‘Did Tolkien Create a True Mythology’?

[Eogthea]

I dont think it can be qualified as actual mythology, I mean, if it is real it should be believed. As knowledgable as we all are in Tolkien mythology, I have my doubts that any of us take it as the highest form of truth or really believe that elves live in the woods and dwarves in the mountains. It is as amazing and complex as true mythology, yet, as no one holds it as a religion, it cannot be qualified as real mythology.

[Ragnarok]

Do you think Zeus really threw lightning bolts at people from a mountain? Or Hades took some chick (forgot her name, Persephone maybe?) to Hell cause she ate fruit. Or Hercules did all that stuff? No mythology is real.

[Gothmog]

What Eogthea posted is correct. At one time many believed that Zeus threw lighting and Mars WAS the God of war. These are now the mythology of our time. The religions of this era will if we survive long enough form the basis of myths for our decendents.

It is a fact that briliant as is the work of Tolkien it is a manufactured mythology whereas the myths of our world are religions and beliefs that over a long period of time have been changed.

It may even be that in a few centuries the work of Tolkien may still be remembered and then thought to have been something believed in by us. If that happens then it will have become Myth. In that case he would have created True Mythology but we will not be around to see it.

[Moonbeams]

We do not belive anymore that elves exist, or dwarves for that matter. But there was a time when people belived in them, feared them, or hoped thay will find them. You can find them scattered through myths of nations all around the world.
Tolkiens book is not a true mythology, but it is based on ancient myths, or rather, on ancient mythological creatures.
And concider this: Homers Iliada, the poem of the fall of Troy, was for endless years concidered a myth. Until they realy found it. All myths are in some way based on truth, only the truth has been blown out of proportion so much that we cannot see it, or belive it. If a lot of nations in this world has common myths about elves, and similar creatures, couldn't it be that there is some truth in them as well, and they are based on something that once realy existed?

[WARDNINE]

Moon-
Speak for yourself! :)
Some of us surely do believe that elves and dwarves and the like existed, as surely as we believe that Dodo birds and T-Rex existed.
Science discovers tons of "new species" every year, from fossil remains etc. And-- they discover species still living that they never knew were here. Some things, it seems, prefer to stay hidden.
I'm not saying I have gnomes in my attic, I'm just saying that I don't discount things just because they are "fairy tales". Those things came from somewhere.
No, I'm not a nut. I just prefer to tell the kids "Who knows? Have you ever seen a triceratops in the back yard? Of course not. But surely they were here once."
Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to check out a pitter-patter in the attic. Darn gnomes and their late-night soirees! :)

[HLGStrider]

I'm blaming the fact that my car window wouldn't roll down saturday on a Gremlin, but that's just me. . .

Tolkien actually lamented that there wasn't what he considered a true mythology for England, so he made up one he felt would suit. . .though I think Tolkien's epic of the Lord of the Rings is more sweeping than a mythology. The Sil sort of meets the criteria, but Lord of the Rings is what I would call a romantic history.

[Arvedui]

Interesting topic, and it sort of touches upon points raised in this thread: http://www.thetolkienforum.com/showthread.php?t=5822

But my guess is that the points raised in both threads, only serve to show where Tolkien got his inspiration from.

[Hammersmith]

I'm blaming the fact that my car window wouldn't roll down saturday on a Gremlin, but that's just me. . .
Not the door-ding gnomes! :eek:

While I doubt anyone will one day believe Lord Of The Rings to be accurate in any sense of the word, as a belief held by people, are not most ancient mythologies (like Troy, an account which Homer certainly did NOT start) based on a fact and then wrapped repeatedly in superstition, dogma, political convenience and the like? Rome was founded once, though probably not by a survivor of Troy's fall, or by feral children.

[Alcuin]

Tolkien wrote extensively on this subject in his essay, “On Fairy Stories”, originally delivered as an Andrew Lang lecture given at the University of St. Andrews on Wednesday 8 March 1939, first published in Essays Presented to Charles Williams by Oxford University Press in 1947, and currently available in The Tolkien Reader (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345345061/104-0283915-3145538?v=glance&n=283155). Tolkien says in the “Epilogue” to “On Fairy Stories” that …The peculiar quality of the “joy” in successful Fantasy can thus be explained as a sudden glimpse of the underlying reality or truth. It is not only a “consolation” for the sorrow of this world, but a satisfaction, and an answer to that question, “Is it true?” The answer to this question that I gave at first was (quite rightly): “If you have built your little world well, yes: it is true in that world.” That is enough for the artist (or the artist part of the artist). But in the “eucatastrophe” we see in a brief vision that the answer may be greater – it may be a far-off gleam or echo of evangelium in the real world. The use of this word gives a hint of my epilogue. It is a serious and dangerous matter.

It is presumptuous of me to touch upon such a theme; but if by grace what I say has in any respect any validity, it is, of course, only one facet of a truth incalculably rich: finite only because the capacity of Man for whom this was done is finite. I would venture to say that approaching the Christian Story from this direction, it has long been my feeling (a joyous feeling) that God redeemed the corrupt making-creatures, men, in a way fitting to this aspect, as to others, of their strange nature. The Gospels contain a fairy-story, or a story of a larger kind which embraces all the essence of fairy-stories. They contain many marvels – peculiarly artistic, beautiful, and moving: “mythical” in their perfect, self-contained significance; and among the marvels is the greatest and most complete conceivable eucatastrophe. But this story has entered History and the primary world; the desire and aspiration of sub-creation has been raised to the fulfillment of Creation. The Birth of Christ is the eucatastrophe of Man's history. The Resurrection is the eucatastrophe of the story of the Incarnation. This story begins and ends in joy. It has pre-eminently the “inner consistency of reality.” There is no tale ever told that men would rather find was true, and none which so many skeptical men have accepted as true on its own merits. For the Art of it has the supremely convincing tone of Primary Art, that is, of Creation. To reject it leads either to sadness or to wrath.
It is an extensive quote, but if I must be slapped for it, I plead this excuse: that nothing about which Tolkien wrote was likely closer to his heart than this.

It is particularly apt to recall these words of Tolkien’s as Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe is in preparation for cinematic distribution. C.S. Lewis, author of Narnia, friend of Tolkien, Hugo Dyson, and Charles Williams, was not a Christian. Humphrey Carter wrote in his biography Tolkien, that Lewishad professed agnosticism: … while making a precarious living as a tutor, he had arrived at … the belief that Christian ‘myth’ conveys as much truth as most men can comprehend. … he had moved … to the conclusion that in effect his search for the source of what he called joy was a search for God. Soon it became apparent to him that he must accept or reject God. At this juncture, be became friends with Tolkien.And later,…on Saturday 19 September 1931 they met in the evening. … After dinner, Lewis, Tolkien, and Dyson went out for air. It was a blustery night, but they strolled along Addison’s Walk discussing the purpose of myth. …

As the night wore on, Tolkien and Dyson showed him that he was here making a totally unnecessary demand. When he encountered the idea of sacrifice in the mythology of a pagan religion he admired it and was moved by it; … But from the Gospels (they said) he was requiring something more, a clear meaning beyond myth. Could he not transfer his comparatively unquestioning appreciation of sacrifice from the myth to the true story?

But, said Lewis, myths are lies, even though lies breathed through silver.

No, said Tolkien, they are not.
…
You call a tree a tree, he said, and you think nothing more of the word. But it was not a ‘tree’ until someone gave it that name. … just as speech is invention about objects and ideas, so myth is invention about truth.

We have come from God (continued Tolkien), and inevitably the myths woven by us, though they contain error, will also reflect a splintered fragment of the true light, the eternal truth that is with God. … Our myths may be misguided, but they steer however shakily toward the true harbour, while materialistic ‘progress’ leads only to a yawning abyss and the Iron Crown of the power of evil.

In expounding his belief in the inherent truth of mythology, Tolkien had laid bare the centre of his philosophy as a writer, the creed that is at the heart of The Silmarillion.

Lewis listened as Dyson affirmed in his own way what Tolkien had said. You mean, asked Lewis, that the story of Christ is simply a true myth, a myth that works on us in the same way as the others, but a myth that really happened? When you go to see Narnia this Christmas, or you reread (or watch) The Lord of the Rings, look for eucatastrophe, the far-off gleam or echo of evangelium in the real world.

[Walter]

It should be noted that the account of this conversation has been made up by H. Carpenter, basically from Tolkien's poem Mythopoeia (which may or may not in a way be "dedicated" to Lewis; see Carpenter's footnote on p. 151)

[Walter]

The world is full of origin myths, and all are factually false. The world is full, also, of great traditional books tracing the history of man (but focused narrowly on the local group) from the age of mythological beginnings, through periods of increasing plausibility, to a time almost within memory, when the chronicles begin to carry the record, with a show of rational factuality, to the present. Furthermore, just as all primitive mythologies serve to validate the customs, systems of sentiments, and political aims of their respective local groups, so do these great traditional books. On the surface they may appear to have been composed as conscientious history. In depth they reveal themselves to have been conceived as myths: poetic readings of the mystery of life from a certain interested point of view. But to read a poem as a chronicle of fact is – to say the least – to miss the point. To say a little more, it is to prove oneself a dolt. And to add to this, the men who put these books together were not dolts but knew precisely what they were doing – as the evidence of their manner of work reveals at every turn.

