England's Mythology?

[Saurreg]

According to Bulfinch's Mythology there were at least three origins to the start of mythical England. Two of them were associated with the the classical era and one has its source from Judaism.

Of the two classical myths, the first proposed that the island derived its name from Albion, the son of Neptune (Poisedon) who ruled over the island and was slain by Hercules (Herackles). The second myth had a Trojan refugee by the name of Brutus who sailed all the way from Anatolia to the island and became the founding father of the British (if that is even possible). That leaves us with the third variant which, stated that Japhet, son of Noah had an offspring called Histion (history) who beget four children and one of them was named Britto (Britain) who was the great progenitor of a people that would bear his name. How original!

So it would seem that England is deprived of a root for myths that are exclusive to it and it alone. Can't fault Tolkien for wanting to find something somewhat more "original".

[Lalwendë]

Robin Hood, Robin Hood, riding through the glen...

Anyway, back to this thread. I've been looking at one of the books we got at Oxonmoot - Tolkien's Mythology for England by Edmund Wainwright, and read an interesting passage about Robin Hood. He points out a striking similarity between Robin Hood and Faramir.

They are both expert bowmen - Robin stories occurring of course at the height of English archery skills as demonstrated to devastating effect at Agincourt. In On Fairy Stories Tolkien speaks of his particular desire to become a bowman (and he has lots of other experts in his work, including the woodsy Legolas)And both also use 'guerilla tactics' in the course of their days in the woods - Faramir to defend Gondor and Robin to rob from the rich. Wainwright also points out that Ithilien is a beautiful land which has suffered "under the depredations of a merciless foreign invader, just as England was under Norman rule." Thinking about the old tales i note that just as England's fortunes are once again revived by the return of King Richard the Lionheart, Gondor's are by Aragorn. Faramir is also something of an 'outsider' in terms of not being his father's favourite, and he looks back to the past of Numenor as Robin looks back to his Saxon roots. Allegedly, if he was indeed Robin of Leocsley (Loxley). Eowyn could indeed be his Lady Marian.

As Wainwright points out, the story of Robin Hood is incredibly strong to the English, and its one of the few stories that has passed down the ages and is still being made into dramas, comedies and films to this day. Yorkshire and Nottinghamshire are still fighting over 'ownership' of Robin. If Tolkien was hoping to capture some of the Northern spirit and create something he could dedicate to England how could he miss out Robin Hood?

But this isn't a simple analogy. There are also elements of Robin to be found in Tom Bombadil, and Marian in Goldberry - this side I think is the more 'mystical' aspect of Robin Hood where he is seen as the Lord of the Greenwood in English folklore, taking on aspects of the Green Man. We also have Bard the Bowman, and as previously mentioned, Legolas the Woodland Prince.

Tolkien holds both trees and woodsmen in great regard; and in England we have such odd things as Tree Preservation Orders and documentaries about trees (one of which I saw earlier - which included a look inside the great bole of the Major Oak, one of our legendary trees - we have many of 'em). We regard eco-activists such as Swampy with affection, and have a great love of hiking, camping and being outdoorsy. The love of the lost wildwood is still strong and its fitting that possibly our greatest English myth, Robin Hood (Arthur is slightly too British, as Tolkien himself thought), is about a woodsy man, a lover of the trees, and also of course a mythical bowman such as those legendary figures of Agincourt.

Tolkien said of Faramir that he just appeared to him as if out of nowhere; he said:

"I am sure i did not invent him, i did not even want him, though i like him, but there he came just walking through the woods of ithilien"he just walked out of the woods".

So where earlier in the thread I was wondering where exactly and how did Tolkien hope to create something 'English' to dedicate to England, this is an example of how he used something clearly recognisable to the English as part of their own past and present. Yet seemingly without seeking out a 'source', simply by being in tune with the stories we all grew up with. Robin looms large in the English psyche, so I'm not surprised there is possibly a lot of Robin to be found in Tolkien, woven into the fabric of the story.

Does this add to the 'Englishness' of this mythology?

What does the following mean in the context of the interweaving of English legends/folklore into the legendarium?

the larger founded on the lesser in contact with the earth

[mark12_30]

Originally Posted by Lalwendë

Robin Hood, Robin Hood, riding through the glen...

They are both expert bowmen - Robin stories occurring of course at the height of English archery skills as demonstrated to devastating effect at Agincourt. In On Fairy Stories Tolkien speaks of his particular desire to become a bowman (and he has lots of other experts in his work, including the woodsy Legolas)...There are also elements of Robin to be found in Tom Bombadil, and Marian in Goldberry - this side I think is the more 'mystical' aspect of Robin Hood where he is seen as the Lord of the Greenwood in English folklore, taking on aspects of the Green Man. We also have Bard the Bowman, and as previously mentioned, Legolas the Woodland Prince.

