company’ was first used in this sense to mark a group of co-travelers, companions. Among other definitions there is: a group of people joined together for some common purpose; or in general, a number of people gathered in one place, a small society. It also represents a military unit. But ‘company’ can denote also the feeling of togetherness, a ‘companionship’. This kind of relationship typically involves only little or no emotion and personal affection, since a company is usually created out of need and inevitability, rather than desire.

‘The Company of the Ring’ then may seems more suitable a name for the Nine Walkers. They were a number of characters of different races who came to Rivendell to seek advice. It may be only by chance that they all arrived around the same time, when big things were due to be decided. When they met for the first time, each of them was full of certain opinions and prejudices which they were not easily willing to give up. Some of them were even suspicious, unfriendly, spiteful, and almost hateful because of personal or historical conflicts, such as the elves and the dwarves. And suddenly they were chosen to travel together for an undefined period of time, and face death together. They were appointed for a hopeless task full of danger and struggles, and were then expected to help and rely on each other. When they set off, most of them were total strangers; they did not know anything about their co-travelers.

The group thus meets all the basic characteristics of ‘company’ as defined by dictionaries. They were a group of people who happened to travel together by chance. They were joined together for one common purpose, destroying the Ring. Consequently, they spent much time together and needed to co-operate in many activities that were necessary for their survival and the achievement of their task. They even literally shared bread and all food, as the original ancient meaning of ‘companion’ implies. Moreover, it was obviously an organized group because not everyone in it had an equal position. Some persons were more important in it than others, and the leaders could be easily identified. And even though they did not really have war ambitions, their aim was closely war-related. So, in this sense it could be understood as some kind of military unit, too. Moreover, since it involved representatives of all the free nations of Middle-earth, it was an example of the society in miniature.

However, the group does not remain the same throughout the whole story. The relations within it change and evolve towards friendship. And that is where the definition of ‘company’ ceases to be sufficient. Thus, the meaning of ‘fellowship’ has to be considered. The root word ‘fellow’ comes from the Old English feolaga and originated from the Old Norse felagi, which is a combination of words meaning “money” and “lay” and implies “one who puts down money with another in a joint venture”. This original business connotation was later extended to any kind of partner, and nowadays it is also used as a synonym for ‘companion’ or comrade. But in the most general sense it is applied to any man, whilst two attributes of meaning can be distinguished: in a positive way it can be used to name someone who is in the same situation as me, of the same class, my equal, a peer with whom I have something in common; and in a negative way it is used to point out disgracefully that someone is of lower rank or considered to be of little importance or worth.

Such meanings hardly correspond to what is needed to precisely define the group of the Nine Walkers and their actual relations. ‘Fellow’ is just too general and used too carelessly, even more than ‘companion’. And Tolkien knew this, for he used it similarly widely, for good and bad creatures alike. But the most significant difference is found in the “–ship” ended derivates of these words.

A ‘fellowship’, in spite of its modern scholarly and religious connotations, implies in each of its definitions some degree of friendship. It can be said that friendship is essential for the formation of fellowship. The New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary provides the following definition of fellowship: “Friendliness; the spirit of comradeship; an instance of this” (1993, p. 932). And other dictionaries contribute to this by describing it as “a close association of friends or equals sharing similar interests” or even likening it to a brotherhood. It can be observed that, like ‘companionship’, it is based on shared interests, experiences, and aims; but ‘fellowship’, in addition to this, provides something extra – a feeling of closeness and intimacy, mutual love, a friendship. Thus all the actions performed between the members of such a group are no longer done only out of a duty, but are motivated by fellow feeling and concern for the wellbeing of one’s co-travelers. And this is a much more appropriate description of the relations between the Nine Walkers.

It is not certain when the transformation from pure ‘company’ into a ‘fellowship’ happened, but from their stay at Lothlórien on, the group is perceived rather as a ‘fellowship’ and the friendly bonds between them are much strengthened. All the time they were absolutely free to leave when they wanted, but none of them did—some out of pride, like Boromir, but most of them out of friendship; they could not betray their friend in time of his greatest need.

And the best manifestation of why ‘fellowship’ is more suitable for them can be found in the scene when Aragorn, after the breaking up of their company, has to decide whether he, along with Legolas and Gimli, will follow the Ring-bearer or the kidnapped hobbits. If he acted out of duty, he would need to go after Frodo. But he did not. He decided to chase the orcs in hope to save his dear friends from their claws. This does not mean that he loved or cared about Frodo and Sam less. They just were not in immediate danger; moreover, their success depended on secrecy, and three such strong figures as they were would seem suspicious in the land they were going to. So, rather, it might have been Aragorn’s love and friendship that kept him from going with Frodo, either because he could not help him much or because he did not want to attract unwanted attention to him. Instead, he chose the evidently more hopeless task to run after the enemies and save Merry and Pippin, or die trying. Actually, the two of them were very dear to everyone in the company and almost everyone who met them treated them with special kindness, as if they were small children. No one wanted them to get hurt, but rather to keep them safe, and that is why they often felt like useless baggage and were always left out of the great deeds.

But returning to the original question of why Tolkien preferred the Fellowship of the Ring to Company in the subtitle of the first volume, having already explained the meanings, the choice now seems natural. Not only does ‘fellowship’ better captures the relations and feelings created between its members, but the connotations this word has for most people make it more attractive for the readers, since people are more likely to reach for a book whose subtitle has an emotional undertone. Consequently, both the writer and the publisher could be satisfied.
Another feature that indicates how significant friendship was in Middle-earth is the writing on the gate of the ancient underground city of dwarves, Moria: “pedo mellon a minno” (Tolkien, 2011, p. 305).

