Apparently, in a poll of 2,000 people conducted in the UK recently, 3% of people thought that the Battle of Helm's Deep really happened!
Unfortunately, this does not speak so much of LotR becoming a mythology, but more of people becoming confused between historical fact and the fiction presented in films and television.
In the same poll William Wallace, Adolph Hitler and William Wallace were thought to be fictional by some of the respondents (42%, 11% and 9% respectively), while Conan the Barabrian, Edmund Blackadder and Xena Warrior Princess were all thought by some to be real historical characters (5%, 1% and 1%).
Approximately half of the respondents thought that the Battle of the Bulge and the Battle of Little Big Horn were fictional events (52% and 48% respectively), while 15% thought the same of the Battle of Hastings. On the other side of the coin, 6% thought that the Martian Invasion in War of the Worlds actually happened, while 2% thought that the Battle of Endor in Return of the Jedi was a real historical event.
So much for history lessons!
What is not clear is whether the 3% who thought that the Battle of Helm's Deep actually occurred believe that Orcs really once existed, or whether they just missed the facts that the bad guys were Orcs and simply thought them to be rather strange looking and barbarous men!!??
