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Celtic Myths and LoTR: Parallels?

I agree with Lhun that Tolkien's story came from his own mind. This mind, however was heavily influenced by scandavina myth. Tolkien himself was an avid student of Celitc history.

-MB
 
Hail, Morgoth's Bane,

Well met! * bows a greeting *

Thank you for starting a thread on a topic that's been of interest to me for some years.

On a visit to Ireland in 1991, I picked up a book called "Irish Folk & Fairytales Omnibus" by Michael Scott. References in this book give further indication of the parallels you're drawing between Tolkien's Elves and Celtic Elves.

When you mention Valinor equating to the spirit world, I think of references to "Isles of the West" (p. 74, The Return of Oison ) and Tir na nOg --

Tir na nOg ... It exists beyond this world, beyond the Shadowland, in a place which is set apart. … And the land is inhabited by a happy people, the Elven folk. (pp. 138-139, Conla and the Faery Maid)
Click to expand...

Throughout the book, Elves are given such names as "the Elder race" and "the Shining Ones," and described as tall, thin, and wearing cloaks. They have kings and ride forth to battle on horseback.

And when it comes to the conception of time colored by Elvish immortality, there's a description that seems to me strikingly similar to Tolkien's vision:


I hope to also post soon some information on Scandinavian history and its appearance/influence on Tolkien's works as well.

Looking forward to exchanging ideas with you and all other conversationalists here present,

Gandalf the Grey
 
*returns geeting*

Yes, I've been rolling this subject over in my mind for a while ever since I got interested in pagan mythology; glad some people are of like mind.

--MB
 
Tolkien himself admitted on many occasions that he modelled
the grammar and form of Quenya in FInnish, which he studied as a hobby, so he could read the FInnish national epic 'Kalevala' in its language of origin. The reasoning behind this was that something would inevitably be lost in translation, taht only the original would truly convey the meaning and spirit of the stories. He ended up taking many stories in the 'Kalevala' and reshaping them to fit Middle-earth, the most famous one being the story of Turin Turambar, which was modeled on the story of Kullervo in the Finnish epic. I see nothing wrong in this, myths and legends are common heritage, you can't have copyright on myths. This in no way diminishes Tolkien's work, quite the opposite. He has to be credited to bringing these myths and legends to life again, rewriting them and thus bringing them out to a larger audience that they maybe otherwise would have been received.
 
Compare the story of Bran’s expedition to Ireland in the Third Branch of the Welsh Mabinogion to the expedition of the Gunther and Hagen to the Etzel’s hall in the Niebelunglenlied. They are obviously variants of the same tale, more clearly so in the version in the Icelandic Thiðrekssaga where Hagan/Högni initiates the final battle by suddenly killing his young nephew at a banquet, just as his counterpart Efnisien does in the Mabinogion.

Tales and motifs float between cultures, some found world wide.

Tolkien was a Germanic philologist who had studied and taught Old Icelandic.

He generally favored Germanic legends himself, in part because he had less taste for the wilder and madder and more stylized Celtic legends.

The idea of isles of immortal folk that appears in Irish tales seems to be what Tolkien mostly took from the Celts into his mythology. GandalftheGray has posted already about the parallels between Irish immortals and their lands and some of what Tolkien writes.

One might also notice a possible connection between Oromë who is in Sindarin Araw from the West (Annûn) and the supernatural huntsman Arawn Head of Annwn who appears in the First Branch of the Welsh Mabinogion.

Coincidence in the names? Maybe.

Of course Sindarin was mostly based on Welsh in its phonology and style.

The parallels that MogothsBane finds are weak.

The immensely strong but gluttonous and crude god Dagda is not much like Manwë. In style the Dagda with his great club seems more like the Norse Thor and some think the Dagda may have been a thunder god also in the days before the Irish pantheon was mostly euhemerized.

Danu is barely mentioned in surviving texts, other than in the phrase Tuatha Dé Danaan ‘People of the Goddess Danu’. We don’t know enough about her to equate her with any of Tolkien’s Valar.

Her Welsh cognate Dôn was mother of Gwydion, Gilfaethwy, Gofannon the Smith and Amaethon ‘Ploughman’ apparently the representative gods of the four classes of Celtic society: priests/Druids/bards, aristocratic warriors, craftsmen, commoners.

There is nothing of this in Tolkien.

Bilbo is hardly Taliesin because he writes poetry. All cultures have their poets and Taliesin is not the only bard in Celtic stories. Genuine surviving works of Taliesin are strring songs, mostly in praise of King Urien.

Beren is hardly Oisin. This is told also of other Celtic and Germanic and French and Greek heroes.

A comparison of the Eye of Sauron with the eye of Balor has been made by others. But the Norse Óðinn also had but one eye.