Gandalf, being the best skilled in ancient Elvish languages, read it as follows: “Speak, friend, and enter” (p. 306, my emphasis), presumably understanding the word mellon to be only a way of addressing the potential reader of the note, and adding emphasis on the first word of the utterance. However, as it was later revealed, with the missing punctuation in Elvish, it was in fact a riddle with a self-contained answer and the correct reading should have been: “Say “Friend” and enter”(p. 308), with emphasis on the word ‘friend’ as being the keyword which opens the gate. Has it been written this way, it could have saved them much time and also some serious trouble. But that is part of the story’s magic, which increases the tension.

However, here again a question arises: Why had the word ‘friend’ been chosen to be the password? Does it have any special importance in the world of Middle-earth? As it is explained in the book, the password had to be some easy-to-remember and generally known word because the gate it opened guarded an entrance to the famous dwarf-craft centre, which stood along a busy trading route between the realms of Man and Elves. In the time of peace, the Gate of Moria was much frequented, being used by all the three races of the Free Peoples. It may be that this word had been chosen to mark those friendly terms between them.

It would seem that the gate should have kept out all evil creatures, like mountain orcs. Not that the Dark Lord and his servants knew nothing about friendship; he did, and he even offered his friendship to many people or nations, such as to Dáin the dwarf king from the Lonely Mountain. But there was a contrast in friendship as perceived and realized by the Dark Lord and by the Free Peoples. Sauron was perverted and his friendship unfair. He only desired domination and power over others. He could not share or help; that is why he was not capable of any true kind of friendship, because these two features—sharing and mutual help—are the principal characteristics of friendship. He could only feign friendship in order to achieve his goals, but the history reveals that everyone who had ever been offered his pseudo-friendship was betrayed afterwards; it always had disastrous results for them, as for example, the Númenorians or Elves from Eregion.

Moreover, Sauron also initiated and supported unfriendliness between the nations who stood against him, because then they were weaker and he could subdue them more easily. He did this by means of suspicion, and he let false and misleading information spread over the world; for example, the rumour that the Rohirrim pay a tribute of horses to Sauron. It was therefore necessary to maintain and keep friendship between the Free Peoples, so that they could better defend their land from Sauron’s raiding servants. Such nation-friendships, or Alliances, though formed especially for war purposes, had long-term effects on the relations of the nations. One of the greatest importance was definitely the Last Alliance, when only thanks to the united forces of Men and Elves, they were able to defeat the Dark Lord. This cooperation was never forgotten, and in the story it was often recalled or used as an example to break race prejudices. But apart from it, there were also some minor alliances related only to a specific area or situation, such as the one between Elves, Men, and Dwarves during the Battle of Five Armies (though this one was formed out of sudden necessity rather than willingness), or friendly-help pacts, like the one between Gondor and Rohan that had its roots even further in the past.

In general, it can be said that in The Lord of the Rings some kind of friendship was necessary for survival, whether for individuals or whole nations. Tolkien experienced it in his own life and knew the real value of friendship. He knew that true friendship has a magical power when one is alone and suffering an unfortunate fate, like when he became orphaned, or like Frodo when he realized how dangerous his possession was. Very likely it was friendship that kept Tolkien from going mad in the trenches, so the significance of friendship that can be perceived in his books is not surprising. And the inscription on the Gate of Moria is just the clearest and most apparent expression of this truth.
Linguistic Note

The Elvish word mellon itself is a perfect example of the process behind the creating of languages as understood by Tolkien the philologist. It is well-known that Tolkien’s invented languages were not made up randomly, but the word mellon proves that they were inspired by Latin and Old Finnish, not only phonetically and grammatically, but also semantically.

Mellon is translated as ‘friend’, being derived from root mel- meaning ‘love’. So it actually means ‘the one who is loved’. However, Tolkien did not assign the word such meaning just because he liked it, but it involved a deeper reasoning. In his language-making he followed the very same principles which are observable within real languages. Because of this, the construction of mellon is similar to the Latin word for friend – amico, which is derived from the verb amare, meaning ‘to love’. And amicitia, a word which Cicero used for ‘friendship’, has the same base, as well. Similarly, the Greek word philia that Aristotle used, denotes one of four kinds of love the Ancient Greeks recognized, derived from philos – ‘loving’, and philein – ‘to love’. Even the English word friend has the same etymology, originating from Old English freond, and the verb freogan which means ‘to love, to favor’.

Having given these examples from evidently distinct languages, it seems that the notion of ‘friend’ is the same in most European languages, though expressed in other words. So, naturally, Tolkien could do no other than follow this pattern if he wanted his Elvish to resemble real languages. Moreover, the word mellon as ‘the loved one’ is thus in correspondence with the philosophical understanding of friendship described as a special type of love.
Notes

To use the term ‘fellow’ so freely is a typical feature of hobbitic speech as a sign of their easy-going lifestyle. In Book I, the four hobbits use it not only for their friends or acquaintances, but in the general sense even in reference to the Black Riders until Aragorn explains to them what they actually are. As for the bad characters, the orcs use it too among themselves. In total, the word appeared in the text exactly 53 times.
Resources

Barnhart, C.L. (ed.), The World Book Dictionary: A – K, 1993, Chicago: World Book, 1993. 1166 pp. ISBN 0-7166-0293-8

Brown, L. (ed.), The New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary: A – M, 1993, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993. 1876 pp. ISBN 0-19-861134-X

Carpenter, H. (ed.), The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien, 2006, London: HarperCollins, 1981. 502 pp. ISBN 978-0-261-10265-1

Tolkien, J.R.R., The Lord of the Rings, 2011, London: HarperCollins, 2011. ISBN 978-0-261-10356-6

www.etymonline.com

www.thefreedictionary.com