....Thus intensifieth my craving to rent and watch the Errol Flynn classic...

Who would win an archery contest, Legolas or Robin Hood...?

[littlemanpoet]

Originally Posted by mark12_30

Who would win an archery contest, Legolas or Robin Hood...?

Legolas, of course. Superior vision and hand-eye coordination belonging to Elves. No-brainer.

[Saurreg]

Originally Posted by Lalwendë

Does this add to the 'Englishness' of this mythology?

What does the following mean in the context of the interweaving of English legends/folklore into the legendarium?

How would you define 'Englishness' in this context? Norman English with a touch of Frankish culture or Anglo-Saxon English? Robin Hood was after all an English tale set in the High Medieval Era where Christianity has already established strong roots in those lands and the culture of the island was increasingly, if not continental European in nature.

I am of the opinion that mythical folklore arose from pre-civilizational (i.e. bloc cultural identification we use today) times and existed before, during and after the great attributes that group people into said civilizations come into effect. As such these folklores have a very localized and distinct favor pertaining to the place they originate from. That is what makes these myths so enjoyable - its exoticness that is quite unlike anything they exists today or from near history.

Robin Hood was an English product, but was it really distinctive enough in nature to be considered an England only myth? If we were to substitute Robin with say an Otto, Philippe or Leon, skill with the bow to unparalled swordsmanship and a corrupted king and his sheriff into emperor and his senechal, the tale of Robin Hood would fit well into any other parts of Europe and indeed the rest of the world.

[davem]

Originally Posted by Saurreg

Robin Hood was an English product, but was it really distinctive enough in nature to be considered an England only myth? If we were to substitute Robin with say an Otto, Philippe or Leon, skill with the bow to unparalled swordsmanship and a corrupted king and his sheriff into emperor and his senechal, the tale of Robin Hood would fit well into any other parts of Europe and indeed the rest of the world.

If we strip the flesh off any human being we would find the same skeletal structure. Archetypes in themselves are uninteresting. Stories are unteresting. And stories are set in a certain time & certain place, because they come from the minds & hearts of certain people. If you replace Robin with Otto, or William Tell, you've got a different story.

A point I was making to someone yesterday is that while Robin probably did provide inspiration for some aspects of Faramir (& Tom), Odin for Gandalf, & Mount Sinai for the Meneltarma (though mountains & hills, real & artificial, were always seen as sacred places), once taken up into a secondary world they become wholly & simply themselves - if they are taken up successfully that is.

[Saurreg]

Originally Posted by davem

If we strip the flesh off any human being we would find the same skeletal structure. Archetypes in themselves are uninteresting. Stories are unteresting. And stories are set in a certain time & certain place, because they come from the minds & hearts of certain people. If you replace Robin with Otto, or William Tell, you've got a different story.

You can scrutinize and strip apart every story to look for the human behaviour and they will be there, all your common love, hate, anger, pride and whatnots. After all story and indeed myths were connocted by human beings in the first place.

But nevertheless, in different cultures and at different times, there were characteristics that would have be very distinctive and different, and these two factors would have shaped the nature of the myth including the basic expressions of the human behaviour also, in addition to whatever indigenous identity pertaining to the myth creators. Hence when one reads of a myth from say China or Japan from 23 AD and 578 AD respectively, it would hardly make sense to him that it could apply to say England of the same era. The cutural favors that gave the myth its setting and gist would be distinctively Sinic for that example.

As I have mentioned the tale of Robin Hood was set in a time when the common nature of England was closely interwined with that of the rest of Europe. The orders of those days were religious piety to the Catholic Church and regional feudalism. So instead of thinking of Robin Hood and the characteristics of that tale as solely English in nature, I think of it more of European in nature. Reasons have been stated as before.

[Lalwendë]

Originally Posted by Saurreg

As I have mentioned the tale of Robin Hood was set in a time when the common nature of England was closely interwined with that of the rest of Europe. The orders of those days were religious piety to the Catholic Church and regional feudalism. So instead of thinking of Robin Hood and the characteristics of that tale as solely English in nature, I think of it more of European in nature. Reasons have been stated as before.

Robin Hood is a folk tale, and the ordinary people of England at that time wouldn't have been European in any way. In fact tales like Robin Hood ran contra to the European aristocracy and church that had been imported to the island; they are closely linked to faerie and ideas of belonging to the land. Feudalism is key to understanding this as the ordinary people simply through survival instinct would have had to do whatever they were told to do, including attending church, there was no option; but storytelling, in the relative safety of the home, retained their older memories, passed on through generations.

