The Mythology that Inspired Tolkien

JRR tokim built an incredible fantasy world in his books The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings but what inspired him to do so what stories influenced him today we're going to look for the answers to these questions in the mythology of the Bible old norex Anglo-Saxon and Celtic cultures too and so if you have ever asked yourself how did Hobbits come to be who inspired the evil Saron or where did elves get their magic and whether you've just watched the films or have read the books or even want to write a book then today I will take you on a journey to explain tolken Universe from a mythological perspective and if that sounds interesting then grab yourself a second breakfast with a second cup of tea and welcome to kenford before I get into the myths that influen the book it is worth noting that during his life Jr talkin published much work but out of all this there were only three Fantasy World Books The Hobbit the Lord of the Rings and The Adventures of Tom Bombadil the latter an absentee from the films and even with just three books talking continued to tweak with them even after they were first published and when he died tolken left a huge amount of unpublished work incomplete with multiple versions and this provides a real challenge for those who are trying to unpick what was going on in his mind in fact his son Christopher tokim dedicated the latter half of his life to doing just that and in doing so published much of this incomplete work in his father's name from a version of the Anglo-Saxon story of bearwolf to the old nor Smith of sigar and goodin to the Germanic influence story around Finn and hangist all of which provide clues as to the influences within his fantasy world the result of these Publications is that there are now many more books attributed to toen but this also means that some questions can have multiple answers based on the book you take information from because they were written at different times in tolkin life meaning some answers are well ambiguous and there are actually some questions that no one really knows the answer to for sure and so that is my disclaimer here to all the Talking fans who are watching this video because I know some of them are incredibly dedicated and will argue amongst each other much in the same way as Maria do Brandy beckh and peran took you know because they argued about everything and so to help me I had to dive into many books on talking and I just want to highlight one one of these now that was particularly useful and that is a book by Anthony Cummings an accomplished author and he has just written this the ultimate unofficial guide to tolkin world now this book is particularly aimed at people who want to know more about tolken but perhaps haven't read the books multiple times it is superbly placed if you want to understand the universe in more detail and is really an essential reference and it was essential for this video and for transparency the reason I'm saying this is because I know Anthony personally and I knew him long before he wrote that book in fact he didn't even tell me he was writing the book until he gave me an advanced copy for free so thank you Anthony for that uh although he did not put me under any obligations to talk about the book or talk or review it in any way but I'm just saying because he is a friend and because he is a very good book that thank you very much and I'll Place links below if anyone else wants to get hold of that book cuz it is exceptionally good and so let's now start our journey into token's Universe by explaining how his cosmogony all began and that is how did the world where we find Hobbits elves dwarves Orcs goblins bogs and of course man come to be far less well read Than The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings is a Similan which serves as a foundational text for the Mythos of Middle Earth you can compare it to the old nor edas or the Hindu mahabarata in the sense that it is a collection of stories that help you understand how the world and the cosmos it is in came to be it covers the very earliest stories and myths of that world as well as etymologies and genealogies that span from the creation all the way up to events leading up to the story of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings and in fact the similon has a synopsis in effect of The Lord of the Rings within it although it isn't a substitute to actually reading those books now the first part of the Similan is about the music of the anoir who are Divine spirits of to King's World unimaginable by mortal minds and they act as a Divine choir producing the anol linday the music of creation this music a with magic was used to create the World by eru elata the Divine Creator who could turn this music and Magic into a physical form allowing matter to form and the cosmos to come into being now within the Divine quoad there is one aanu who is corrupt and his name is melor and he SWS the seeds of Evil and so grows the darkness we see in token's other work however I think it's also important to note that melor was not inherently evil at the outset he just grew that way through impatience he wanted to build his own Creations on the world and when he couldn't do this it grew discontentment within him and this discontentment eventually turned into evil and I think that in its own way is a message about this world we live in today and this journey of evil took some time and so before