Tolkien literally based his work off Norse, Celtic, and Germany mythology and spoke himself at length how he did so.
That and he crossed the mythology of Christian angles as noble warriors of good, with the Norse Alfar, and the Celte Fae, which he anglicized as "elves," which is the origin of the modern "fantasy" trope of elves, like from DnD and World of Warcraft comes from. And it was only much later, hippy writers mostly in the 1970's who wrote elves into tree hugging hippies of faffery and stupidity and weakness. Tolkien's elves in particular were ferocious and terrifying, the kind of people who fought armies of demons, each demon so powerful they could kill scores and scores of humans, all before before lunch because it was tuesday they were bored.
It didn't hurt that ancient norse actually associated the Alfar with Vahalla and their gods, so there is that too.
Though I would caution from drawing any direct lines between anything since the medieval Christians basically muddied all the understanding of ancient Norse lore, then tried to fold it into Christianity to help "sell" it to the norse and germanic peoples. And what little is known is known though the eyes of christians because the ancient Norse and Anglo-Saxons were illiterate peoples who kept oral histories, all of which were completely lost as those people became Christian and literally forgot their own history. Norse historians have only the Islandic Sagas which were carefully recorded from interviews of skalds by a Christian priest in Iceland, something others in North Europe didn't bother to do. But you have to remember this is Iceland, a far, far flung nordic colony far removed from Norway, Denmark and Sweden by both distance, and centuries when the Sagas were recorded.
And WW1 and his personal experience fighting it was also a great deal of the inspiration for the War of the Ring in the book, in particular Frodo was his own avatar he wrote into the story, each of the hobbits one of his English country bumpkin friends, all who died in the war actually.
My knowledge of Norse mythology comes almost entirely from composer Richard Wagner. Basically, he did a Tolkien but in music. He took the Norse myths and condensed them into four operas.
His dwarves were ferocious too especially after they had forged a ring from magic gold that gave them unlimited power. Its first owner cursed it so that everyone wanted it for the power but it always destroyed them.
Yah, if all you know is Wagner, you are doing yourself a massive disservice.
Wagner is also the source of most of the "viking" stereotypes that are widely inaccurate, including portraying them as savage barbarians wearing animal skins scarcely smart enough to use a privy. Wagner was the height of the "modern" (dated by now) German Empire, and a desire to both glorify Bismark Germany, but also to deminish and slander everything that came before to make Bismark and Germany look ultra modern and good-er-est than anything that came before.
Also to show now the actual Nordics, the Swedes, Danes, and Norwegians were a bunch of backwards, stinky, savage dumbassses.
He is about as faithful and accurate as Victorian English writing about Irish fae folklore and turning fae, the vengeful, terrifying, all-powerful trickster nature gods of Irish mythos, into tinkerbell, a subservant follower of a magical runaway English child.
Because remember the Anglo-Saxons (today the people of roughly Hamburg Germany aka Wagnerville-Bismarkia) have about a 3 millennia long history of trying to convince everybody else they are real norse too, and that Oden sorry Woden, is their god, and that the stinky norse stole it from them. And if you recall, when they went bad-Mustache-man, (because guess what, the "party" was from Hamburg, they ALSO tried to claim norse heritage, mythology, and gods as their own, again.
(also Norse were known for basically being clean freaks that bathed 3+ times a week and would never leave their long houses with their hair braided and their make up done just right, while the Anlgo-Saxons would bathe one a month and lived in mud huts (look up wattle and daub sometimes) at the same time the Norse were building massive fir-wood mead halls.
Wagner calls Woden, Wotan, by the way. I think he changed all the names - they obviously were not German enough. I did once read something about the epic poem Niebelungenlied expecting it to be pure Wagner but the story is rather different so obviously Wagner just took some names and ideas and made up his own story. But then, isn't the Niebelungenlied itself a condensation of other parts of Norse mythology?
So neither Tolkien nor Wagner produced stories particularly close to the original myths but they both relied on many of the underlying ideas in those myths. You can see where at least some of the inspiration came from.