Joseph Campbell: The Masks of God - Vol III Occidental Mythology

Now in my opinion to consider Tolkien's legendarium not a mythology, because it has never been believed in, is – to say the least – to miss the point. But I shall refrain from saying a little more, here... :D

As much as "On Fairy-stories" reveals about the sub-creational aspect of Fairy-stories in general and about the better part of Tolkien's legendarium in particular, there are at least two others of his essays which should be also taken into consideration when one tries to understand his legendarium in the context of myths and mythologies, namely "Beowulf - the Monsters and the Critics" and "A Secret Vice" of which especially the latter IMO is widely underestimated. In this essay Tolkien mentions that ...language construction will breed a mythology and in one of his letters (#165) he explains

If I might elucidate what H. Breit has left of my letter: the remark about 'philology' was intended to allude to what is I think a primary 'fact' about my work, that it is all of a piece, and fundamentally linguistic in inspiration. The authorities of the university might well consider it an aberration of an elderly professor of philology to write and publish fairy stories and romances, and call it a 'hobby', pardonable because it has been (surprisingly to me as much as to anyone) successful. But it is not a 'hobby', in the sense of something quite different from one's work, taken up as a relief-outlet. The invention of languages is the foundation. The 'stones' were made rather to provide a world for the languages than the reverse. To me a name comes first and the story follows*). I should have preferred to write in 'Elvish'. But, of course, such a work as The Lord of the Rings has been edited and only as much 'language' has been left in as I thought would be stomached by readers. (I now find that many would have liked more.) But there is a great deal of linguistic matter (other than actually 'elvish' names and words) included or mythologically expressed in the book. It is to me, anyway, largely an essay in 'linguistic aesthetic', as I sometimes say to people who ask me 'what is it all about?'

*) I once scribbled 'hobbit' on a blank page of some boring school exam. Paper in the early 1930´s. It was some time before I discovered what it referred to.

In the first decades of the 20th century a few renowned philologists (and philosophers) were trying to trace back the origins of languages and myths to their very roots - the time when mythos slowly became logos and human nous had not yet been in the state it is nowadays. As much as this conception of a "Mythopoeic Mind" has been bashed lateron, people like Lévy-Bruhl, Barfield, Cassirer, Tolkien - and later probably Lewis as well - seemed convinced that the origins of myths and language were inseparably intertwined.

Thus, if we are seriously trying to understand Tolkien's fictional legendarium in the context of other - tradited - myths we are bound to study not only the vaste body of myths from all over the world to a certain degree, we need also observe and examine the basic "patterns" behind them which may lead us to their very origins. Then - and IMO only then - we might be able to judge whether or not Tolkien's legendarium qualifies to be considered a mythology...

But that, of course, is only how I see things....

[HLGStrider]

There used to be a mildly interesting thread that asked if there was a world wide plague that wiped up all life on earth and some aliens later landed and found a copy of the LotR's, would they assume it was our religion/history?

I think that there would be enough lack of evidence compared to most mythologies that they wouldn't.

For instance, Greek Mythologies we have statues and mosaics. There would be none of this record historically to back it up, so there would be no more reason to assume LotR's truth than any other work of fiction they might locate . . . with the exception of it maybe being more prevalent in book collections and libraries than other books.

I know that isn't the point of this thread, but I thought I'd bring it into the conversation as semi-related.

[Walter]

What a bull...

The aliens would, of course, be perfectly aware of our history and religions. Don't you know that they have computers in their spaceships which (or I should rather say "who" because these computers always seem to have a personality as well) not only control the WARP drive, but also have all the relevant information available one could possibly think of.

Now, assuming that not aliens, but some of us humans (equipped only with our petty brains and no successors of HAL at hand) at a certain point in the distant future would find - let's say - a copy of the Kalevala on the one hand, and a copy of the Sil and LotR on the other. How would they be able to know that one is a work which has only been written down after centuries of oral tradition and the other one a fictional work? Not an easy task, I imagine...

But I agree, this is "semi-related" .... at best...

[Arvedui]

Elgee,

Look at my previous post in this thread, 8 posts up from this. There's a link there to the thread you mentioned;)

[Alcuin]

I think that, at least on one level, Tolkien did intend to create a myth: a myth for England. That he could this with linguistics and his philological works served to give the resulting product an unusual feel of “reality,” of seeming “true,” because it sounds and reads like things that really are true in the real world.

There seem to be two tracks of intention running parallel, but intertwined; and where the one ends and the other begins is not always clear. Tolkien was experimenting with language, with its evolution and aging process: with the “life-cycle” of a language, if you will. In order to do this, he also created a history of the people who used it, and he changed the language based upon that history. But I believe that in his own words, he quite clearly describes his desire to construct a myth or legendarium as well.

Tolkien intended “to make a body of more or less connected legend… dedicate[d] to England.” I think he succeeded. He discusses this in a letter to Milton Waldman, a publisher with whom he spoke briefly about publishing Lord of the Rings instead of Allen & Unwin.

This is from Letters of J.R.R Tolkien, Letter 131 “to Milton Waldman”, pp 144-145:There was Greek, and Celtic, and Romance, Germanic, Scandinavian, and Finnish …; but nothing English, save impoverished chap-book stuff. …

…Myth and fairy-story must, as all art, reflect and contain in solution elements of moral and religious truth (or error), but not explicit, not in the known form of the primary 'real' world. (I am speaking, of course, of our present situation, not of ancient pagan, pre-Christian days. …)

…I had a mind to make a body of more or less connected legend, ranging from the large and cosmogonic, to the level of romantic fairy-story-the larger founded on the lesser in contact with the earth, the lesser drawing splendour from the vast backcloths – which I could dedicate simply to: to England; to my country. It should possess the tone and quality that I desired, somewhat cool and clear, be redolent of our 'air' (the clime and soil of the North West, meaning Britain and the hither parts of Europe: not Italy or the Aegean, still less the East), and, while possessing (if I could achieve it) the fair elusive beauty that some call Celtic (though it is rarely found in genuine ancient Celtic things), it should be 'high', purged of the gross, and fit for the more adult mind of a land long now steeped in poetry. I would draw some of the great tales in fullness, and leave many only placed in the scheme, and sketched. The cycles should be linked to a majestic whole, and yet leave scope for other minds and hands, wielding paint and music and drama. …

…such an overweening purpose did not develop all at once. The mere stories … arose in my mind as 'given' things, and … so too the links grew. … I had the sense of recording what was already 'there', somewhere: not of 'inventing'.We read on to pp 146-147 and find,The cycles begin with a cosmogonical myth: the Music of the Ainur. …

It moves then swiftly to the History of the Elves, or the Silmarillion proper; to the world as we perceive it, but of course transfigured in a still half-mythical mode. …

In the cosmogony there is a fall: a fall of Angels we should say. ... the Elves have a fall, before their 'history' can become storial. …
…
As the stories become less mythical, and more like stories and romances, Men are interwoven. …
….
But as the earliest Tales are seen through Elvish eyes, as it were, this last great Tale, coming down from myth and legend to the earth, is seen mainly though the eyes of Hobbits: it thus becomes in fact anthropocentric. ... A little later, in Letter 156 to Robert Murray, SJ (“SJ” probably means Mr. Murray was a Jesuit; he was the nephew of the editor of the original Oxford Dictionary, and was a Tolkien family friend: Carpenter, Tolkien, p.158), page 207:…they were still living on the borders of myth – or rather this story exhibits 'myth' passing into History or the Dominion of Men; for of course the Shadow will arise again in a sense …, but never again (unless it be before the great End) will an evil daemon be incarnate as a physical enemy; he will direct Men and all the complications of half-evils, and defective-goods, and the twilights of doubt as to sides, such situations as he most loves (you can see them already arising in the War of the Ring, which is by no means so clear cut an issue as some critics have averred): …

[Walter]

...in Letter 156 to Robert Murray, SJ (“SJ” probably means Mr. Murray was a Jesuit; he was the nephew of the editor of the original Oxford Dictionary, and was a Tolkien family friend...
Father Robert Murray was indeed a Jesuit, the "SJ" stands for Societas Iesu/Jesu...

[Walter]

I think that, at least on one level, Tolkien did intend to create a myth: a myth for England. That he could this with linguistics and his philological works served to give the resulting product an unusual feel of “reality,” of seeming “true,” because it sounds and reads like things that really are true in the real world.
Yes, it appears that at a certain time Tolkien invested a lot of time and energy in this "project".