that actually takes place and affects the world the next part of the Similan is named after the account of the Valor which is translated into a form of Elvish known as quena and is called V quenta here the V and the Maya are described as demigods and Spirits respectively and they are subordinates to uar and so this represents a Divine hierarchy which is similar to patterns we see in the pantheons of Europe with a chief God and L Gods such as we see in the of the nor on the to of the Celtic but we also find with in this Pantheon the evil melor who is a demigod now and this is a spoiler alert he will eventually turn into more goth as he becomes the primary source of evil and this all comes to be as he has this desire to come down to the world and become a God in his own right controlling what happens on the world and this is a key part of token's plot allowing a battle between good and evil and was perhaps a reflection of token's own religious thought as tolkin was a practicing Catholic of the Christian church now because of this some people might consider morgoth a devil figure but I feel what tolken has done here even if he was unaware of it is to to use what was a zoroastrian view of world creation within Zoroastrianism they say that at the time of creation the world was not just made of good otherwise it would have been forever good it must have had some bad in it and so we see talken in the same way add some bad into this world via morgoth and if you aren't familiar with the books then one particular character which made his way through Mor goths Army through the ranks of his army and became his chief Lieutenant is a character by the name of saon who if you're familiar with the Lord of the Rings is the guy who has the big eye looking at everything and so we find a lineage of evil all the way through tolkin books because his stories require evil because how can good Triumph unless there's an evil to beat now this Narrative of ending the world which was the aim of these evil beings an eschatology of sorts could be much like what is mentioned in the Book of Revelation of the Bible but we could equally apply other end of the world motifs such as that from North mythology as much like Loki morgoth eventually seemed as though he wanted to destroy the world and with nor Smith Ragnarok did the end of the world was part of this process but it was also a secular process perhaps better said is a restart of the world and so slightly different although this motif of destroying the world doesn't apply to sinon's Uprising as was there is no doubt he was evil he didn't set out to destroy the world but instead he wanted to rule it all we also see influences from other parts of European culture Anglo-Saxon and Celtic and so in effect some core indoeuropean themes within t hains books and one interesting part of his universe is shown in a realm called a man a complex realm which was one where men could sail to and visit but which is later taken out of the physical world and becomes the undying land within tolkin Universe which is a realm which is meant to reflect the Celtic other world a place described as being of utter Beauty and Tranquility yet separate yet connected to the mortal world and whilst this isn't an exact representation of what we know of the indoeuropean other world which was a place that was void of all things because we see an absence of evil an absence of hunger an absence of worry this other world is described as a paradise but it was absent of good things too and so whilst though the undying land is was in some ways meant to reflect this other world talking could not not actually describe it as it really was in Celtic texts otherwise the read would be lost and so he had to lose some of the underlying Celtic mythology associated with the land to make it more recognizable and I explain this more in this video about the goddess of the other world if you're interested in seeing that now if you have seen the films or read the books you will also be aware of the key theme in token's world book one that shows how his world the world that was created through music and magic at its beginning gradually Fades as it moves closer to the modern era this is meant to align to how man loses his magical abilities within the story isn't we eventually see elves leave Middle Earth and dwarves go back underground if you look back out on the story of The Fellowship of the Ring and to Return of the King you can clearly see an underlying message on how humans could be considered to have disenchanted the world and this is token's own personal message and we see this play a significant role within his stories with the creation of the universe tolken looked to weave in cosmology that took this view of fading of magic and the rise of men to signify a transition from the Mythic age to one that is meant to resemble our own history encapsulating token's own view of how the world has lost its magic and enchantment the center of tolkin cosmology is his axis Mundy and is represented by the two trees of the venor which are in the land of the Gods and it feels like tolken has taken some influence at least from the old Norse mythology around the osil the old Norse world tree although for completeness there was originally two great lamps represented North and South within tolkin world but these were destroyed by morgoth now the mythology around the igil is that it connects various Realms together and it represents as a whole the health of the cosmos this