England's Mythology?

[Aiwendil]

Elfwine (=later Eärendil, right?)

An interesting idea, Gothmog, about a connection between Aelfwine and Earendil. I do think that the two figures are rather related in some ways. However, I also must point out that "Earendil" is not equivalent to "Aelfwine" (the Quenya translation of which would be "Elendil").

[Lalwendë]

Originally Posted by Gothmog

I don't know what you mean by the "truth",

The 'truth' that there was so much more to England's hstory and culture than that which came after 1066. Tolkien, like so many people of his class and age, was educated in the public/grammar school tradition of a 'good classical education'. Lots of Latin and Greek, Homer, Virgil and the mythology of the South. I went to an ordinary school and even there any focus on mythology was from the Classical world.

Tolkien instead took his inspiration from the tradition which grew up in the Victorian period, leading from the pre-raphaelites through William Morris and on - an interest in the 'Gothic' and the Northern. England's history and culture before 1066 was predominantly Northern. Even during the Roman occupation British culture remained strong, so much so that that culture is called Romano-British; many of the villas discovered from that time will have been owned by British people who prospered under the Roman occupation.

England is filled with the marks of its past culture, Stonehenge, Avebury, the Cerne Abbas Giant, Silbury Hill - even in the city I live in there are prehistoric remains in one of the woods, and I'm only 30 minutes drive from two major megalithic stone circles, Sherwood Forest, Mam Tor, Odin's Mine and Lughnasadh's Hill, among other things. Most of these places also have stories attached to them, tales of faeries, giants and druids. I think Tolkien hoped to reawaken awareness of this, and for me he certainly did, as it was only after reading his work that I 'discovered' that the seemingly created magic of Middle-earth was actually all around me in the real landscape.

What I'd like to know is if Tolkien really did capture this magic, or if he altered it into something else entirely? In a sense, I think he did recreate some of that magic, but in another sense, he ommitted some of it. His work points the way towards the 'truth', but doesn't tell the whole story.

[davem]

Tolkien clearly couldn't present us with our Pagan myths in their pure form. If his was not a Christian mythology it couldn't deny the Christian worldview. So things get left out or adapted to fit. A 'dubious' figure like Odin gets split, his positive aspects coming out in Gandalf & Manwe, his negative ones in Sauron & Saruman, Ravens make an appearance in TH, but are omitted from LotR - they have too many & too powerful Pagann connotations.

Like Lewis, Tolkien was happy to present us with Pagan things, but only if they were sufficiently Christianised as to make them safe. As Flieger stated in regards to Tolkien's ambivalent attitude to Faerie http://forum.barrowdowns.com/showpos...&postcount=197 (he was both attracted to it & could see the danger in it), Tolkien's relationship to his sources was complex.

[Lalaith]

Fascinating discussion.
Apologies that my own thoughts are not as well-ordered as many on here, but here are some scraps of thought.

I think the lack that Tolkien felt, which drove him to create his own world of myth, can be found in that word he uses, "majestic." The mythology I think of as typically English may be fascinating but it has a certain unsophisticated and rustic atmosphere: Robin Goodfellow, hobbyhorses, welldressing, The Green Man, Robin Hood, and so on. Perhaps it has become that way because it has survived in the hands, as Lalwende says, of the uneducated, or perhaps it was always like that.

Is there a case to argue that the Lord of the Rings starts out in this kind of "English" environment - not just the Shire itself, but most of the ghouls and creatures that the hobbits meet before they get to Rivendell - trolls (of stone), barrow-wights, Tom Bombadil, Old Man Willow - all "fit in" with the bucolic unsophisticated character of English folklore? There are hints of grandeur, both good and bad (Aragorn's stories of the First Age, the Nazgul) but it is only as they approach Rivendell and travel beyond it that this grandeur becomes actuality - Moria, Lorien. A parallel with Tolkien's own journey from English traditions to a grander personal mythology? Or, as davem suggests, a search back to an Indo-European-type ur-mythology?

The other English tradition, the Arthurian mythical cycle certainly has more of the grandeur and majesty that Tolkien was seeking, but perhaps he felt it was too Frenchified?
Another thought. I don't really know the Kalevala, but I do know the Norse mythical epic tradition. It has majesty of sorts, probably more so than English myths, but it is very grim and dark, I certainly wouldn't call it "fair and elusive". And it has just struck me that Tolkien chose to eschew almost completely in his own work one of its defining features, that of blood vengeance. (In the same way that he chose to eschew a vital part, as Lalwende points out, of the English tradition, ie crime and sex...)
And another...

The cycles should be linked to a majestic whole, and yet leave scope for other minds and hands, wielding paint and music and drama

Very interesting. I wonder if Tolkien felt this ever happened? I always thought that the musical equivalent of Tolkien was Vaughan Williams, myself...

[Lalwendë]

Originally Posted by Lalaith

Very interesting. I wonder if Tolkien felt this ever happened? I always thought that the musical equivalent of Tolkien was Vaughan Williams, myself...

