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As a scholar, Tokien familiarized himself with historical works of many European cultures, including historical Scandanavia. As such much of what he learned took shape in the characters and places of his written works. While this will by no means be a complete juxtaposition of Norse Mythology and Tolkien's works, I will offer enough for you to perhaps be intrigued enough to go out and read the myths to do your own comparisons. Tolkien was very well acquainted with Norse mythology, as can be seen by the use of it in his books. The name of one of his main characters, Gandalf, is found in The Poetic Edda. Odin is also referred to with the concept of the "one ring". Odin's ring, Draupnir, was magical in that every ninth night, eight new rings would appear, with Draupnir to be the ninth to rule them. In Lord of the Rings, there are nine rings of man with the "one ring" to rule them all. Elves and dwarves were first introduced in Norse Mythology. Without those references in historical literature, there would be no Legolas or Gimli. Even the name Middle-earth, the setting for Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, comes from Norse mythology. Midgard in Norse mythology is the home the gods gave to man and translated it means "middle ground" or "middle earth". As I said, this is by no means a complete comparison, but it should pique your interest to investigate Norse Mythology further. :) |
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