Tolkien literally based his work off Norse, Celtic, and Germany mythology and spoke himself at length how he did so.
That and he crossed the mythology of Christian angles as noble warriors of good, with the Norse Alfar, and the Celte Fae, which he anglicized as "elves," which is the origin of the modern "fantasy" trope of elves, like from DnD and World of Warcraft comes from. And it was only much later, hippy writers mostly in the 1970's who wrote elves into tree hugging hippies of faffery and stupidity and weakness. Tolkien's elves in particular were ferocious and terrifying, the kind of people who fought armies of demons, each demon so powerful they could kill scores and scores of humans, all before before lunch because it was tuesday they were bored.
It didn't hurt that ancient norse actually associated the Alfar with Vahalla and their gods, so there is that too.
Though I would caution from drawing any direct lines between anything since the medieval Christians basically muddied all the understanding of ancient Norse lore, then tried to fold it into Christianity to help "sell" it to the norse and germanic peoples. And what little is known is known though the eyes of christians because the ancient Norse and Anglo-Saxons were illiterate peoples who kept oral histories, all of which were completely lost as those people became Christian and literally forgot their own history. Norse historians have only the Islandic Sagas which were carefully recorded from interviews of skalds by a Christian priest in Iceland, something others in North Europe didn't bother to do. But you have to remember this is Iceland, a far, far flung nordic colony far removed from Norway, Denmark and Sweden by both distance, and centuries when the Sagas were recorded.
And WW1 and his personal experience fighting it was also a great deal of the inspiration for the War of the Ring in the book, in particular Frodo was his own avatar he wrote into the story, each of the hobbits one of his English country bumpkin friends, all who died in the war actually.
Thanks for the update. Very interesting.
My knowledge of Norse mythology comes almost entirely from composer Richard Wagner. Basically, he did a Tolkien but in music. He took the Norse myths and condensed them into four operas.
His dwarves were ferocious too especially after they had forged a ring from magic gold that gave them unlimited power. Its first owner cursed it so that everyone wanted it for the power but it always destroyed them.
Yah, if all you know is Wagner, you are doing yourself a massive disservice.
Wagner is also the source of most of the "viking" stereotypes that are widely inaccurate, including portraying them as savage barbarians wearing animal skins scarcely smart enough to use a privy. Wagner was the height of the "modern" (dated by now) German Empire, and a desire to both glorify Bismark Germany, but also to deminish and slander everything that came before to make Bismark and Germany look ultra modern and good-er-est than anything that came before.
Also to show now the actual Nordics, the Swedes, Danes, and Norwegians were a bunch of backwards, stinky, savage dumbassses.
He is about as faithful and accurate as Victorian English writing about Irish fae folklore and turning fae, the vengeful, terrifying, all-powerful trickster nature gods of Irish mythos, into tinkerbell, a subservant follower of a magical runaway English child.
Because remember the Anglo-Saxons (today the people of roughly Hamburg Germany aka Wagnerville-Bismarkia) have about a 3 millennia long history of trying to convince everybody else they are real norse too, and that Oden sorry Woden, is their god, and that the stinky norse stole it from them. And if you recall, when they went bad-Mustache-man, (because guess what, the "party" was from Hamburg, they ALSO tried to claim norse heritage, mythology, and gods as their own, again.
(also Norse were known for basically being clean freaks that bathed 3+ times a week and would never leave their long houses with their hair braided and their make up done just right, while the Anlgo-Saxons would bathe one a month and lived in mud huts (look up wattle and daub sometimes) at the same time the Norse were building massive fir-wood mead halls.
Wagner calls Woden, Wotan, by the way. I think he changed all the names - they obviously were not German enough. I did once read something about the epic poem Niebelungenlied expecting it to be pure Wagner but the story is rather different so obviously Wagner just took some names and ideas and made up his own story. But then, isn't the Niebelungenlied itself a condensation of other parts of Norse mythology?
So neither Tolkien nor Wagner produced stories particularly close to the original myths but they both relied on many of the underlying ideas in those myths. You can see where at least some of the inspiration came from.