Would the Middle Earth saga be considered a religion in of itself?

[Bêthberry]

Good evening, Legalos,

I wonder if you would be intrigued by this passage from Tolkien's essay, "On Fairy Stories".

The Gospels contain a fairy-story, or a story of a larger kind which embraces all the essence of fairy-stories. They contain many marvels--peculiarly artistic, beautiful, and moving: 'mythical' in their perfect, self-contained significance; and among the marvels is the greatest and most complete conceivable eucatastrophe [Tolkien's word for the 'good catastrophe', which he calls "the true form of fairy-tale, and its highest function"]. But this story has entered History and the primary world; the desire and aspiration of sub-creation has been raised to the fulfilment of Creation.... It has pre-eminently the 'inner consistency of reality'. There is no tale ever told that men would rather find was true, and none which so many sceptical men have accepted as true on its own merits. For the Art of it has the supremely convincing tone of Primary Art, that is, of Creation.

Respectfully,
Bethberry

[ June 16, 2002: Message edited by: Bethberry ]

[ June 16, 2002: Message edited by: Bethberry ]