But it was - at least in my opinion - somehow a strange project. From all evidence we have to assume that this should have been a mythology for Anglo-Saxon England only. Which seems already a bit awkward, if we consider the rather turbulent early history of the British Isles with its ever changing peoples and cultures.

And even more so when we notice, that Tolkien seems to have considered making a claim for the Anglo-Saxons as the rightful original rulers of Britain (cf. Ing and the Sheaf episodes).

What keeps me puzzled also, is the fact that Tolkien on the one hand loathed the way how the German Nazis were "hijacking" German history and mythology to make their case, but on the other was at least pondering the idea of a similar nationalistic approach: claiming his own Ancestors would be the only rightful rulers of England.

Tolkien intended “to make a body of more or less connected legend… dedicate[d] to England.” I think he succeeded.
I think that depends on what we consider "succeeding". He certainly did not succeed in publishing this more or less connected legend, though he tried it more than once. At first the publishers wouldn't have it, and later when they were more than willing to publish everything he wrote, he couldn't make his mind about the "what" and "how" and began a laborious rewriting and restructuring to little avail.

And though the tales and fragments we have got - thanks to Christopher's laborious, diligent and tedious efforts - are highly interesting, we do not really know what this body of more or less connected legend would contain and what it would look like, had Tolkien managed to publish it during his lifetime.

And thus we can only guess whether or not we would see the flat or round earth approach, or whether or not we would encounter an Eriol/Aelfwine figure - to name but two of the most crucial examples - in J.R.R. Tolkien's mythology.

[HLGStrider]

I think the Nazis were into proving they were the only ones with rights to rule the World. Tolkien was only after England.

Anyway, in a Monarcy where heirs are decided by heirtage and blood lines are important, I think there was nothing particularly nationalistic about it. The rightful king of England would be the one from the right blood line which includes nationality, after all.

[Arvedui]

I just happened by chance to find this in The Book of Lost Tales, Part One, Commentary on The Cottage of Lost Play:
The story of Eriol the mariner was central to my father's original conception of the mythology. In those days, as he recounted long after in a letter to his friend Milton Waldman, [Letters, page 144] the primary intention of his work was to satisfy his desire for a specifically and recognizably Englsih literature of 'faerie':
But as we all know, that conception dissappeared through the years. And so, is it really safe to say that whatever the state of his manuscripts in the end, The Silmarillion was really a mythology in the end? I do not feel too sure about that.

[Walter]

I think the Nazis were into proving they were the only ones with rights to rule the World. Tolkien was only after England.

If we bother to study only a little history we might soon realize, that this is a rather simplistic view upon matters.

The term "Germans" is already a tad problematic since it was at first mostly based on Gaius Julius Caesars distiction of Gauls for those peoples who dwelt at the left side of the river Rhine and Germans for those who dwelt at its right side. Caesar - who was but a prokonsul at that time - here ignored the ethnical composition of the peoples in Middle-Europe during the last Centuries BCE, and he did that either out of ignorance or purposely to make his case and pursue his very ambitious political goals. And somehow this distinction was kept up until the 19th and 20th century.

But be that as it may, fact is that during the first centuries CE a variety of Germanic - Germanic here in the ethnical sense - tribes formed and in the last century BCE they began to migrate all over Europe (and farther). Ethnically these Germanic tribes can be considered heirs of the Indo-European pastoral tribes who had originally dwelt most probably somewhere in southern Sibiria or north of the Black sea and which had begun to spread East, West and South from there already during the last millennia of the Neolithicum.

In the 19th and early 20th century some German historians and philologists made the claim, that the roots of the Indo-Germanic "family" had been somewhere in southern Skandinavia and northern Germany and that the Germans - and only they - were the direct descendants of these "original" Indogermans. This claim was eagerly taken up and supported by these radical groups which later formed the core of the national-socialistic regime in Germany und consequently - according to their line of argumentation - they also had a rightful claim as the rulers of all - or at least most - of the territory inhabited by peoples with "Indogermanic" languages.

Furthermore they greatly appreciated all things they considered purely "Germanic", such as Germanic mythology as portrayed by Wagner (which is about as precise as Shakespeares portray of elves) and a certain sense of heroism (which Tolkien so aptly describes in his "Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics").

Anyway, in a Monarcy where heirs are decided by heirtage and blood lines are important, I think there was nothing particularly nationalistic about it. The rightful king of England would be the one from the right blood line which includes nationality, after all.

Again some study of the history of the British Isles should elucidate that the Anglo-Saxons were but fierce invaders (originally they dwelt roughly in the area of todays Schleswig-Holstein and southern Denmark) and that they dominated Britain only for a relatively brief period - if at all. Constructing a claim that the heirs of these invaders (who btw. happened to be Tolkien's remote ancestors) would be the rightful rulers of Britain (bloodline or not) appears to me about as nationalistic - and as justified - as the German approach...

[HLGStrider]

Somehow I just lost my long reply to this, so let me go over it again, probably not as well. Hate it when that happens. So much for doing this at work. . .

I am well-aware (probably not as aware as you as my history level is high school and I believe you are a graduate of a history degree) of English history, but I think my point still stands.
Tolkien, from what I follow in his biographies, mainly objected to the Norman invasion and wanted to restore English culture to restore England to a pre-Norman state.
Now the Anglo-Saxons may have been invaders in their own right, but they had been established as a culture already. They had also been greatly romanticized in England (Ivanhoe, for instance).
They may not have been the original inhabitants, but they were also not the original invaders. As you said, England has a turbulent history. For instance, there were the Romans, who though they left long before, did occupy large sections of the British isles for long periods and certainly must have had an effect on the culture/language. Tolkien doesn't protest their presence. It's only the Normans he is after. (Though it is perhaps the Roman influence he may dislike about the Aurthurian bit of English 'myth,' but I always thought it was that this 'myth' mixed in Christian legend and so couldn't be what he considered a myth, a pre-Christian story by Tolkien's deffinition, I think. . .)
Every continent has undergone waves of civilizations. I was just reading yesterday about how an archeological discovery somewhere in South America had convinced several researchers that the peoples they had considered the "original" inhabitants were not at all, but rather had conquered an existing people/culture that was made up of inhabitants more genetically similar to the natives of Austrailia.
My point? That saying that Tolkien was Nationalistic (which I generally take to be an unpleasant version or militant patriotism especially when brought up in context with Hitler) because he supported the Anglo-Saxons over the Normans even though the Anglo's had themselves at one point been conquerors, is similar to saying a modern descendant of an Incan or Mayan is being nationalistic when he laments what the Europeans did to his country/culture.
Also, I still think that there is a huge difference between militancy and pride. I think pride in your country is encouragable (though that is always a debate), and I Know that C. S. Lewis did as well, and most likely Tolkien would.
Now perhaps Nationalistic is one way to put it, but I don't think comparisons to WWII Germany is a way to put it.

[Hammersmith]

If we bother to study only a little history we might soon realize, that this is a rather simplistic view upon matters.
And maybe it could merit Walter a little to learn the difference between a flippant and wry observation and a treatise on the history of western european history :rolleyes:

The term "Germans" is already a tad problematic since it was at first mostly based on Gaius Julius Caesars distiction of Gauls for those peoples who dwelt at the left side of the river Rhine and Germans for those who dwelt at its right side. Caesar - who was but a prokonsul at that time - here ignored the ethnical composition of the peoples in Middle-Europe during the last Centuries BCE, and he did that either out of ignorance or purposely to make his case and pursue his very ambitious political goals. And somehow this distinction was kept up until the 19th and 20th century.

But be that as it may, fact is that during the first centuries CE a variety of Germanic - Germanic here in the ethnical sense - tribes formed and in the last century BCE they began to migrate all over Europe (and farther). Ethnically these Germanic tribes can be considered heirs of the Indo-European pastoral tribes who had originally dwelt most probably somewhere in southern Sibiria or north of the Black sea and which had begun to spread East, West and South from there already during the last millennia of the Neolithicum.

In the 19th and early 20th century some German historians and philologists made the claim, that the roots of the Indo-Germanic "family" had been somewhere in southern Skandinavia and northern Germany and that the Germans - and only they - were the direct descendants of these "original" Indogermans. This claim was eagerly taken up and supported by these radical groups which later formed the core of the national-socialistic regime in Germany und consequently - according to their line of argumentation - they also had a rightful claim as the rulers of all - or at least most - of the territory inhabited by peoples with "Indogermanic" languages.

Furthermore they greatly appreciated all things they considered purely "Germanic", such as Germanic mythology as portrayed by Wagner (which is about as precise as Shakespeares portray of elves) and a certain sense of heroism (which Tolkien so aptly describes in his "Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics").
All you've established in that length diatribe is that we can't accurately call anyone 'Germans' because we all originated from the same Indo-European nomads. Now wasn't that groundbreaking? You also fail to point out the distinction of the Roman people in their own mind, that they believed they were descended from the Trojans and ultimately from the Gods. Hence the racial segregation from the barbarians in the north and the lumping together of all 'Goths' as Germanic.

