I took it as the common Englishman being “little” in terms of having little formal power; he is a quiet, unassuming chap who lives in a tiny village and minds his own business. The Men and Elves were the royalty or nobility or the politically connected, English and otherwise, who did command formal power. Yet the “little people” had a collective power, and a strength, that the great and noble could not match. Hence, a small, unassuming, and unexpected creature was the only one who could actually win the war.
That’s why hobbits were little: as an analog to being little in terms of political power, but still potent. JMHO of course.
One item I rad said he DID invent elves. before him, elves were small crafty little vermin, like the goblins and faieries and leprechauns, always doing mischevious, mysterious or (sometimes) good things. (THe Elves and the Shoemaker); the little creepy-crawly guys that come out of the woodwork at night.
The article said he was the one who invented the “elf” race as tall noble, long-lived ethereal and aloof, simply using the name for a different type of race.
That article is wrong, then. Before they were minimized between Elizabethan and Victorian times, certain of the faerie were tall, noble, whimsical and DANGEROUS in old legends (including the Germanic ones that Tolkien borrowed so much from). What Tolkien did was revert back to that type minus the more capricious elements (although not entirely…in the Hobbit, the elves were still a bit silly…that got fixed by the time the Silmarillion started to shape up and the Professor used it as a springboard to LOTR).
While there may have been influences to his creatures - garnered from earlier and other mythology - his creations (sans “Man” himself) would have to be considered his originals.
Archetypes are fine and dandy - but he originated the ones in his books and certainly was not intentionally referring to the “orc from German mythology” or “elves as known to england” or the Dwarf race as he envisioned/described being akin to “short humans”.
35 years ago, when I was a teenager who had read The Lord of the Rings half a dozen times, I was struck when I read Louis Halle’s “The Cold War as History.” In it he suggests that the Lord of the Rings captures the fear and terror in Western Europe from the rise of Hitler in the 1930s through the Second World War and into the very hot early days of the Cold War.
Tolkien obviously drew inspiration from Celtic and Norse mythology.
Odin/Wotan was king of the gods. He wore grey and often wandered amongst mortals in a form that was a ringer for Gandalf, except that Odin had only one eye. Odin had a ring called Draupnir. Every night it made (crap I can’t remember if it was nine or twelve) copies of itself. Odin gave these rings to his faithful generals. For this reason a powerful king or chieftan was called a “ring giver”.
The parallels between the Hobbit, LOTR and the legend of Sigried have already been linked to.
Re Dwarves and Elves
In Norse legend, there were Alves and Svartalves, Dvirge, Mahasset and a bunch of others. There was no set description of each (except IIRC the Dvirge had crow feet). There was no clear line between types of dwarves or even between dwarves and elves. Celtic legend and British folklore were much the same.
Tolkien AFAIC set the mold for current elves and dwarves. It’s tough to find examples of them after the publishing of his books that aren’t clearly based on Tolkien.
Re Wyverns
I admit, I haven’t read much about Wyverns but aren’t they supposed to have stings on their tails?
according to that, my memory is a bit off. Draupnir make 8 copies of itself every 9 nights. Additionally, the entry indicates that it may have been an armlet rather than a ring. Still, I stand behind my post.
Have you got a cite for that? I’m not trying to be contrary or confrontational. It’s just if you have a cite for that, I’d like to read it and see what else I’m wrong about.
I’m actually old enough to remember the story of the elves and shoemaker and thought of the story to compare to “Tolkien’s elves” to ME it was his biggest variance, but then again I’ve never read German mythology or anything to do with the Silmarillion.
I had read once that C.S Lewis, Tolkien and another regularly met in a kind of “writer’s circle” and compared notes. That each had used God as an influence for their story lines. I had always wondered where such inspiration was in Tolkien’s series. With the addition of the Silmarillion I no longer question the parallels. I honestly don’t know how the guy didn’t die from writing the books they are so well put together with difficult almost biblical names and such.
He wrote somewhere in one of his prologues that he just wanted to try his hand at being a story-teller. So well I think he kinda overshot the mark, not that anyone is complaining.
I’d just like to say I find this information coming in very helpful, makes me wish the thread would never lose interest. If there are any further insights the floor is open. It’s great that so many came to tack in their knowledge to topic. Thanks again.
It’s not hard to find old tales of Elves that put them more Tolkien-like, rather than like “The Elves and the Shoemaker”. Consider the faeries in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, for instance, which are enough like humans that a human infant can be exchanged for a faerie one, and Titania can have a romantic dalliance with a human.
> I had read once that C.S Lewis, Tolkien and another regularly met in a kind
> of “writer’s circle” and compared notes. That each had used God as an influence
> for their story lines.
They were (nearly) all Christians. I assume that’s what you mean by using God as an influence.
C. S. Lewis was more overt in use of religious (and specifically Christian) symbolism and overtones. Not just in Narnia, but in his space trilogy as well.
Tolkien’s use of Christianity as a “backdrop” was much more subtle, and only really shows up in the Silmarillion and creation of the world stories. Thematically, of course, there’s lots of Christian themes in Tolkien, like the quality of mercy and good being rewarded and so forth.
It only really shows up overtly in the Silmarillion. There are bits and pieces of it elsewhere, though, if you know where to look for it. Probably the next-most-obvious is in one of the appendices to Lord of the Rings, where Aragorn refers to death as being The One’s gift to man. The One, in this context, is a title for God Almighty.
Now that we’re into the Silmarillon, my question is which religion/mythology/epic stresses superlatives the way tolkien did? What with ‘mightiest,’ ‘most valiant,’ ‘fairest,’ ‘most beloved,’ ‘most high,’ etc?