As I've said, there are probably similar tales from other countries in Europe, but folk tales take on a local aspect by their nature, especially ones which grow up on an island. I'd argue that England (and indeed Britain) is even today not really 'European' in terms of cultural outlook. If we look at roots of archetypes and legends then we must go quite far back to the races which managed to get here over thousands of years, and even then there is archaeological evidence that incursions didn't really begin until the Romans came - the latest evidence suggests that the so-called Celts were just native Britons, who'd probably come here when we were still joined to France. And that's probably how far back we'd need to go to get to common pre-Roman ancestors.

Then you need to add to the mixture the incoming Vikings and Saxons (Germans, Danes, Norwegians, Swedes etc as they are today) and how they may have added to folk tales. For Scots the Irish are also important as they gradually took over from the Picts.

Anyway, where am I going with this? Just I suppose to make the point that as Britain is an island, its folklore is quite special, we can identify when different peoples came here and we can still identify where they exactly went, as place names are still either British, Viking, Saxon or French (actually quite rare ). I think you can even identify this in Tolkien. lmp makes a guess at which middle-earth cultures might correspond to the various distinct cultures which came to Britain, and I think there's something in that, that Tolkien may have attempted in some way to deal with those distinct groups and how they made a new identity.

[littlemanpoet]

Just by way of seconding what Lalwendë is saying in terms of linguistics: England alone experienced a "great vowel shift", rendering the language so different in sound from its Continental cousins.

What difference does that make, you may ask? It underlines the literal eccentricity (outside the circle) of England, its folk tales and its ways of life vis a vie Continental Europe. Robin Hood and Guilliaume Tell are not the same.

[mark12_30]

Originally Posted by Lalwendë

Robin Hood, Robin Hood, riding through the glen...
What does the following mean in the context of the interweaving of English legends/folklore into the legendarium?

Lal, I actually put up a post (now deleted!!!) asking you for the reference-- which you crystal-clearly stated in, erm, your opening post. Now I'm SO embarassed.

Anyway-- despite my embarassment, I think this is a very good statement to ponder and I'm glad you brought it up. Reading it first out of context, what came to my mind was that many 'lesser' things-- fairy stories, myths, and &c which are "lesser" in the sense of "shorter" than Tolkien's life work-- were the 'compost' in the 'soil' that produced the legendarium in all of its magnificence. Out of context! But also true, for what its worth.

Nor for the context:

I had a mind to make a body of more or less connected legend, ranging from the large and cosmogonic, to the level of fairy story - the larger founded on the lesser in contact with the earth, the lesser drawing splendour from the large backcloths

"Lesser drawing splendour from the large backcloths" to me says "Hobbit" and "LOTR", which draw splendour from Gondolin (Hobbit) & Elrond's wisdom, &c, more thinly; and LOTR, which by the time we get past Elrond's house rests squarely on the legendarium whether the reader is particularly aware of that or not.

But then, we've also discussed (in various threads) such things as, "Smith of Wootton Major"-- does it draw from the Legendarium? Or does it draw from the same Faerie sources that the Legendarium drew from? It is "lesser" in size, but what exactly does it rest on?

What does "Leaf by Niggle" rest on?

What does "Farmer Giles" rest on?

Are we asking in terms of content-- which is how I initiallly answered a paragraph or three above-- or are we asking in terms of the compost, in which case everything drew on what came before? I often get these two ideas crossed in my own mind.

Even within LOTR, thinking back to the "It Feels Different Near the Shire" thread-- does the Old Forest, and Tom Bombadil, rest on the same thing as, say, Gondolin and Numenor?

lmp...?

[littlemanpoet]

Originally Posted by Lal

Should [Tolkien] have preserved these folk tales if he truly wished to dedicate his work to England?

Basically it seems that you're asking if Tolkien should have behaved more like a librarian than the artist he was. So I say 'no'.

Just for the record, I agree with Lal and davem and not with Saurreg.

Originally Posted by Lal

What does the following mean in the context of the interweaving of English legends/folklore into the legendarium?

It seems to me that what Tolkien is saying is: larger = cosmogonic while lesser = fairy story. I think 'fairy tale' includes Robin Hood. I can imagine that Faramir has analogies to Robin Hood that might have been instinctively present in the mind of Tolkien. It's also interesting to me that Gondor would be Norman and Rohan Saxon, whereas Faramir is the Gondorian Robin Hood to the Haradrim/Sauronish "Sherriff of Nottingham", by analogy. So it's not clean, but doesn't have to be.

Originally Posted by mark12_30

"Lesser drawing splendour from the large backcloths" to me says "Hobbit" and "LOTR", which draw splendour from Gondolin (Hobbit) & Elrond's wisdom, &c, more thinly; and LOTR, which by the time we get past Elrond's house rests squarely on the legendarium whether the reader is particularly aware of that or not.