To claim that Germans have no racial identity that is unique simply because their tribes that eventually 'became German', either by the Roman definition or otherwise, were due to preconceived superiority on the Latin behalf is stupidity. It's like saying that British and French culture are not different because the Norman ruling class descended out of France. The cultural idents of the Germans owed a lot to Bismarck's unification, this is true. But to label all German identity as descended from Wagner and Beowulf is to gloss over about fifteen hundred years of the development of the Holy Roman Empire and all the rich history and culture it entails, to ignore the Prussian tradition and identity entirely and to simply 'wish away' such German icons as Frederick Barbarossa and even pass over such key national-identity-building events as the 'German barbarian's' ultimate victory over Rome.

Again some study of the history of the British Isles should elucidate that the Anglo-Saxons were but fierce invaders (originally they dwelt roughly in the area of todays Schleswig-Holstein and southern Denmark) and that they dominated Britain only for a relatively brief period - if at all. Constructing a claim that the heirs of these invaders (who btw. happened to be Tolkien's remote ancestors) would be the rightful rulers of Britain (bloodline or not) appears to me about as nationalistic - and as justified - as the German approach...
That's pure nonsense and you know it. The Anglo Saxons were short lived and violent invaders in the same way that Greek philosophy was a passing fad that dealt mainly with the preparation of mushrooms. Entirely fictitious and displaying a total ignorance of elementary history.

Rather, the Anglo Saxons showed themselves as expert manipulators of diplomacy in their carrot and stick approach to the tentative oligarchies and kingdoms that sprouted in post-Roman Britain, allying and betraying, exploiting local politics, using war to beat back fierce opposition and then bargaining for more land. They were an established presence as the significant lords and eventually rulers of Britain from the Roman withdrawal of Britain right up until 1066.

Finally, unless I very much mistake Elgee's statement, she was cynically remarking on how the ruling bloodline makes its own rules (The House of Windsor, incidentally, is descended from Thor on one side and Zeus on the other ;)) rather than assuming that any king or queen of England would be naturally of Anglican descent and thus holding the right of blood to rule.

[Walter]

Aaaahh, good Hammersmith, I already missed your snide and insulting remarks, my lad...

...well, almost, that is... :D

Anyway, please consider my invitation to study a little history - and maybe mythology as well, as you're on it - as still valid... ;)

[Hammersmith]

When in doubt, throw an insult back and slink away :rolleyes:

I missed your blustering idealism too, Walt. Anything relevant to say?

[Gothmog]

Interesting, it seems that the dusty coridors of history can also provide fuel for fires.

I would appreciate it if this one is not stoked any more.

Thanks

[Walter]

I am well-aware (probably not as aware as you as my history level is high school and I believe you are a graduate of a history degree) of English history, but I think my point still stands.
Alas - no, I have university degrees only in the fields of chemistry and technical sciences, though I have developed great interests in mythology, history and religions during the past few years.

My point? That saying that Tolkien was Nationalistic (which I generally take to be an unpleasant version or militant patriotism especially when brought up in context with Hitler) because he supported the Anglo-Saxons over the Normans even though the Anglo's had themselves at one point been conquerors, is similar to saying a modern descendant of an Incan or Mayan is being nationalistic when he laments what the Europeans did to his country/culture.
What I was in fact referring to - and what I briefly mentioned in a previous post was Tolkien's account in "The History of Eriol or Ælfwine" in BoLT II p. 301ff (see especially p. 305 and p. 307).

There Tolkien first establishes Ing(wë) as King of Luthany (England) and lateron maintains that the Ingwaiwar (Ing's people) "...come back to their own when they invade Luthany from across the North Sea."

Ing(wë) and his Ingwaiwar now can be equalled with Yngvi (whom Snorri considers son of Odin, cf. also Freyr) and the Inguaeones, the latter is a collective term for these Germanic tribes who worshipped Yngvi and inhabited the coastal area of Northern Germany (among whom we find the Angles and Saxons). A similar tale we encounter in the Sheave episodes (HoMeV).

This is what I consider a rather nationalistic claim, and similar to that of the German nationalists, nothing more, nothing less...

[Walter]

Interesting, it seems that the dusty coridors of history can also provide fuel for fires.

I would appreciate it if this one is not stoked any more.

Thanks
It is not the subject of history which provides fuel for fire (at least on my side), rather the attitude the boy shows - and not for the first time. I once made the mistake trying to enter a serious discussion with him, only to find out that he seemed much less interested in the discussed topic, than in making snide and insulting "ad-personam" comments, very much like those in his post above...

However, I will not make the same mistake twice...

[HLGStrider]

In Smitty's defense, though I think he took it a bit far, I think he was reacting to your tone, which was a bit snide, Walter, but I'm used to that.



As to the degree, I was confusing you with RD somehow. I'm not sure how, but I was.

I would say, however, that Mythologies of all sort are wrought with "chosen peoples" and curses carried through bloodlines and kings.
I don't think I own that book. I only have one of the Lost Tales and have never been able to get a hold of the others due to my lousy local library and own cheapness involving ordering things online (they have been on my Christmas list for sometime), but from the excerpts you are giving me it sounds like a harsh judgement on your part.

[Walter]

In Smitty's defense, ....

Manus manum lavat ... or so they say... ;)



....but from the excerpts you are giving me it sounds like a harsh judgement on your part.
When I explained my point of view, I really did not expect you to agree. After all, there seem to be very few matters upon which we share the same point of view... :)

[Barliman Butterbur]

We do not belive anymore that elves exist, or dwarves for that matter. But there was a time when people belived in them, feared them, or hoped thay will find them. You can find them scattered through myths of nations all around the world.

And there are places where people still believe. It seems to be hardwired into man that he believe in something larger and more powerful than himself, in order to explain to himself the origin of the powerful forces (to be placated at all costs) moving through reality over which he has no control.

Logic is not the mark of truth. Logic in the service of unwarranted conclusions and fear leads to very dark and dangerous nonsense.

Barley

[Alcuin]

Logic is not the mark of truth. Logic in the service of unwarranted conclusions and fear leads to very dark and dangerous nonsense.Logic is a branch of mathematics. Logic is not subservient to unwarranted conclusions unless it is deliberated perverted or distorted, in which case it is no longer logic, but clever trickery intended to deceive the unwary; or unless the user has poured into the equation false premises by error or by design; and if by design, then it is again an attempt to deceive the ignorant or unwary.

That does not mean that logic can answer all questions, but rather that it is like all other mathematics: if the equations are properly constructed, and the inputs (premises) are true, then the results will also be correct. The arguments that remain are whether the equations were correct and sufficiently complete to describe the problem; whether the premises are true; and whether the interpretation of the result is correct.

If this were not so, then your Internet connection would fail immediately; your computer would fry instantly and never come on again; and when you called tech support, you telephone wouldn’t work. Then you shouldn’t bother turning on the cable or satellite television to find out what happened: they won’t work either. Complex logic is in use all around you, and where the problem has been described with the necessary and sufficient equations, and the correct data supplied to complete them, the results can be relied upon.

[Arvedui]

It's like saying that British and French culture are not different because the Norman ruling class descended out of France.
If you research a bit more, you might find that the Normans does not descend from France, but actually from Norway.
The norwegian phrase for 'Norwegian' is 'Nordmann.' That should be a major clue. then, if possible, check out the local history (especially arts) in Normandy. The clues are all there.

So, the people in UK are influenced from Danes, Norwegians, Norwegians v2.0-FRA, and Germans.

[Hammersmith]

If you research a bit more, you might find that the Normans does not descend from France, but actually from Norway.
The norwegian phrase for 'Norwegian' is 'Nordmann.' That should be a major clue. then, if possible, check out the local history (especially arts) in Normandy. The clues are all there.

So, the people in UK are influenced from Danes, Norwegians, Norwegians v2.0-FRA, and Germans.
Yet according to certain DIY 'historians' here, these so-called Germans don't exist. So we're descended from nobody. ;)

I'm not actually interested in further discussion on this topic. "Certain members" have a unique ability to kill threads with their caustic personal attacks. I'd enjoy a discussion in a separate thread on Norman ancestry immensely though.

[Lhunithiliel]

But, say, Hammersmith, which facts exactly, from the several provided above in this thread, do you object to, and on grounds of which counter-facts from history, please?

....... of course, if you would excuse my intrusion into the present discussion, and would wish to answer my question. :rolleyes:

[baragund]

Hi Guys! Mind if I stick my nose into this discussion? It’s really interesting but I think we veered away from what Eogthea asked almost four years ago.

To start, may I ask a Moderator to change the title of the thread? “um” isn’t too descriptive and I just lucked into this by wondering ‘What the heck are these people talking about?’ How about ‘Did Tolkien Create a True Mythology’?