I'm certain that this has happened - what with the RPGs, fan fiction, published fiction influenced by Tolkien, artists, music etc.... There is a whole Tolkien industry out there!

That is a very interesting point about Vaughan Williams. I was watching a new series about British folk music - Folk Britannia on BBC4. In this it examined folk music as it developed in the early part of the 20th century. Cecil House and the BBC were engaged in the business of collecting and preserving folk songs, and Vaughan Williams, Britten and others were heavily influenced by this music. However, this was associated with a desire to use the past in a conservative ideal of preserving 'traditional English values' (whatever those might be! ). As Tony Benn pointed out, this folk music was the preserve of those at the bottom of the social pile, miners, fishermen, gypsies etc. and it could be a radical music. And they did not look upon it as something which should never be altered.

I wonder, was Tolkien really the 'conservative'? He made use of our folktales, but he did not preserve them, he rewrote and re-imagined them to fit in to his own Legendarium. Was what he did actually a radical act? Or in his excision of the more Pagan elements, did he take something essential away from those tales? As we've discussed on the Downs before, Tolkien's Faerie isn't that dark, nor does he have a true Trickster. And his Valar which were originally very Pagan and amoral became more and more angelic.

I think that what he left us with was not a this-is-what-happened, but a this-is-what could-have-happened.

[Lalaith]

All this leads me to wonder - is it in fact possible to draw as many parallels between myth and folk tradition as we are all wont to do? Are they that connected?
Perhaps myth is what Tolkien called " 'high', purged of the gross" - metaphysical questions, the nature of creation, art and knowledge; folk tradition is much more concerned with the basic human requirements: food (lack of or plenty); fidelity (ditto, whether between men and women, brothers-in-arms, or men and beasts), and fighting.
And where do fairy tales fit in? Perhaps most fall into the folk category, although some, like the Cupid & Psyche variants (Beauty and the Beast/East of the Sun West of the Moon etc) might have more mythical elements.
The themes of the Silmarillion tales seem more metaphysical/mythical than folk tradition: Feanor (art and creation) Beren and Luthien (love beyond death) The children of Hurin (fate and despair).

[Lalwendë]

Originally Posted by Lalaith

All this leads me to wonder - is it in fact possible to draw as many parallels between myth and folk tradition as we are all wont to do? Are they that connected?
Perhaps myth is what Tolkien called " 'high', purged of the gross" - metaphysical questions, the nature of creation, art and knowledge; folk tradition is much more concerned with the basic human requirements: food (lack of or plenty); fidelity (ditto, whether between men and women, brothers-in-arms, or men and beasts), and fighting.
And where do fairy tales fit in? Perhaps most fall into the folk category, although some, like the Cupid & Psyche variants (Beauty and the Beast/East of the Sun West of the Moon etc) might have more mythical elements.
The themes of the Silmarillion tales seem more metaphysical/mythical than folk tradition: Feanor (art and creation) Beren and Luthien (love beyond death) The children of Hurin (fate and despair).

I think ultimately they are all leaves on the same tree. Mythology could be said to be concerned mostly with 'creation', the cosmology of a world and it's Gods while folklore is concerned more with the everyday, or else putting the 'high' into an everyday context. But the problem is where does one end and the other begin?

The other problem is that all mythology and folklore has once been the belief or religion, the 'truth' of its day or society. So if I include the Bible in this I am not deliberately setting out to offend.

If we consider the Bible, it includes not only Genesis, but also The Song of Solomon which is much more 'earthy'; we also have the Gospels which consider the metaphysical questions of Christianity alongside everyday concerns and life. Both high myths and low folktales contain lessons and truths, and all can work on many levels. We can see this today in our own culture - the film Troy talkes the 'high' myth of Achilles and brings it to the level of entertainment and action; we could even say that about the film versions of LotR (though many also get this pleasure from the books)!

Even 'high' creation myth can be 'gross', Cronos castrates his own father, Uranus, and then goes on to eat his own children.

If we look at Tolkien's work, even here it is hard to discern between what is myth and folklore, if there is such a big difference; both are melded together in one whole. If the tales of the Silmarillion seem to work more on the level of myth, then I would think it is the style in which they are written as opposed to the themes; Frodo's story alone is more than worthy of 'mythical' status, and yet it seems at face value to be much more intimate and contemporary.

[davem]

Myth blurs into legend, legend into folktale. We see this in the Legendarium. The Sil begins as high myth, becomes legend after the return of the Noldor, LotR mixes legend & folktale in its styles & subject matter. The BoLT is more earthy than the later Quenta. But we see this in ancient mythologies. Homer is 'higher' than Ovid. The Illiad & the Odyssey were taken as 'sacred' texts by the ancient Greeks, along with Hesiod & the 'Homeric Hymns'. The Metamorphoses were taken by the Romans as entertainment, yet the subject matter was the same. Norse myth has the Thrimskvida http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trymskvida at one extreme & the Voluspa http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voluspa at the other

Tolkien never decends to the level of 'crudity' we find in ancient Myths, so it is lacking to some degree, but then many modern readers would find the cruder side of the ancient tales distasteful - maybe that's why his work speaks to us.