England's Mythology?

[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.