Gothmog had some great observations in the third post of this thread but let’s get into them in more detail. He described Tolkien’s work as a “manufactured mythology”, distinctly different from true (my term) myths that form the basis of religions and beliefs. He speculates that if Tolkien’s work is remembered and believed in by people in future centuries, it would become a true Mythology. But I would suggest that that process might have started already.

There have been some people who have joined our forum over the years who, based on how I read their posts, sure sound like they really believe in some kind of literal interpretation of Tolkien’s writings as the way the universe was created. I don’t believe any of the regulars in TTF fall into this category and, unfortunately, I can’t remember the location of the threads, but I distinctly recall folks making statements and/or asking questions that made it sound like they took Middle-earth wayyy too seriously, and when they were asked about it, they got all defensive and vanished from the forum. I also recall people leaving links to web sites that try to show how Middle-earth is actually located in California or that Elves still live among us. I’m not sure if these people are having a joke or if they are really serious. If there is some element of society out there who literally believes that the Universe is Arda, created by Eru and the Valar instead of ___________ (insert preferred deity or the Big Bang here), then Tolkien’s work may have already crossed a threshold to that of a True Mythology. Just look at Wardine’s post in this thread dated 1/14/02. Was all of his/her post tongue-in-cheek or did he really believe “that elves and dwarves and the like existed, as surely as we believe that Dodo birds and T-Rex existed”.

Also, what does everybody think of Moonbeams statement from his/her post of 1/8/02 “All myths are in some way based on truth…”? Is he talking about a moral or philosophical truth like Alcuin referred to in his post of 12/6/05 or some kind of literal or factual truth?

Now let’s take a look at Walter’s post of Dec. 8. I found his quote from Joseph Campbell to be a big help in getting my arms around the question. It makes one thing twice about Genesis (Whoa!! Bad, Baragund!! Don’t go throwing bombs like that to get everybody fired up!) But I was getting confused when he made a distinction between “legend” and “myth”. So when all else fails, consult the Dictionary! My itty bitty American Heritage College Dictionary defines legend is an unverified theory passed from earlier times, believed to be historical. A myth is a traditional story, dealing with supernatural beings and the like, that informs or shapes the world view of a people by explaining aspects of the natural world. Again, if there are people out there who are accepting Tolkien’s writings as the gospel, then they have crossed the line into mythology.

Elgee’s following post takes a position that left me wanting to understand her thought process better. She linked the status of stories as mythology to the presence of physical evidence. Ancient statues and mosaics and the like help give credence to the Greek mythologies but I suppose all of the artwork, merchandise, other products, organizations and the like associated with all things Tolkien does not. I’m not sure why that is. Age? Crass commercialism?

A final observation: I found the later discussion about Anglo/Saxon and German history to be really educational and interesting, although it was starting to veer away from what I thought was the discussion topic. Not sure why folks should get mad. It’s been a looooong time since I studied European history and I found it a big help in understanding the larger context.

[Eriol]

If we will classify historically extant myths as "True Mythology", then Tolkien's work falls far short of the mark, since myths inform the entire worldview of those who believe in them. "Entire worldview" includes:

Cosmos
Man
Society
History

So, Tolkien's works could only be considered a myth on a par with Sumerian/Egyptian/Greek/etc. myths if it exerted an influence on all of these components. Even people who do believe (whether feignedly or otherwise) that the events in LotR took place "a long time ago, on this Earth", will not be believers in the myth of LotR if this does not influence their view of the four components above.

In other words, I don't suppose it is impossible for Tolkien's world to be viewed as a myth, but this possibility is open only for people who are not mythically inclined in the first place ;). They are confusing myth with legend, as your dictionary says, baragund -- they are treating LotR as "an unverified theory passed from earlier times, believed to be historical". Which is not a myth. Myth is not believed to be historical (or non-historical for that matter). Myth comes from a time before such distinctions were made, before there were "history", "literal truth", "fact", and so on.

Which is why to argue about the "literal truth" of myth is a waste of time :). The truth of the myth is never literal. The big question is whether our so-called "literal truths" are as literal as we suppose them to be, to identify the remnants of myths in our "enlightened" worldview :D.

[HLGStrider]

Just click your heals together three times and repeat "all bow before the all powerful Elgee. . ."

;)

Poof, thread renamed.

I think there is a difference between modern mythology and past mythology, not necessarily in its nature, but I think Tolkien was trying to create the past not the present belief system. There is modern mythology. Big Foot, por ejemplo. I don't think Tolkien was trying to convince anyone to fall down and worship Eru. I think at the most he was trying for "convince people that people in the past might have believed."

Anyway, I suppose merchandice could be interpreted that way. However, I don't think Lord of the Rings paraphenalia is any more likely to be "believed" than Star Wars action figures or Star Trek or Lego Blocks. ..

My basic point is that belief systems tend to leave behind strata, and apparently modern society worships entertainment. . .hmm. ..

[baragund]

Ooooooooooo.... I prostrate myself before the awesome power of the cat-loving Moderatrix!:D

Of course the presence of action figures and Trivial Pursuit games are not the mark of a true mythology. But I would be interested in reading more of your thoughts about the linking of physical artifacts to mythology. Yes, many artifacts of ancient cultures are devoted to the gods and religions that people of those times worshipped. But is that always the case? Are there any artifacts of stories that were always considered fiction, even at the time they were written?

Another consideration: Stories that we here today would describe as "mythology" was considered gospel at the time they were written. I guess that circles back to the question that was raised earlier in this thread and was the subject of another thread: If Tolkien's works were discovered in an archeological dig millenea after our society has become extinct, would (or could) they be given the same status as our current religious texts? One could argue that Tolkien's manufactured mythology (as Gothmog put it) does indeed cover the four points that Eriol specified. They address i) the origin of the cosmos (the music of the Ainur), ii) the origin of Man (the children of Illuvatar), iii) the development of the earliest societies (the Silmarillion) and iv) the earliest "history" up to the beginning of the Fourth Age (LOTR, and other writings dealing with the Second and Third Ages).

[HLGStrider]

Perhaps it would be better stated that I don't see why it would be believed to be our mythology any more than Star Wars or Narnia or Spiderman. There would be no proof in any records that we actually believed that over this or this over that and I think a discerning archeologist, alien or otherwise, could figure it out.

Now, I know not all civilizations leave the same trail of verbal and physical history, but the majority of them do allow for some tracing. I think even the most primative, superstitious societies probably had two sorts of mythology, that they believed and that which they used to manipulate their children because if they weren't good a wendigo would eat them (isn't wendigo a wonderful word?). There were stories that were believed and stories the teller knew he was making up. I think LotR's would be pegged as the second.

[Barliman Butterbur]

I dont think it can be qualified as actual mythology, I mean, if it is real it should be believed. As knowledgable as we all are in Tolkien mythology, I have my doubts that any of us take it as the highest form of truth or really believe that elves live in the woods and dwarves in the mountains. It is as amazing and complex as true mythology, yet, as no one holds it as a religion, it cannot be qualified as real mythology.

It seems to me that true mythology has at least these three characteristics:

• It evolves out of a particular culture
• Its roots go back into ancient and anonymous historical fog
• Many take it as truth

So from that standpoint, Tolkien didn't actually write a true mythology (no one person can or ever has as far as I know), although he said that he wanted to, as a kind of gift to England to help fill in its mythological black hole, so to speak.

And to Alcuin: although logic may indeed be a branch of mathematics, that doesn't take away from the fact that it is primarily a style of thinking geared to come to correct and useful conclusions about this or that. But if logic is paired with premises that are faulty and/or facts that are not actually facts, then its results cannot be depended upon. It needs the truth as far as is known in order to work correctly — garbage in, garbage out, as they say.

Barley

[Eriol]

Ooooooooooo.... I prostrate myself before the awesome power of the cat-loving Moderatrix!:D

Don't we all? :D

One could argue that Tolkien's manufactured mythology (as Gothmog put it) does indeed cover the four points that Eriol specified. They address i) the origin of the cosmos (the music of the Ainur), ii) the origin of Man (the children of Illuvatar), iii) the development of the earliest societies (the Silmarillion) and iv) the earliest "history" up to the beginning of the Fourth Age (LOTR, and other writings dealing with the Second and Third Ages).

Yet, in order for someone right now to believe in Tolkien's work as a "true myth" (this is something of a misnomer, of course), it would have to influence -- or, more precisely, to throw light upon -- the cosmos, man, society, and history, now. No one can claim to believe in Tolkien's "myth" if he does not interpret Bush, communism, the Big Bang and Freudian psychology (to mention just a few things) in the light of this myth. This all-pervasive characteristic of myths is what threw people in disarray when the myths were found to no longer satisfy their worldviews. It is what led Hesiod to devise a Theogony that "improved upon" the Homeric description of the gods, what led the pre-socratics to "improve upon" the Hesiodic myth, and so on and so forth. The myth must illuminate the whole of life or it won't be a successful myth at all, being at best a legend (which can never hope to fulfill the role of a myth as a shaper of consciousness).

