Did JRRT encourage new ME stories?

[Raynor]

Originally Posted by Lalwendë

Because it is only a faux mythology. Sorry, but that's what it is. It was created out of the imagination of one man. A Mythology or legend is wholly different and springs from the collective mind. Tolkien, unless he had some kind of split personality disorder, was a man with only one mind.

The very fact that a Legendarium is made by several persons goes against your argument. If a Legendarium is better/ more real/ more authentic based on the fact that more people contributed to it, then, by your own line of reasoning, we need more authors to contribute to this Legendarium. Ironic .

Anyway, Tolkien had zero problems with making myths. Not only did he consider this possible, even nowadays, he also didn't exclude anyone from being able to make myths, as far as I am aware. And as far as your statement that "Myth cycles are/were sacred to the peoples who wrote them down and who passed on the stories", Tolkien did consider myths as a spiritual instrument.

Originally Posted by Chapter three, Part Four, "J.R.R. Tolkien: A Biography" by Humphrey Carpenter

Indeed only by myth-making, only by becoming a ‘sub-creator’ and inventing stories, can Man aspire to the state of perfection that he knew before the Fall.