[Man of the Old Hope]

Interesting question about the possible British sources for Tolkien's Middle-Earth cultures.

While there are strong echoes of a number of northern European cultures in the various peoples of Middle-Earth, it is clear that none of them is slavishly based on historic cultures or peoples (with the possible exception of the hobbits, who are pretty clearly based on the rural English of the Victorian era, or at least on some well-fed and comfortable facsimile of them! I'm often put in mind of Thomas Hardy's West Country folk when I read Tolkien's accounts of life in the Shire). And while British and other northern European cultural echoes and reflections are noted in the peoples of Middle-Earth, Tolkien's greater interest was in their languages (which of course begs the whole question of the relationship between the development of a language and the development of the culture of the people who speak it), and in how he used modern and ancient European languages to "translate" the manuscripts that became The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. In a letter of April 1954, Tolkien wrote,

"If it will interest you, I will send you a copy (rather rough) of the matter dealing with Languages (and Writing), Peoples and Translation." (Tolkien is referring to what would become "Appendix F" of The Return of the King) He goes on to write, "The latter has given me much thought. It seems seldom regarded by other creators of imaginary worlds, however gifted as narrators (such as Eddison). But then I am a philologist, and much though I should like to be more precise on other cultural aspects and features, that is not within my competence."

From this we should take the clue that Tolkien's cultural resonances, at least for some of the human (and hobbit) cultures, are to be understood through the languages he chose to "translate" The Red Book of Westmarch (i.e., The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings). These are presented to us in "Appendix F", as he also presents in the letter to which I refer (which comments may be found on pp. 173-6 in The Letters of JRR Tolkien). From his "translation" equivalents, we learn that the place-names and personal names of the Rohirrim, "represented as recent comers out of the North, and users of an archaic Mannish language relatively untouched by the influence of Eldarin" are turned into forms very like Old English (Theoden, Eomer, Edoras, etc.). Even the English-translated epithets, like "Wormtongue" are given a form very reminiscent of those found in Old English (or Old Norse, for that matter). The names of the Men of Dale and of Esgaroth are represented as being more or less Scandinavian in character; indeed, the trading culture of the Men of the Long Lake recalls that of the Viking traders who ranged from Novgorod to Greenland. Furthermore, the Dwarves are given names of Old Norse provenance, because in not divulging their true names to outsiders, they choose names that reflect the Mannish language spoken by their human neighbors. (As to their culture, the Dwarves, whom Tolkien clearly distinguishes from the twisted, sometimes hateful dwarfish beings of Germanic and Norse myth, very much recall old Norse cultures, both in their warrior-ways and in their craftsmanship.)

The ancestors of both these Mannish peoples of the late Third Age, the Rohirrim and the Men of Dale and of the Lake, that is the ancient Northmen, are given names redolent of the Goths, e.g., Vidugavia. So it seems clear that we should understand these cultures as having a common culture best represented as proto-Germanic, with a divergence over the centuries that produces two distinct cultures that nevertheless reflect that common "Germanic" base. It bears pointing out that, while forms quite like Old English are used to "translate" Rohirric names, the culture of these horsemen is not that of the Anglo-Saxons of early medieval England, nor indeed any of the Germanic peoples, who were none of them renowned horsemen. In that respect the Rohirrim are more like Scythians or Central Asian peoples.

I think it also clear that the Beornings share a sort of Germanic culture with the other Northmen descendants. Indeed, consider the mere fact of the name, "Beorn", which is an actual Old English name.

As Merry discovers in Rohan, there is a connection between the Westron spoken in the Shire and this more ancient ancestral form of Westron spoken in the Mark, which reflects Tolkien's skillful artifice in constructing languages that serve his "translation" purposes (the modern English used to "translate" Westron being descended from the Old English on which his Rohirric "translations" are based). Recall that a possible root form for hobbit, holbytlan, is constructed (by Theoden himself, I think?) upon learning what the halfling calls himself. We see further echoes of Old English in Shire-words as well: Michel Delving (from OE micel, "much, or great"), the mathom-house (from OE maðom, "treasure"), or even words like Shire and sheriff.

All of which is a philological way of saying that I think we should understand the hobbits to share a common proto-Germanic ancestral culture with the Northmen.

But there are clearly other cultural influences at work among the folk of the Shire, because some "translated" names are Frankish in origin (like Frodo) and some are Celtic in origin (like Meriadoc). Those with names translated by forms like Celtic (specifically, British-Cymric) likely have ancestry that lies in Minhiriath, a region where the Dunlendings also dwell, who probably have a sort of Celtic culture. The ancestors of the Breelanders are also understood to have their origins in that region (west of Rohan, south of Arnor), and a quasi-Celtic origin is reflected in the place-names with which Tolkien "translated" the place-names of Bree: Bree (Cymric-Welsh bryn, "hill"), Combe (C. cwm, "coomb"), Chetwood (a sort of redundant play on C. coed, "wood, or forest"). I will admit that the culture and the personal names of the Breelanders don't seem very Celtic, perhaps because they've been influenced by the Hobbits and by the (all-but-extinct) Edainic culture of the Numenorean folk of Arnor.

Gondor (and by extension, such princedoms as Dol Amroth) is an interesting case. An Edainic/Numenorean kingdom heavily influenced by the Eldarin (after all, their kingly ancestors were "elf-friends"), with Sindarin names. One of the posters above is quite correct to point out the Egyptian resonances of the obsessive tomb-building attempts at defying death among the late Numenorean kings and nobility, but the overall feel of this last Numenorean outpost (Gondor) is still northern European. Interestingly, though, Tolkien reflected enough on the geography of Gondor to note that the city of Minas Tirith should be thought of as being on a latitude roughly that of Florence or of Constantinople. So are we correct in assigning a sort of Byzantine feel to Gondor, in that it preserves the learning and architecture of a diminishing and disappearing once-powerful ancient culture?

As to the Elves, no doubt there is some reflection in their character of the Celtic myths of elves (Sidhe, Tylwyth Teg), but Tolkien's Elves are still quite unlike the Welsh and Irish fairies, who tend on the whole to be far more mercurial and even malevolent than Tolkien's Eldar.

In that same letter, Tolkien wrote, (having already noted the "Elven-latin" character of Quenya, with Finnish and Greek ingredients; and the British-Welsh linguistic character of Sindarin),

"'Elves' is a translation, not perhaps now very suitable, but originally good enough, of Quendi. They are represented by a race similar in appearance (and more so the further back) to Men, and in former days of the same stature. I will not here go into their differences from Men! But I suppose that the Quendi are in fact in these histories very little aking to the Elves and Fairies of Europe; and if I were pressed to rationalize, I should say they represent really Men with greatly enhanced aesthetic and creative faculties, greater beauty and longer life, and nobility...."

Sorry for the length of my comments! But I hope they shed some light.