It is not clear that Sauron did have one eye only or whether Tolkien is using metaphoric language referring to Sauron’s ability to look out on the world and see much that was occurring.

Balor as the greatest of the opponents of the Tuatha Dé Danaan of necessity corresponds to Melkor. But the clever god Lug who overthrows him is hardly Tolkien’s Tulkas.

Norse myth provides Loki as the Melkor counterpart, once one of the gods himself and later imprisoned by them.

The Zoroastrian faith gives Angra Mainyu (Ahriman).

Tolkien’s mythology is a little bit from here and a little bit from there, very well mixed with so much of his own imagination that origins of this or that part of it are obscured.

Celtic hero legnd speaks much of chariots and charioteers and Tolkien writes almost nothing about this kind of society. Nor do his Valar live in an otherworld parallel to and coexisting with our own where what are simple hills in our world are divine fortresses in the world of the gods.

This parallel world idea is very strong in Irish legend but absent altogether from Tolkien other than a few remarks about the Wraith World. But certainly the Valar don’t live in the Wraith World.

Note that by his own admission, Tolkien was not particularly learned in comparative mythology and legend, though certainly more so than many who read his books. And he certainly knew less when he first drew up his mythos of the Valar than he later learned.

And Tolkien did not put much of what learning he had into his tales to the point that any reading of the Norse Eddas on even Beowulf is at all necessary to explain anything in his writings.

Tolkien either changes radically what he has borrowed or he freshly invents. You can’t fill in the gaps in Tolkien by finding versions of the same stories in mythological or legendary texts.
 
* bows greetings to Morgoth's Bane, Starflower, jallan, and all other participants in this discussion *

Though I fear I cannot match the eloquence and expertise of the rest of you, yet I hope to offer some information of interest relating to the likelihood of Tolkien's drawing of character names from Scandinavian history.

In fact, I am going to quote from the results of some genealogical research sent to me by my father in e-mail. I strongly prefer not to name my father here publicly, but am quite willing to privately give out his name and e-mail address to any administrator here at TTF who may wish to check my source, and to verify that my father gives me his permission to quote him without using his name. I am also willing to delete this post if those in charge of TTF feel that is the proper course of action. The historical veracity of this information can also be researched on the internet on a do-it-yourself basis, but might prove an incredibly painstaking process.

That said, here is the information:


According to this, I'm related to the real Gandalf.
And Frodo, as well.
 
Tolkien borrowed the name Gandalf from the eddic lay Voluspá, stanza 12, where it is mentioned in a list of dwarf names:

Veigur og Gandálfur,
Vindálfur, Þráinn,
Þekkur og Þorinn,
Þrár, Vitur og Litur,
Nár og Nýráður,
nú hefi eg dverga,
- Reginn og Ráðsviður, -
rétt um talda.

Veig and Gandálf,
Vindálf, Thráin,
Thekk and Thorin,
Thror, Vitr, and Litr,
Núr and Nýrád,
Regin and Rádsvid.
Now of the dwarfs
I have rightly told.

For such reason it was the initial name of the character that would latter be called Thorin. Tolkien, however, realized that Gand-Alf (something like Magic Staff Elf) was much more suitable for the wizard from The Hobbit. It does appear in other texts, yes, even as a first name of non-dwarvish characters, but it was the Voluspá that gave the Professor the idea.
 
GandalftheGrey posted some genealogical data which is indeed a proper rendering of the genealogies as given in some of the surviving material for the legendary Sigurd Ring and his legendary son Ragnar Lodbrok (Ragnar Hairy-breeches).

What data we have on these personages in Icelandic and Danish sources is confused and inconsistant, as partly indicated by the statement in GandalftheGrey’s material:
... Alfhild was already 65 years old when her husband Sigurd was born, ...
Click to expand...
It is only with the supposed sons of Ragnar Lodbrok son of Sigurd Ring that we enter on the margins of history, at least to the extent that Viking rulers that are certainly historical are in later tales identified with sons of Ragnar Lodbrok. Whether this tradition is true or not is another question (much debated by some but by most ignored as the debate seems to be fruitless).

The Icelandic and Danish accounts do not agree with one another much less with what history we get from contemporary Frankish annals.

Saxo Grammaticus in his History of the Danes presents two separate Ring characters flourishing at different periods. It cannot be known whether Saxo or someone else has split apart into separate tales what was once one tale or whether similar characters who flourished at different times have been confused and Saxo in part has kept them separate.

According to Saxo’s first account in Book VII, Harold is king of Denmark and Sweden and Ring is his nephew fathered on his sister by Ingild the former king of Sweden. The civil war between the Harold and Ring is the famous battle of Bravalla in which Harold perishes and Ring gains the thrones of both Denmark and Sweden.

