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The Tolkien scholar Tom Shippey states that Tolkien's spelling "warg" is a cross of Old Norse vargr and Old English wearh. He notes that the words embody a shift in meaning from "wolf" to "outlaw": vargr carries both meanings, while wearh means "outcast" or "outlaw", but has lost the sense of "wolf". [ 28 ]
Tolkien read Morris and Magnússon's translation of the Völsunga Saga as a student. [39] Tolkien was influenced by Germanic heroic legend, especially its Norse and Old English forms. During his education at King Edward's School in Birmingham, he read and translated from the Old Norse in his free time.
Perilous Realms: Celtic and Norse in Tolkien's Middle-earth is a 2005 scholarly book about the origins of J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth, and the nature of his characterisation, by the scholar of literature Marjorie Burns. Some of the chapters discuss "Celtic" and "Norse" influence on Tolkien's writing, while others explore literary themes.
Arda began as a symmetrical flat disc, and was repeatedly transformed through cataclysmic interventions by the Valar and by the creator, Eru Ilúvatar.. Tolkien's stories chronicle the struggle to control the world (called Arda) and the continent of Middle-earth between, on one side, the angelic Valar, the Elves and their allies among Men; and, on the other, the demonic Melkor or Morgoth (a ...
The medievalist Marjorie Burns writes that "J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle-earth is conspicuously and intricately northern in both ancient and modern ways." [4] She cites a letter to the classics scholar Rhona Beare, where Tolkien wrote that he had not invented the name "Middle-earth", as it had come from "inhabitants of Northwestern Europe, Scandinavia, and England".
Tolkien's use of the theme cannot be said to be exclusively classical; The Lord of the Rings shares the sense of impending destruction found in Norse mythology, where even the gods will perish. The Dark Lord Sauron may be defeated, but that will entail the fading and departure of the Elves, leaving the world to Men , to industrialise and to ...
The origins of Tolkien's Dwarves can be traced to Norse mythology; Tolkien also mentioned a connection with Jewish history and language. Dwarves appear in his books The Hobbit (1937), The Lord of the Rings (1954–55), and the posthumously published The Silmarillion (1977), Unfinished Tales (1980), and The History of Middle-earth series (1983 ...
Among the many influences of philology on his Middle-earth writings, Tolkien's visit to the temple of Nodens at a place called "Dwarf's Hill" and the subsequent philological study of an inscription with a curse upon a ring that he conducted, may have been seminal, inspiring his Dwarves, Mines of Moria, Rings of Power, and Celebrimbor "Silver-Hand", an Elven-smith who contributed to Moria's ...