construction or or framework isn't really directly applied to tolken two trees which primar serve the Val in venor but it is the essence of these trees that is important to tolkin Cosmos as this Essence was stored in three sacred Jewels called the similes and it is these Jews that the book The similon is named after and it is these Jews that were stolen by morgo and that starts the adventures and wars that lead to the recovery of these jewels and this period from the stealing of those Jewels through the recovery represents the first stage of tolkin world now whilst the two trees did not connect Realms together there were multiple Realms within this Cosmos and by Realms we mean regions of land not physically different worlds per se and this is the same idea as with North Smith where some consider the Realms as different worlds where they really are just different regions of the earth now in token's Cosmos we have Middle Earth named after the Old Norse word mythgard and which is represented in both old nor and tulkin stories as the place where humans lived and then we have the previously mentioned venor the land of the Gods much like asgar in alos but we also have a realm called a man which I mentioned earlier which is the continent on which the Valor live and which was separated from Middle Earth by the bellare ocean and then there was the island of numo which was given to men and then which was destroyed when the men rebelled against the Val which is seen as an analog to the mythical land of Atlantis and speaking of things that were lost we also have band which was a region to the west of Middle Earth but sunk beneath the ocean at the end of the first age and then there are some Elven Realms such as lothorian and rivendale which possess an etheral or another worldly quality reflecting some of the folkloric aspects of the other world from Indo-European mythology and these regions were separated from the molar World by a thin veil which it is possible to pass through providing you know the whale have some magical ability to see that and this concept of a magical barrier also appears in other parts of token's world such as something called the girdle of million and finally there were also three other regions worth knowing a which is the universe itself where all material things are in then we have the void which is where Mor goth was banished to and this is considered to be outside of here in fact an emptiness outside of creation and last but by no means least there was the afterlife of the elves which was called the Hall of Mandos which is a purgatorial realm where Elven Spirits go after death and where they are judged and some say where they are reborn however it is also interesting to note that toin never mentions where men go when they die perhaps they all went to heaven but we just don't know for sure and what is interesting about these physical places within token's world is that they actually are represented by real places although not necessarily within our time today but from the past and so for example we have the sh which seems to be represented by rural England in the 19th century or there is Gondor which seems to be a combination of Rome and Constantinople and tolkin was influenced by many historical places alongside their myths and so when creating his world he would leverage this making the world seem more real to the reader Hobbits are an intriguing race because they seem to be the least affected by the greater magical events occur in the Middle Earth than others and they seem to have the attributes that are stereotypically applied to people who have lived in rural England for many generations gentle and kind and wary of strangers and perhaps you could say they have many odd habits for those who are not used to their ways their magic is rather underwhelming small enchantments may be as opposed to Thunderbolts and lightning but some are also able to resist magic such as the corruption of the One Ring we find elves in Nordic myth of particular note though is the blacksmith vand or whand the Smithy in Anglo-Saxons times who can be used as a comparison and so in tolken Mythos elves seem influenced by the alha of the old North stys they are magical but also symbolize the ancient and the Eternal how the world was and you could also argue that the imagery used gives them more of a Celtic feel but as we lack primary source material for Celtic myth we are really left reflecting on the similarities with the nor myths the High Elves particularly seem very much like the light elves of the north and and the dark elves of the nor to a or tolkin elves of Darkness however we do see the term Dark Elves or black elves within translations of the Old Norse edas and where we see this they can often be linked to dwarves and a good example of this is in a chapter called the scar scalp which talks about when Loki Stills Thor's wife's hair and he gets dwarves to replace it now now the dwarves of tolkin world seem to be a middle ground between the natural Magic Of The Elves and the industriousness of men much like the dwarves of Old North Smith and they also skilled in mining and crafts and demonstrate that magic can coexist with the mechanical and the names of the dwarves in The Hobbit are taken from an old North poem called the volor which names the first dwarves and if we look at this list we find names such as Thorin bin ding Philly Killy Dy NY AI o glin before buur bombo and we also find a dwarf named Gandalf in this old nor