But in Book IX we find Siward Ring (Siwardus being a Latinization of Sigurd) son of Siward by a daughter of Gotrig and his cousin Ring who is also a grandson of Gotrig. They fight for the throne. Ring is slain but Siward Ring dies soon after and his son Ragnar Lodbrok succeeds to the throne.

An attempt to list the kings of Denmark known to dependable history can be read at Kings of Denmark. The pertinent section is: GandalftheGrey’s source also uses the date 812 for Bravalla, making the same identification as is made here.

But whether that conflict was indeed the souce of the famous legendary battle of Bravalla or a later battle that was confused with it is something scholars argue about.

Some comparative mythologists have brought forth good arguments that the story around the battle of Bravalla is mostly not historical at all, at least as applied to medieval Denmark, but is a variant of the same tale that is the central story of the Hindu Mahabharata. See Bravalla /Mahabharata Comparison.

In any case Gandolf from gandr + ulfr ‘wolf’ is not the same name as Gandalf from gandr + alfr ‘elf’. The former was quite common throughout Europe in such forms as Gandolfo, Gandolpho, Gondolfo and Gondolpho. But the only cases of Gandalfr I know of are its appearance as a Dwarf name in the list of Dwarfs and as applied to a king in Snorri Sturluson’s Heimskringla in Harald Hafargar’s Saga.

Frodo is a Latinized form of Old Norse Fróði, Old English Froda applied to a number of legendary kings who supposedly ruled over Denmark or over kingdoms within the area now known as Denmark. Saxo Grammaticus distinguishes six kings named Frodo/Frotho in the legendary period. But it is apparent from the Old English Beowulf that Saxo’s Frodo II of Denmark (supposedly the twenty-third king) is identical to Froda of the Heathobards who is an elder contemporary of Hrothgar in Beowulf. But Hrothgar appears in Saxo as Roe, the twelfth king.

Other sources (of course) differ as to numbers and titles and genealogies of various kings named Frodo. The sources tend to differ about everything.
 
Many thanks for the additional information, jallan and Freawine,

* bows gratitude *

Genealogy has become my father's passion since his retirement, and he approaches it with all the gusto of a Hobbit. As he strives for the keenest accuracy (as far as is possible when history meets legend), he'll therefore highly appreciate your insight and wealth of sources. I'm planning on e-mailing him a copy of your posts soon, trusting that this is all right with you.

Gandalf the Grey
 
Well, I can hardly stop you sending him a URL to the post, can I?

But of course you can send the entire post if you wish.

A great problem with personal genalogies on the web is that often there seems no concern with sources. To my way of thinking every single liink ought to have at least one source reference, including a reference to the primary source even if the creator of the genealogy has not been able to check it: e.g. “Primary source: MSS 5623 Bodloan, assignment of land to John Nonesuch and his son Samuel Nonesuch, cited by A.G. Tracing in Old Families of Loamshire, 1872.”.

If there is more than one theory about the parenthood of a particular person then all theories ought to appear with some evaluation of them. That is the difference between genuine genealogical study and a simple list of names and dates picked up from who-knows-where which is what many web genealogies seem to be.

Sometimes it is pretty obvious that after a certain point the genealogy is an invented one, e.g. Ragnar Lodbrok’s wife Aslaug is very unlikely to be the daughter of Sigurð the Volsung by Brynhild the sister of Attila the Hun, at least if Ragnar Lodbrok son of Sigurð Ring is really to be placed in the ninth century.

But the amusing note in the genalogical reference about Alfhild being 65 years old at the birth of her future husband suggests your father or someone has a sense of humor about such discrepencies in legendary records.
 
Originally posted by jallan


The parallels that MogothsBane finds are weak.
Click to expand...

Yes, you do seem very interested in bashing all my ideas don't you? Perhaps you are right that some of my parallels are not entirely accurate, but you do not have to dissect my post in such a manner. Even if your geneological and mythological knowledge exceeds mine.

Anyway, the Valar do (in a sense) live in a "Spirit world" type place. When, after the fall of Numenor, Eru removed Valinor from the circles of the world, it was no longer accesible by men. Some of Tolkien's wording implies that it existed at least partially in a seperate world.
--MB
 
Morgothbane posted:
I’m not particularly interested in bashing your ideas, Morgothbane.

When a reader looks at an author’s work sometimes apparent parallels to something else that the reader knows emerge.

Sometimes such parallels are meaningful in respect to sources used by the author and the intent of the author. Sometimes they are not.

If you put such things up for discussion, as is reasonable to do, they will either be supported or shot down by others. Or both may happen and a heated debate emerges. That’s the way it is.

