[narfforc]

In Tree and Leaf Tolkien states the following: So with regard to fairy stories, I feel that it is more interesting, and also in its way more difficult, to consider what they are, what they have become for us, and what values the long alchemic processes of time have produced in them. In Dasent's words I would say:'We must be satisfied with the soup that is set before us, and not desire to see the bones of the ox out of which it has been boiled. Though oddly enough, Dasent by 'the soup' meant a mishmash of bogus pre-history founded on the early surmises of Comparative Philology; and by 'desire to see the bones' he meant a demand to see the workings and the proof that led to these theories. By 'the soup' I mean the story as it is served up by its author or teller, and by 'the bones' its sources or material - even when (by rare luck) those can be with certainty discovered. But I do not, of course, forbid criticism of the soup as soup.

We cannot with certainty discover the sources or material from where LotR comes from, and the story is what it is, one of Faery. Tolkien sees Story as a big pot of soup into which from time to time things savoury and unsavoury are added and things taken out, LotR rings is such a thing, a great ladle full of soup. If when tasting my soup I find something I don't like I lay it aside and carry on with the remainder. The soup of tales has become extremely mixed, and if a soup has vegetables and meat in, then it cannot be wholly called either, this is how I see LotR, and I have a suspicion that is what Tolkien wanted.