I agree with this.

Originally Posted by mark

But then, we've also discussed (in various threads) such things as, "Smith of Wootton Major"-- does it draw from the Legendarium? Or does it draw from the same Faerie sources that the Legendarium drew from? It is "lesser" in size, but what exactly does it rest on? What does "Leaf by Niggle" rest on? What does "Farmer Giles" rest on?

I think this is a different discussion altogether because those stories had a different purpose than the Legendarium. That said, the three short stories feel just as English and written by Tolkien as The Hobbit and LotR.

Originally Posted by mark

Are we asking in terms of content-- which is how I initiallly answered a paragraph or three above-- or are we asking in terms of the compost, in which case everything drew on what came before? I often get these two ideas crossed in my own mind.

Both, I think.

Originally Posted by mark

Even within LOTR, thinking back to the "It Feels Different Near the Shire" thread-- does the Old Forest, and Tom Bombadil, rest on the same thing as, say, Gondolin and Numenor? lmp...?

Perhaps that I'm not English myself renders my opinion inexpert. Still, I've read enough of the literature, background, and even had a visit, which does NOT make me an expert but gives knowledge. Gondolin and Numenor come from Tolkien dreams, but seem to have their sources as much in myth and legend. The Old Forest comes from folklore and Tom Bombadil has a mix of sources to say the least.

But all that seems rather unclear to me. I think it's important to distinguish between what in the legendarium (& LotR) is cosmogonic and what is fairy tale..... if that's even possible.

[davem]

If the Shire is the 'contemporary' England Tolkien grew up in, Buckland & the Old Forest are 'Faerie' England. Both 'worlds' are self-contained when we first encounter them, but there is a sense in which Buckland & the Old Forest remain untouched. Effectively the Hobbits wander into the world of the Bombadil poems & wander out again, leaving the inhabiants untouched (apart from the Barrow Wight - yet there may be more than one wight, so that world is left with the same cast of characters as it began with).

And yet Buckland & the Old Forest are part of Middle-earth, & if the inspiration for them is the English Faerie world, they are what they are.

[Lalwendë]

Is Robin Hood typically English? Well the only other country that I'm aware of which has a similar figure is Scotland with Rob Roy, and he was very much real, though many tales have been built upon his legend since then. I wouldn't be surprised if Germany or the regions around the old Black Forest have similar figures though.

I think Robin is in some ways an echo back to an older England. We also have other rebel figures such as Hereward The Wake (only sketchy information is available about him, but he is from the fens of Lincolnshire, next door to Notts & Yorkshire) and Wat Tyler (a real figure). What is special about Robin is how he retreats to the woods, maybe the wild woods or what remained of them. Its funny to think but even now, almost 1,000 years on, there is a feeling of regret about what the Normans did to the English, cutting dead a culture and really being responsible for 1,000 years of class conflict (though they gave us some great Kings and all their tales ). So I can imagine how easily a figure such as Robin would quickly become magnified into a legend, a myth in fact.

Robin also changes with time - he is currently linked to Green Man figures and we also make a big deal out of the rebel aspects of him. So i can't think of a more appropriate archetype for Tolkien to weave into his own legendarium and use in his own way to create something entirely new. What's also quite interesting is that if Tolkien inadvertently called up the folk memory of Robin when Faramir appeared to him, this might be that 'sidelined nobleman' aspect of Robin, whereas the more odd, woodsy aspects are called uo by Tom Bombadil, and he even calls up a princely aspect in Legolas. Maybe Ghan-buri-ghan calls up the ancient aspect of Robin, tricksy and linked to the wild man of the wildwood.

I had a mind to make a body of more or less connected legend, ranging from the large and cosmogonic, to the level of fairy story - the larger founded on the lesser in contact with the earth, the lesser drawing splendour from the large backcloths

I thought I'd bring up this quote as it does obviously relate to the construction of Tolkien's own mythology, but it also reflects real mythology, big ideas based on local follktales, and in a way, this is what Robin Hood has become, an entire concept which has grown from simple, local tales.

The continuing influence of Robin Hood is to be underestimated at our peril, because tales and ideas of him are sunk really deeply into people's hearts and minds here. I think in many ways Robin grew up as a legend as he symbolised resistance to the Normans and their overwhelming new ways of life; the ordinary people remained English and did not become 'continental', kept that way by being reduced to being peasants in the feudal system, so maybe this is how the legends have lasted. I think that would be in sympathy with what Tolkien thought about the regret that England had lost its mythology (or a chance of one), and I think that maybe the idea of Robin would be in complete sympathy with his notions for this 'mythology' he was creating?