The people who purport to believe in Tolkien's myth are, almost certainly (we can't speak with 100% precision, of course, there may be a philomyther among them), people who are taking Tolkien's tale as a factual account of the past of Earth (or at least of some past). But this is not enough to make a myth. In an age in which myths are unconsciously held even if still quite present (such as ours), any tale that is limited to a given past or to a section of the cosmos is not a myth.

Ultimately, there is another, more formal, problem with "the Legendarium as myth", which is, basically, that Tolkien did not write mythically (or at least he was not published mythically -- I'm not acquainted with the original material). What was published was a history. A history is not, strictly speaking, a myth; there is, among other things, far more allegory in myths than Tolkien was willing to allow in his works :). We can see, for example, the invention of irrigation and agriculture allegorically symbolized (and probably consciously so) in Mesopotamian myths. But Tolkien's tale does not deal with these matters; the Entwives, real beings in a real world, taught agriculture to men. No allegory is going on. It is a factual report of how men learned agriculture. We don't hear the stories from a mythical point of view, we hear them from a historical point of view.

Of course, the Legendarium is supposed to have been written in, say, Númenor, Arnor, Gondor, etc. etc., as a compilation of older tales. So far so good. But the formal problem is that the people doing this writing were no Homers. They were Herodotuses (Herodoti? :D). They, the fictitious authors, are sages and historians, not poets and mythmakers. It is not surprising that the form of the tale is that of a history, or of a series of histories.

The epic poems are something else, though... perhaps myths could be born from them. It's been a while since I read them! This seems, to me, the only hope to get a myth from Tolkien's world. And it is a work to be done -- it would require a poet (a Homer) to shape the world -- our contemporary world -- in accordance to those tales.

On the other hand, this means that the seed is always there. Perhaps in 2300 a myth will be developed out of Tolkien's tales; who knows? If it happens, it certainly will be unlike what we all picture, though :).

[Walter]

It all boils down to how we define and/or interpret myth and mythology. But is myth something that can be defined in two sentences from a dictionary or by naming 3 or 4 criteria it should have to fulfil?

I hadn't given the issue much thought until I read Robert Oden's The Bible Without Theology some years ago. There he dedicates some 50 pages giving a brief overview of the various attempts at defining and explaining myth and its origins throughout the past two centuries. By then I began to realize that this is not an easy task. Historians, philologists, philosophers and psychologists all took quite different approaches and what we have today is still far from consensus.

Myths have been - and by some are still - considered a "disease of language" (a result of misinterpretations and mistranslations; Max Müller), heroic tales retold and exaggerated until the heroes became supernatural beings ("Euhemerism"), part of a major complex and always accompanied by rituals ("Myth-Ritual theory"), a product of the pre-logical state of the human mind (Mythopoeic Mind; Barfield, Cassirer, Tolkien), attempts to explain things that cannot otherwise be explained (and thus a predecessor of religion and science; Frazer) a mere product of the human unconscios (Jung) and so forth. And most - if not all - these approaches have a valid point somewhere, even though some have a rather narrow focus.

But one thing is pretty clear: myths are not factual history. Now if we compare (after having read), for example, the Babylonian Enuma Elish and the Gilgamesh-Epos, Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, the Bible, the Codex Regius (Edda), Lönnrot's Kalevala, and Tolkien's Silmarillion (regardless what it may have looked like had Tolkien published is) and LotR, what distinguishes the latter from the former? Is there a clear distinction upon which we can decide the former qualify as myths but the latter not? I am curious...

[Thorondor_]

But one thing is pretty clear: myths are not factual history
From Letter# 131 To Milton Waldman
In the cosmogony there is a fall: a fall of Angels we should say. Though quite different in form, of course, to that of Christian myth. These tales are 'new', they are not directly derived from other myths and legends, but they must inevitably contain a large measure of ancient wide-spread motives or elements. After all, I believe that legends and myths are largely made of 'truth', and indeed present aspects of it that can only be received in this mode; and long ago certain truths and modes of this kind were discovered and must always reappear.
I am not sure if the professor would entirely agree with you, but then again, he might be reffering to certain aspects that are not "factual".

To me, it is pretty obvious that Tolkien did try to create a myth, though the element of myth seems to be fading while the element of 'history' seems to be gaining importance (same letter, reffering to the Silmarillion):
The cycles begin with a cosmogonical myth: the Music of the Ainur" (same letter)
...
It moves then swiftly to the History of the Elves, or the Silmarillion proper; to the world as we perceive it, but of course transfigured in a still half-mythical mode: that is it deals with rational incarnate creatures of more or less comparable stature with our own
...
As the stories become less mythical, and more like stories and romances. Men are interwoven

[Eriol]

Yes, the Ainulindalë is evidently a myth; and it can perform all the roles that were mentioned earlier as functions of myth.

[baragund]

Great posts, Eriol and Walter!!:) Both of them help me get my arms around this discussion.

But after reading them, it occurred to me that there are some similarities in the, how shall I say, structure between Tolkien's Ainulindale and Silmarillion, and the Old Testament of The Bible. The Ainulendale and the first part of Genesis both deal with the creation of the Universe while the "historical" books of the Old Testament (the rest of Genesis, Exodus, Judges, Kings, Samuel and the like) are similar to the "historical" accounts of The Silmarillion.

Couldn't both sets of writings be described as a history? Could Moses, Solomon, David and whoever else wrote the historical accounts of the Old Testament be similar to the Herodutuses that Eriol described as the ones who wrote the histories of Beleriand, Numenor, Arnor and Gondor?

[Eriol]

Couldn't both sets of writings be described as a history? Could Moses, Solomon, David and whoever else wrote the historical accounts of the Old Testament be similar to the Herodutuses that Eriol described as the ones who wrote the histories of Beleriand, Numenor, Arnor and Gondor?

Well, in a sense I agree that they are similar -- and for that reason those books of the Bible are called historical books, and not mythical books. However, many of those books (e.g. the Pentateuch minus Genesis) were written centuries after the facts they report, based on oral tradition for the most part, and -- at least according to the author's intent -- were not mythmaking attempts. The author of Exodus was not writing a myth, he was reporting the oral tradition of the people of Israel about the fact-in-history that was the exodus from Egypt.

In effect, the exodus from Egypt was also the exodus from myth in many senses; from that moment on Israel could no longer accept myths as shapers of consciousness, since it had, in its own view, a direct revelation from God about it.

Genesis, though, is written as a myth, and it is evidently a myth, sharing many features with other myths of the area.

I guess that what I'm trying to say is that while the Silmarillion can be compared with the Old Testament's historical books (we must note, though, that there is nothing in the published Silmarillion that can be compared with the prophetic books of the OT in scope or purpose), this is precisely because both sets of authors (the Jewish sages who wrote the historical books of the OT and the Elvish sages who supposedly wrote the Silmarillion) were not writing myths, but rather history. The historical books of the OT can't be compared with the Mesopotamian, Egyptian or Greek myths either, for that very reason.

It is also interesting to note that both sets of authors abandoned the mythological style of thought in favor of a historical style of thought for the same reason -- a direct revelation from God/the Valar. We know, for example, that Elves had myths before Oromë came to them, and we may presume that the Avari still lived as a mythmaking race for many centuries. They certainly have a name for themselves that does not mean "Unwilling" :D, and their consciousness is certainly shaped by a myth that makes both the Eldar and Morgoth (and the Valar) beings to be feared and suspected.

[Walter]

But after reading them, it occurred to me that there are some similarities in the, how shall I say, structure between Tolkien's Ainulindale and Silmarillion, and the Old Testament of The Bible. The Ainulendale and the first part of Genesis both deal with the creation of the Universe while the "historical" books of the Old Testament (the rest of Genesis, Exodus, Judges, Kings, Samuel and the like) are similar to the "historical" accounts of The Silmarillion.

Couldn't both sets of writings be described as a history? Could Moses, Solomon, David and whoever else wrote the historical accounts of the Old Testament be similar to the Herodutuses that Eriol described as the ones who wrote the histories of Beleriand, Numenor, Arnor and Gondor?
Well of course there are a lot of similarities, especially between the OT and the Silmarillion. But such a lot of similarities can also be found between the Codex Regius and the Silmarillion. And if you look at the early chapters as published in BoLT I these similarities go quite into some level of detail. And if you look at the quest of the Noldoli you will certainly notice some similarities to the Illiad and the Odyssey as well as to the Kalevala. In the latter you will find what may have served as Tolkien's inspirations for Feanor and the Silmarilli.

Now myth and history are of course not as clearly separable as some would have it, in most cases we find characters which are at the threshold between the divine and the mundane world. And the gods do not hesitate to pay occasional visits either. Just as in Genesis Yahweh walks the garden of Eden - as a visitor - we encounter Zeus in direct contact with menkind (or rather womenkind, mostly ;)). Or Odin walking - or riding - through Middle-earth (Middangeard) and begetting women, interrogating giants (or just hanging out at trees for a couple of days :D). Just as we find the Valar/Maiar in direct contact with the Elves.