And I don’t think it would have been correct to simply say that I didn’t agree with you and not explain why.

If my tone seemed too harsh, I apologize. Yes, they do.

The main difference between that and surviving Irish tales is that the otherworld is mostly imagined as interpentrating our world. A standard trope is for a character to wander into a mist which clears and where an empty hill stood a fortress now appears.

The spirit world of Ireland is all about Ireland, not only beyond the sea.

On the other hand, in Fenian tales Finn and his Men in many accounts mix and even intermarry with the Tuatha Dé Danaan almost as the Tuatha Dé Danaan were another kind of human. In these tales they are more on the same plain with each other.

This somewhat resembles the situation in the Tolkien’s First Age where mortals and Elves live mostly separately yet intemingle in ways that resemble that of the Fenians and the Tuatha Dé Danaan.

One might also wonder if the idea of the Rangers might not in part derive from the Fenians.
 
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You're right, of course.

When you say Finn, do you mean Finn McCool?

Also, in one instance (Melian and Thingol), even Ainur intermarried with men.

--MB
 
Yes, Finn McCool or Finn MacCumail or Fionn mac Cumhail.

I’ve read Tales of the Elders of Ireland: Acallam Na Senorach recently and the number of tales recounting very casual relations between the Tuatha Dé Danaan and the Fianna are astounding. But the book is thickly packed with material so concisely told as to make its contents practically unreadable.

It can be studied, but not really read as a book would normally be read. It is recommended only to lore collectors.

In this work St. Patrick actually marries a mortal prince to one of the Tuatha Dé Danaan without anyone showing great surprise.
 
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Tolkien does make some vague references to the Irish otherworld. In Bilbo's "Earendil was a mariner" song in Rivendell, there is a verse I would like to quote:
The Silmaril she bound on him
And crowned him with the living light
And dauntless then with burning brow
He turned his prow; and in the night
From Otherworld beyond the Sea...
Click to expand...

--MB
 
It is so shocking to learn that the ancient Irish tales told about a world parallel to ours!!!
How comes that the ancient had that cosmogonical understanding, taking into consideration that the nowadays science is still reluctant to admit the existance of such worlds and only the science fiction writers take the liberty to "show" them!?
What then do these ancient tales say about the creation of the universe(s)?

Another point I would like to address here.

Is is known where the myth about the making of the Sun and the Moon, as presented by Tolkien, originated from? Is there a similar myth of the ancient Celts/Finns etc. or perhaps from some other mythology..... or is it Tolkien's own fantasy?
 
Well, many myths personify the Sun and Moon. For example, Hyperion, one version of the Greek Sun God, rode in his chariot across the skies. This is how the Greeks thought of the Sun, but wheather it at all influenced Tolkien is ambiguous.

As for the creation of the World in Irish myth, ask jallan. He has great knowledge of such things.

However, I have never heard of any Celtic creation myth. Perhaps the Celts believed that the world was not created, it simply was. But again, ask jallan.

MB
 
Originally posted by jallan
But certainly the Valar don't live in the Wraith World.
Click to expand...

I disagree.


--Gandalf, "Many Meetings," Fellowship.

Because the elves dwell at leats partially in this "Unseen" world, it is safe to assume that the Valar have a similar power.

MB
 
I'm generally wary of attempts to impose systematic relationships between different traditions. People like CG Jung and Joseph Campbell have written extensively on the way the same archetypes always suggest themselves, and spring up independently in the mythologies of different cultures, without one needing to be directly based on the other.

The ruler of the gods of one pantheon can usually be equated with the ruler of another, because they conform to universal features of the human condition. Most pantheons have a mighty physical warrior god, and a more sensitive type who's the best healer etc. etc.
If anything, we ought easily to be able to add to Helcaraxë's list. And anyone interested enough to be reading this should do so! (even if that doesn't mean that Tulkas is a representation of Thor or Ares/Mars, or Manwe an Odin or a Zeus/Jupiter).

And yet, the one Vala that really struck me as being a clear borrowing was Vána, with her associations with flowers, fire and poetry -- far from an obvious 'sphere of influence'! But isn't that exactly what Brighid / St Bride was associated with?

I was about to say Maedhros manifested a hint of Nuada of the Silver Hand in the replacement of his lost hand with one wrought of metal, but I checked my sources first and that proved to be an invention of the roleplaying company, ICE. The inspiration was probably right, but it wasn't Tolkien who devised it.

I'd tend to avoid suggesting that Tolkien's 'pantheon' of Valar is calqued on the deities of Celtic mythology, but it would be valuable to identify any specific instances where there seems to be a Celtic inspiration that couldn't have come from anywhere else.

-- Os.
 
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