[davem]

Originally Posted by Morthoron

Perhaps if they used a George MacDonald book (or even Andrew Lang) for a Tolkien source it would make more sense. There are direct references to MacDonald's work in the Hobbit, but I can't recall Tolkien ever mentioning Eddison. As far as 'The Worm of Ouroboros', there are too many words and not enough periods. Eddison loved his sentences so much he could never finish them. His naming conventions leave something to be desired as well (not to mention the book takes place on Mercury and features gods from the Greek pantheon). Bah!

Oh, Tolkien was a fan of Eddison - Carpenter mentions he met Eddison at an Inklings meeting (its either in the Biography or 'The Inklings'). Have to admit I liked The Worm Ouroboros for the language & some of the imagery, but found the philosophy a bit iffy. Definitely not a 'source' though.

Checking Hammond & Scull I find: Apparently it was Lewis who invited Eddison to a meeting of the Inklings in February 1943 at Magdalen & he attended a second meeting in June 1944. Tolkien commented

"Eddison thought what I admire 'soft' (his word: one of complete condemnation I gathered); I thought, corrupted by an evil & indeed silly 'philosophy', he was coming to admire, more & more, arrogance & cruelty. Incidentally, I thought his nomenclature slipshod & often inept. In spite of all of which, I still think of his as the greatest & most convincing writer of 'invented worlds' that I have read. But he was certainly not an 'inflluence'. (letters p.258)

Wikipedia has this:

Research done by Paul Edmund Thomas shows that Eddison started imagining the stories which would turn into the The Worm Ouroboros at a very early age. An exercise book titled The Book of Drawings dated 1892 and created by Eddison is to be found at the Bodleian Library. In this book are 59 drawings in pencil which are captioned by the author. The pages of this book contain many of the heroes and villains of the later work. For example there is a drawing entitled The murder of Gallandus by Corsus and another entitled Lord Brandoch Daha challenging Lord Corund (both of these events occur in the book).

As might be expected, significant differences exist between the ideas of a 10 year old boy and the work of a 40 year old man. Perhaps the most interesting change is the change in Lord Gro's character. In the drawings Lord Gro is a hero of skill and courage, while in the book he is a conflicted character, never able to pick a side and stick to it. Another curious change is that in the drawings, Goldry Bluszco is the main hero, while in the book, he is a figure off-stage (in an enchanted prison) for most of the novel.

Many people (including Tolkien) have wondered at, and critiqued Eddison's curious and sometimes inappropriate names for his characters, places, and fictional nations (For example: The Red Foliot, La Fireez, Pixyland, Goldry Bluszco, etc.). The answer appears to be that these names originated in the mind of a young boy and Eddison could not, or would not change them thirty years later when he wrote the stories down (see Thomas, Introduction to the Worm Ouroboros, page xix).

Which explains the 'nomenclature' Tolkien had a problem with.