More than a Hobbit

If Rysiek Derdziński could be granted his secret wish, it would be to have a toy pair of big hairy feet to slip on over his own. Not that there's anything wrong with the feet Derdziński was born with; it's just that he wants to look like the big-footed hobbit characters who exist in the books of the famous fantasy fiction writer, J.R.R. Tolkien. And exactly how big and hairy are hobbit feet? See for yourself. Last Friday marked the official opening in Poland of "Fellowship Of The Ring" - the movie version of the first installment of Tolkien's epic novel trilogy, "Lord Of The Rings." Over the weekend, the movie's distributor, Warner Bros., estimated around 1.4 million people in Poland saw it. Derdziński, who is what you would call a Tolkien devotee, saw the movie last month when it opened in the Czech Republic. He and 50 other Polish fans rented a bus to take them there. The movie, which will be followed up by the launch of parts two and three next year, has created something of a renaissance for Poland's Tolkienists. And Derdziński, who also goes by the hobbit name of Frodo Maggot, while his wife, Klaudia, is known as Daisy Maggot - is seeing this renaissance first hand. In addition to being the head of Poland's biggest Tolkien fan club at the Katowice-based Silesian Science Fiction and Fantasy Club, Derdziński edits a Polish Tolkien magazine, runs a Tolkien Web site and is fluent in the numerous languages that Tolkien invented. He also worked as a translator on Poland's newest book edition of "Lord Of The Rings." Published by Amber, Derdziński spent two months translating the book's 100 pages of appendices. In his opinion, it is the best of the three other Polish versions of "Lord Of The Rings." "I'm very proud of my work," said Derdziński, a political science graduate. So is Empik media store spokeswoman Beata Woszczyńska, who says Amber's new edition has become a bestseller among the 30 books written by and about Tolkien. Woszczyńska said the launch of the film has seen Tolkien book sales increase by as much as 25% in the past two weeks. Sopot-based toy maker, Trefl, has created under a Polish and Eastern Europe license, two "Lord Of The Rings" board games, playing cards and six jigsaw puzzles. The puzzles were released last week and already Trefl has sold 40,000. Manoj Madnani, the president of domestic licensed toy distributor, Fareast, believes "Lord Of The Rings" products will be big sellers here for the next three years thanks to the future movie releases of parts two and three, and then home videos. Madnani predicts licensed product sales could reach $15 million-$20 million. For Derdziński, his fascination for Tolkien began when, as a young boy in the 1980s, he read two of Tolkien's other titles, "The Hobbit" and "The Silmarillion." Back then, he said, Tolkien books were difficult to find and very expensive. It took him three years to find the first and third parts of the "Lord Of The Rings" trilogy, first published in Polish in the late 1960s. It took another 12 months before he found the second part. "Because these books were so hard to find, I think that was part of the appeal of Tolkien," Derdziński said. "But that all changed after 1990 and the fall of communism. People discovered that by publishing more books, they could sell more books and make a profit, so thanks to free trade there are around 30 books by Tolkien that you can buy in Poland now." Derdziński found another niche where he could profit from fascination with hobbits and elves. He sells figurines on his Web site (www.elvish.org/gwaith), which, since the launch of "Fellowship Of The Ring," has been getting about 3,000 hits a day from around the world.