And if we read the works of early mythographers/historians we find many examples for such "historical" characters which are said to have been descended directly from the gods. Priam (Zeus/Jupiter), Heracles (ditto), Siggi (Odin), Yngvi/Freyr (ditto; cf. Tolkien's Ingwë), Jesus (Yahweh) are but a few examples. But of course here too we find parallels in Tolkien's world, Lúthien (Melian/Elwë) comes to mind.

And these early mythographers/historians like those who wrote the Enuma Elish (~1900BCE) and Gilgamesh-Epos (~2150BCE), the mythological and legendary cycles of the Old Testament (~800 - 400BCE), the Illiad (~800BCE), the Edda(~1200CE) or the Kalevala (~1850CE) were of course all relying on oral tradition that had been passed on for centuries, though I doubt that they did consider themselves historians or mythographers...

[Eriol]

Just as we find the Valar/Maiar in direct contact with the Elves.

The difference, though, being that the encounters between the Valar/Maiar and the Elves were historical, not mythical. As they had to be, since there were living Elves who remembered it all.

History grows out of myth, which is a more compact form of speculation, but their common ancestry does not prevent us from distinguishing between the two. To distinguish them is not to obliterate their common points.

[Walter]

But alas - long gone are the firstborn children, and so is Eriol, 'he who dreams alone', the Ælfwine. Menkind has not ever again managed to sail the Straight Road which has been lost for ages and ages now.

And thus, history became legend and legend became myth...

...or so they say...;) (cf. "Foreword" in BoLT 1 and "The Lost Road"" in HoMeV, esp. p.77f)

If we compare, for example, the Lost Tales with the Gylfaginning or the Odyssey we certainly will not fail to notice the parallels between those tales. All three present the reader with a very "matter-of-factly"-account, but should we thus consider either one as factual history (even within the scope of Tolkien's secondary creation)? Personally, I don't think so, because all three have in common, that they have been written down centuries after the events are said to have taken place and hence they all share the same quality of legend and myth...

[Eriol]

Personally, I don't think so, because all three have in common, that they have been written down centuries after the events are said to have taken place and hence they all share the same quality of legend and myth...

Yep, but if this were the sole criterion to distinguish myth from history, the many modern books (romances) about Julius Caesar and the like would have to be numbered among myths ;).

We are agreeing much more than disagreeing about this issue, though. The Homeric poems, for example, have their share of history, along with a huge share of myth. History is not a break from myth, it is differentiated from myth's original speculation. A good example of this process would be Herodotus, who, although following an obviously "historical" method in his work, accepts old myths as factual (e.g. abduction of Europe), lets dreams play an important role in the tale, etc. etc. It would take a long while before "pure history" could become differentiated from the old myths. But nevertheless we can distinguish between Herodotus and Homer, and we can put Homer on the side of the divide that is exemplified by Egyptian and Mesopotamian myths.

Note, also, that I am talking about the published Silmarillion; I agree that the Lost Tales are far more mythical in character (as well as not being written by "Elvish sages" who were writing history, even in the fictional setting). Which makes them quite more interesting in my opinion :).

[Barliman Butterbur]

But to get back to the original question: "Did Tolkien create a true myth?" the answer is (to me) obviously NO (he wrote a "really long tale" as he put it, a modern work of fiction), because

• He wrote it all by himself
• The creator is absolutely identifiable as Tolkien
• It was all written by the same man
• Myths have no such identifiable authors: they are untraceable due to being written in the distant past, and have multiple anonymous contributors
• History becomes embroidered into myth/legend with the passage of time, and this cannot ever happen in the case of Tolkien or any other identifiable writer

Barley

[Walter]

Yep, but if this were the sole criterion to distinguish myth from history, the many modern books (romances) about Julius Caesar and the like would have to be numbered among myths ;).
I have no idea, what books you are referring to, but if these romances fulfil certain criteria, they might qualify as myths. It all depends on how we attempt to define or interpret myths (as I've tried to explain in a previous post)

We are agreeing much more than disagreeing about this issue, though. The Homeric poems, for example, have their share of history, along with a huge share of myth. History is not a break from myth, it is differentiated from myth's original speculation. A good example of this process would be Herodotus, who, although following an obviously "historical" method in his work, accepts old myths as factual (e.g. abduction of Europe), lets dreams play an important role in the tale, etc. etc. It would take a long while before "pure history" could become differentiated from the old myths. But nevertheless we can distinguish between Herodotus and Homer, and we can put Homer on the side of the divide that is exemplified by Egyptian and Mesopotamian myths.If I understand these statements correctly, you consider myths solely as speculative history of a distant past, which can be clearly separated from factual history. But this would bring you, at least IMO, not only pretty much in line with Lewis' assumption that myths are lies, even though breathed through silver, but it would also mean that you are ignoring pretty much everything people like Barfield, Cassirer, Frazer, Campbell, Jung, etc., etc. - not to mention Tolkien - have collected and published about the origin and the function of myths.

Tolkien himself explained his view upon myths best in his poem Mythopoeia and his essay On Fairy-stories. But his view, it appears, was then already heavily influenced by Barfield's Poetic Diction (cf. Carpenter's Tolkien... and The Inklings) and probably also by Cassirers Philosophie der symbolischen Formen (both were written independently in the 1920s and while Barfield's book is rather brief, Cassirer presents us with an extensive study published in 3 volumes, which make for a heavy and dry reading, btw.)

Edit: Barfield's Poetic Diction and Susanne Langer's translation of an essay of Cassirer - Language and Myth are a worthwhile read on that topic, IMO, as they elaborate on the "mythopoeic mind".

Note, also, that I am talking about the published Silmarillion; I agree that the Lost Tales are far more mythical in character (as well as not being written by "Elvish sages" who were writing history, even in the fictional setting). Which makes them quite more interesting in my opinion :).
I thought you would be referring to the published Silmarillion, hence I mentioned CT's Foreword in BoLT1 where he expresses serious doubts that what he published as Silmarillion was indeed presented in a way his father may have had in mind for the Silmarillion - and also seems somehow to regret having omitted the Eriol/Ælfwine character...

[Walter]

But to get back to the original question: "Did Tolkien create a true myth?" the answer is (to me) obviously NO (he wrote a "really long tale" as he put it, a modern work of fiction), because

• He wrote it all by himself
• The creator is absolutely identifiable as Tolkien
• It was all written by the same man
• Myths have no such identifiable authors: they are untraceable due to being written in the distant past, and have multiple anonymous contributors
• History becomes embroidered into myth/legend with the passage of time, and this cannot ever happen in the case of Tolkien or any other identifiable writer

Barley

So, does that mean that Lönnrot's Kalevala - and Saemundsen's and Sturluson's Eddas - cannot be true myths either? Or where's the difference? Also, what do you consider a "true myth" and is your view congruent with Tolkien's? ;)

[Lhunithiliel]

Originally Posted by Eriol

Originally Posted by baragund
Ooooooooooo.... I prostrate myself before the awesome power of the cat-loving Moderatrix!

Don't we all?

Do we all, indeed? Should we? ...... What for ?!!!! :rolleyes:

Anyway, couldn't we possibly consider mythology as history "spiced" as to the "taste" of the audience?
Although, unfortunately, in most cases history itself is "served" in the same way.

[Barliman Butterbur]

So, does that mean that Lönnrot's Kalevala - and Saemundsen's and Sturluson's Eddas - cannot be true myths either? Or where's the difference? Also, what do you consider a "true myth" and is your view congruent with Tolkien's? ;)

Not being familiar with the works you mention, I can't respond properly. Evidently these are "composed myths."

I consider (subject to correction) a "true myth" to be an ancient legend written by an anonymous author or authors, in the same way that a folk song is one that has been floating about in the culture for years as the property of one and all as it were, the composer of which is unknown.

Barley

[Walter]

Not being familiar with the works you mention, I can't respond properly. Evidently these are "composed myths."
Well I daresay there is barely a myth out there, that isn't "composed" one way or the other. I have mentioned these works, because they have something in common with the Silmarillion: They begin with a tale which explains how our world and menkind came into being and go on to tales about "heroic deeds" or "heroic adventures". Plus each of them has been "composed" - as you call it - by a known author. And yet the Kalevala and the Eddas* represent the foundations of Finnish - and Germanic/Norse respectively - mythology...

* I am deliberately combining here both Eddas, the poetic and the prose version, because they complement each other well and the prose version fills in some parts from the poetic version that have been lost

I consider (subject to correction) a "true myth" to be an ancient legend written by an anonymous author or authors, in the same way that a folk song is one that has been floating about in the culture for years as the property of one and all as it were, the composer of which is unknown.