poem a name that tolken then picks up and uses for The Wizard of his stories the humans or men as tolken called them in Middle Earth are an interesting mix of many heroic archetypes found in Indo European myth from Greek Heroes to aruan Legend the men in talking stories are agents of change wanting more power more land and all the time they're heading towards this goal and all the time they are doing that the more magic and music is lost from the world their fate very much reflects on how tolken saw the world he lived in and how humans had an impact on it specific characters that are worth noting from his books are Beyond from The Hobbit which is a man who could transform himself into a bear and it seems likely that this influence comes from the Vikings and members of their Warriors that were called Berserkers and Berserker means bekin and they were known for being Furious within combat and the Riders of Rohan seemed very much influenced by Anglo-Saxon language and culture then we see Theoden apply on the old English word Theoden meaning King who is very much first seen as a man in Decline and then follows a typical aruan legend by Rising again to Victory and the names of the characters immer and elwin are again very much Old English in their construction other creatures found within the stories are influenced from other myths of Anglo-Saxons and not we see trolls ants Eagles and Dragons all of which appear in these myths now the ants are tree beings and their leader although the main one you see within the books tree beard is the most prominent however we don't really see a European myth that gives an analog of this but there is much folk tale about walking and talking trees the Dragon Smoke guards the treasure and within the Hobbit this seems to be a reflection of the Anglo-Saxon story bearwolf although similar stories are found across the Germanic landscape and here we see The Hobbit stealing a particular piece of gold much like bearwolf and there's also the old nor story of sigaran Gard published in tolkin name which is another classic Dragon Story from Nordic culture and we also see trolls sometimes called Giants in Old nor and they suffer the same fate in Old nor mythology as we see in The Hobbit where trolls Turn to Stone in the sunlight and there's a good example of this in the poem Al visol which says in one stanza it's Dawn now him good and Atley has kept you talking until you lay down your life as a harbor Mark you look hilarious standing there transformed into stone and perhaps a final clue of influences into talking are around the weapons and the Germanic influence in naming swords we see weapons within tolkien's World given name such as the naril or the anduril blade and this gives the weapons personalities and again shows token's connections with mythology within Europe from bygone eras by the end of The Lord of the Rings the elves are departing for venor the hobbits are returning to the sh and forever changed losing the Innocence that was a key part of their charm and the dwarves have disappeared underground so is this a reflection of a loss of magic and music The End of the Age of myth or is it talkling acknowledging that knowledge power and industrialization has now distanced man a long way from his natural beginnings and this connection with music and Magic looking at token's Cosmos his Universe it becomes clear that his works are not just Flights of Fancy but really rather carefully crafted narratives woven into a loom of Indo-European mythology from the intricate Melodies of the anind delay to the rugged Landscapes of Middle Earth tolkin World building has drawn upon ancient Traditions translating them into stories that resonated with people for decades based on myths that has resonated with people for thousands of years yet while the influence of old nson and Anglo Saxon Celtic myths is unmistakable to me tolkin genius lies in his ability to create a really cohesive original world that both celebrates and Mourns the fading of Magic the fading of music The Fading of the appreciation of nature you know the loss of what you could consider the romantic view of the past where things seemed more innocent and better and this is due to the Unstoppable March of time his work has allowed us to embark on a journey or quest to connect back with this world and I just think because of that these are beautiful stories well worth reading I want to thank my patrons before I go for all their support and their help and their questions and I'd also like to ask if you find these kind of videos looking at fictional work and comparing the myth useful I've only done a light touch here on Tolen you could go a lot deeper but I could also cover things like Harry Potter or Star Wars or Terry practice work if you wanted and so with that I want to say thank you to my friend Anthony Cummings for this book which made this video possible I'd like to thank all of you for watching and drinking tea or any other beverage you've got thank you for your continued support and lovely questions and comments that you leave really appreciated thank you for liking the video and with that please stay safe and well and this was correct and fault

Channel: Crecganford

Views: 20,590

Keywords: mythology, myth, folklore, folk lore, folktale, gods, religion, mythology explained, norse mythology, mythology and fiction explained, history, mythology stories, ancient, deity

Id: R34QjelWp0w

Length: 26min 43sec (1603 seconds)

Published: Sat Oct 21 2023