Tolkien and Norse Mythology

[Anguirel]

Originally Posted by Gothmog

The first one was the sword stuck in the tree trunk in chapter III. Then the man worthy of the sword drew it out of the trunk without an effort, while others had tried thay best without moving it one inch. This made me think of King Arthur and Excalibur. The connection between old Norse tales and those of England becomes obvious here. Interesting as bot the Norse and the Old English tales where of great interest to Tolkien.

A slight clarification, Gothmog, which, as an Arthur-nut, I feel honour-bound to reel off. The King Arthur cycles aren't really English myth; they have Celtic roots and were later taken up and elaborated by the French Angevin Kings and their troubadours for political reasons. Arthur had been a conqueror of the English; so had the Normans and most recently Henry of Anjou by his victory over his uncle Stephen. For these reasons it became convenient to flag up the Arthurian tales lying dormant among the bards of Scotland, Wales, Cornwall and Brittany.

So, while some later interpolations into the legend, like the superb Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (of which Tolkien wrote a translation, not the best one in my view), were written by Englishmen in a more English tradition, the heart of the legend is in Wales and Brittany, and some of its most compelling details derive from France. That's why Tolkien was ambivalent about the Arthurian tradition; he saw it as not truly English, and so not the true mythology of England. (This seems like a good point until you consider that Britain is far older than England...but Tolkien could never quite reconcile himself with the curious Celts...)

The English material that Tolkien loved is more specifically Anglo-Saxon, like Beowulf and so on.

Just here to help, I hope...