Barley
But that definition neither matches Tolkien's interpretation, nor the abovementioned works, nor that of most scholars in the field of mythology...

[Walter]

As a sidenote:

What strikes me as funny in this thread is that evidently neither one of the participants - including myself - has studied myths or mythologies to some greater extent. And yet almost all of us seem to have a very clear image what - and whatnot - represents a "myth" or a "mythology" and consider ourselves qualified to judge whether or not Tolkien created a "true mythology" - regardless whether or not we (again including myself) have studied Tolkien's legendarium and his other works to a considerable amount (which would be necessary to answer such a question with some certainty).

I say funny, because just recently I re-watched part of Bill Moyers' interviews with Joseph Campbell (whose 4 volume book The Masks of God represents an IMO quite unmatched work on mythology) and was once more surprised how many aspects this scholar (who has dedicated a big part of his life studying myths and religions from all over the world) takes into consideration when he is re-telling and explaining myths...

That said, I think I've said enough to explain my stance on this issue, and unless someone is able to bring in entirely new aspects of this topic (and with 'entirely new aspects' I don't have a discussion of our Queen Beruthiel in mind) I shall bow out...

[Eriol]

If I understand these statements correctly, you consider myths solely as speculative history of a distant past, which can be clearly separated from factual history.

History is not a break from myth, it is differentiated from myth's original speculation. (...) It would take a long while before "pure history" could become differentiated from the old myths.

This should be enough :). And it comes directly from the last post I wrote. Of course, I took great precautions to distinguish myth from "the speculative history of a distant past", and I even said explicitly that any such "speculative history of a distant past" can't ever be a myth. Check this other recent passage from the thread, for example:

The people who purport to believe in Tolkien's myth are, almost certainly (we can't speak with 100% precision, of course, there may be a philomyther among them), people who are taking Tolkien's tale as a factual account of the past of Earth (or at least of some past). But this is not enough to make a myth. In an age in which myths are unconsciously held even if still quite present (such as ours), any tale that is limited to a given past or to a section of the cosmos is not a myth.

***

But this would bring you, at least IMO, not only pretty much in line with Lewis' assumption that myths are lies, even though breathed through silver, but it would also mean that you are ignoring pretty much everything people like Barfield, Cassirer, Frazer, Campbell, Jung, etc., etc. - not to mention Tolkien - have collected and published about the origin and the function of myths.

Not really; as the repetition of my words should make clear.

Tolkien himself explained his view upon myths best in his poem Mythopoeia and his essay On Fairy-stories. But his view, it appears, was then already heavily influenced by Barfield's Poetic Diction (cf. Carpenter's Tolkien... and The Inklings) and probably also by Cassirers Philosophie der symbolischen Formen (both were written independently in the 1920s and while Barfield's book is rather brief, Cassirer presents us with an extensive study published in 3 volumes, which make for a heavy and dry reading, btw.)

Edit: Barfield's Poetic Diction and Susanne Langer's translation of an essay of Cassirer - Language and Myth are a worthwhile read on that topic, IMO, as they elaborate on the "mythopoeic mind".

Yep. I could rest my case by an appeal to those works, actually. And by the way, Barley, you definitely should get a hold on those books. Barfield's Poetic Diction is short and quite readable.

I thought you would be referring to the published Silmarillion, hence I mentioned CT's Foreword in BoLT1 where he expresses serious doubts that what he published as Silmarillion was indeed presented in a way his father may have had in mind for the Silmarillion - and also seems somehow to regret having omitted the Eriol/Ælfwine character...

Certainly, but as we all know, the published Silmarillion is the Silmarillion that was published. The doubts are there, but so is the book; which is (a) what I was talking about and (b) what the people who believe in "Tolkien as a myth", wrongly or rightly, are talking about. Of course, any 100% generalization would be rash -- as I said earlier, there may be a philomyther among them -- but the "work of reference" for most people is still the published Silmarillion, whether CT has doubts about it or not. Books have a way of getting out of control ;).

[Barliman Butterbur]

...that definition neither matches Tolkien's interpretation, nor the abovementioned works, nor that of most scholars in the field of mythology...

That's why I stipulated "subject to correction." I'm learning from you heavyweights here! ;)

Barley :)

[Walter]

I'm learning from you heavyweights here! ;)

Don't! ;)

Wasn't it you who once mentioned you had - or had watched - Bill Moyers' interview with Joseph Campbell The Power of Myth? If you get a chance, watch it again - or read the book, it's basically an excerpt from the DVD/Video. Chances are you'll learn much, much more about myth and religion - as well as your own role in this universe - than from all the posts here...

And if your interest in myth should get sparked, you are ready to begin an interesting journey into the realms of myth and faërie...

[Barliman Butterbur]

Wasn't it you who once mentioned you had - or had watched - Bill Moyers' interview with Joseph Campbell The Power of Myth? If you get a chance, watch it again...

Yes, 'twas I; I have the DVD set, which replaced my old videotape set which I gave to one of my children long ago. Good! I'll trot it out and play it again! :D

(But you shouldn't denigrate your own learning and your own conclusions! ;) )

Barley

[Lhunithiliel]

You, Gentlemen, make me feel a wraith again. ;)
I post, yet I do not get any comment.
Ah! Perhaps I should've not posted at all! :rolleyes:

And even if the present post will most likely have the same fate, Walter, if I may, when you say:

What strikes me as funny in this thread is that evidently neither one of the participants - including myself - has studied myths or mythologies to some greater extent. And yet almost all of us seem to have a very clear image what - and whatnot - represents a "myth" or a "mythology" and consider ourselves qualified to judge whether or not Tolkien created a "true mythology" - regardless whether or not we (again including myself) have studied Tolkien's legendarium and his other works to a considerable amount (which would be necessary to answer such a question with some certainty).

I do agree completely with you, that in order to form an opinion one should thoroughly study.
Yet, on the other hand, two things strike me - one : studying does not necesarily mean "agreeing"; and two : whatever the multiple studies on this issue show, these are to be understood within the scope of the reason and understading of one or another particular scholar .

With all my respect for your comprehensive knowledge, I, too, bow off. :)

[Walter]

You, Gentlemen, make me feel a wraith again. ;)
I post, yet I do not get any comment.
Ah! Perhaps I should've not posted at all! :rolleyes:
Which part of your previous post did you expect someone to comment upon? The part about Elgee or the second part? Well, I have already commented one so here goes the other: The view you expressed:

Anyway, couldn't we possibly consider mythology as history "spiced" as to the "taste" of the audience?

Although, unfortunately, in most cases history itself is "served" in the same way.

- that myths are some form of history - appears very similar to that of other posters. Yet this view covers - IMVHO - only a small part of myth - if anything at all. If we take for example the basic structure underlying the Silmarillion (as well as the Eddas and the Kalevala): First a part dealing with the large and cosmogonic and then to the level of romantic fairy-story - then the first part cannot possibly represent some form of factual history - however spiced. The second part in some cases might contain a certain amount of historical facts, but if we look at the manyfold quests of monster-slaying we encounter in many of these tales (to name but one frequently found motif) our hypothesis seems to hold little water - unless our world has once been full of monsters (and unless we dont consider the monsters as the 'spice', but if we omit the 'monster-spice' :D what remains then of the story? Hero left home went there and there and got himself killed by an accident or returned home?). Only when we begin to interpret parts of the account as some form of creative art or metapher, we might be able to bring some sense into these tales.

And even if the present post will most likely have the same fate, Walter, if I may, when you say:

What strikes me as funny in this thread is that evidently neither one of the participants - including myself - has studied myths or mythologies to some greater extent. And yet almost all of us seem to have a very clear image what - and whatnot - represents a "myth" or a "mythology" and consider ourselves qualified to judge whether or not Tolkien created a "true mythology" - regardless whether or not we (again including myself) have studied Tolkien's legendarium and his other works to a considerable amount (which would be necessary to answer such a question with some certainty).

I do agree completely with you, that in order to form an opinion one should thoroughly study.
Yet, on the other hand, two things strike me - one : studying does not necesarily mean "agreeing"; and two : whatever the multiple studies on this issue show, these are to be understood within the scope of the reason and understading of one or another particular scholar.
Well then let's go and begin studying myths and mythology to some greater extent and then let us meet again and discuss things further... :)

[Lhunithiliel]

Not that I would argue, yet

If we take for example the basic structure underlying the Silmarillion (as well as the Eddas and the Kalevala): First a part dealing with the large and cosmogonic and then to the level of romantic fairy-story - then the first part cannot possibly represent some form of factual history - however spiced.

We might fall into another "pit" - "What is history?

...what remains then of the story?...
Remember what was put in the "cauldron"? ;)

Well then let's go and begin studying myths and mythology to some greater extent and then let us meet again and discuss things further...

That's an exciting occupation, unless we are careful not to kill the beauty of myth, whatever its interpretation might be!

Anyway, thanks for the time and the attention!