What was fantasy like before "The Hobbit" and "The Lord of the Rings": 10 stories that inspired Tolkien

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

For many readers, the journey into the fantasy genre began with Professor John Ronald Ruel Tolkien. "The Hobbit", "The Lord of the Rings" or even the film adaptation of Peter Jackson … these stories "hooked" millions of people. Tolkien is known to have inspired some of the masters of modern fantasy, from George Martin to Terry Brooks. But the fantasy genre was not born the day Middle-earth was created.

Tolkien himself drew inspiration from old works, as well as the writings of his close friend and colleague in the work of Clive Lewis (at one time they even planned to write a book together, which Lewis began to write). Here are ten stories that inspired Tolkien to work and gave birth to the legendary world that everyone knows and loves.

1. "Roots of the Mountains" by William Morris

One of Tolkien's favorite childhood stories was The Story of Sigurd from Andrew Lang's Red Book of Fairy Tale. It was through this book that Tolkien came to know about William Morris, since The Story of Sigurd was actually a shorter version of Morris's Wölsungs Saga, which he translated from Old Norse. William Morris had a very large influence on the professor (during Tolkien's childhood), although almost none of his biographers mention this. Tolkien attended King Edward's School in Birmingham from 1900 to 1911. During his studies, the teacher showed him an English translation of the Anglo-Saxon saga "Beowulf". While no one can say for sure anymore, some scholars believe it was Morris's translation.

In 1911, in his senior year, Tolkien read an article on the Norse sagas, and a few months later he published an account of the Völsunga Saga in the school chronicles. In it, he used the title of Morris's translation, as well as his words and phrases. Years later, in 1920, Tolkien read his essay, The Fall of the Gondolin, at the Exeter College Club. The club president wrote in minutes that Tolkien followed the tradition of "typical romantics like William Morris." While there is much evidence of Morris's influence on the professor, very few scholars have spoken about it so far.

2. Beowulf

This epic poem was so important to the professor that he changed the modern understanding of it. In 1936, Tolkien wrote an essay entitled Beowulf: Monsters and Critics, in which he said that the saga is extremely important in the world of literature. Thanks to Tolkien, today Beowulf is part of the fantasy foundation. His theme of "light versus dark" has become one of the most prevalent in modern fantasy, including Tolkien's own stories. In 1938, the professor stated in an interview that "Beowulf is one of my most valuable sources." John Garth, who wrote Tolkien and the Great War, even said, "If you hadn't been Beowulf, Tolkien would not have become who he is."

3. "The Sigurd Story" by Andrew Lang

Andrew Lang's Red Book of Fairies was one of Tolkien's favorite children's books. One of the last stories in it was The Story of Sigurd, which became (as Humphrey Carpenter, who wrote the professor's biography, claimed) the best story Tolkien has ever read. Tolkien also once said that he was one of the children Lang interacted with. This story has its origins in the Old Norse sagas.

Sigurd won fame and fortune by slaying the dragon Fafnir and taking his treasures. The sword Sigurd used was broken when his father died, but it was forged again from the wreckage. Tolkien used the same idea for Aragorn's sword, which was broken when Elendil, Aragorn's ancestor, fought Sauron. In his letter to Naomi Mitchison, he said that his portrayal of Smaug in his novels is based on Fafnir.

4. "The Book of Dragons" by Edith Nesbit

No one knows for sure if Tolkien read this book, but researcher Douglas Anderson believes it to be. The Book of Dragons was first published in 1899, when the professor was seven years old. Tolkien once mentioned in a letter to Whisten Auden that he once wrote history when he was about this age. All he could remember was that there was a "great green dragon." It may have been just a coincidence, but there were many green dragons in one of Nesbit's stories. Therefore, it cannot be ruled out that forgotten childhood memories could suddenly surface after a long time.

5. George MacDonald's Golden Key

George MacDonald was another of Tolkien's childhood favorites. In his book, Humphrey Carpenter says that the professor liked the books about Kurdi by this writer. In 1964, Tolkien was asked by Pantheon Books to write a preface to a new edition of The Golden Key. The professor replied that he was “not as ardent a fan of George MacDonald as Clive Lewis; but he loves these stories."

But Humphrey Carpenter says that after the professor reread The Golden Key, he found the book "poorly written, incoherent and simply bad, despite a few interesting points." The Kurdi stories eventually inspired Tolkien to portray the orcs and goblins. In the "Golden Key" there is a sorceress who is a thousand years old. The way MacDonald described this character is very similar to how Tolkien described Galadriel many years later.

6. "Cat Meow" by Edward Knutchbull-Hughessen

In a letter to Roger Lancelin Green, Tolkien recalls reading an old collection of short stories as a child, which was all tattered, without a cover and title page. One of the professor's favorite stories in this book was "Cat Meow" by E. Knutchbull-Hughessen. Tolkien believed that this collection could have been compiled by Bulwer-Lytton. Subsequently, he was so unable to find this book, but you can quite easily see how "Meow Cat" influenced the further work of Tolkien.

Much of this story takes place in a "large and dark forest" that is very similar to Mirkwood, Fangorn, and even the Old Forest. It features ogres, gnomes and fairies. Also in the collection was described a cannibal disguised as a tree. At one point, the professor denied that he was inspired by the images of children's fairy tales, but later admitted to the opposite.

7. "Wonderland of the Snergs" by Edward Wyck-Smith

“I would like to describe my own love and the love of my children for Edward Wyck-Smith's The Wonderful Land of the Snergies,” Tolkien wrote in his notes on his essay On Magical Stories. Later, in his letter to Whisten Auden, the professor said that this book probably became the prototype of the hobbits. When Tolkien first began writing the story that would later become The Hobbit, he told children many stories about the Snergs, who actually looked a lot like the Hobbits. Middle-earth, and especially the Shire, also resembles the Land of the Snergs in many ways.

One of the chapters in the book, called Twisted Trees, inspired Tolkien's story of Bilbo and the dwarves in Mirkwood. In the earliest drafts of The Lord of the Rings, a hobbit named Trotter helped Frodo get from the Shire to Rivendell. Trotter was very much like Gorbo, the main character of the Snergs, who traveled with two human children across the earth. Trotter was eventually replaced by Aragorn, but many of the similarities remained.

8. Henry Ryder Haggard

Tolkien loved the stories of Henry Haggard as a child, and subsequently spoke highly of his work. Tolkien was most inspired by the book "The Mines of King Solomon". Thanks to her, the writer included a map, some narrative details and ancient treasures in The Hobbit. Even Gollum, the Glittering Caverns of Helm's Deep, and Gandalf's difficulty in taking the right path in Moria seem to have been inspired by scenes and characters from King Solomon's Mines.

9. "Night Land" by William Hodgson

Clive Lewis once said that the imagery in William Hope Hodgson's Land of Night could be described as "an unforgettable dark splendor." Douglas Anderson also agrees with Lewis that Night Land is a masterpiece of sorts. While there is no evidence that Tolkien ever read Hodgson's writings, if you read Night Land or even Baumoff's Explosives, you can find similarities with some of Tolkien's work. For example, Hodgson described the challenge of the forces of darkness in the same way as Tolkien in the episode about the mines of Moria.

10. "Book of Miracles" by Lord Dunsany

Tolkien was interviewed by Charlotte and Denis Plimmer in 1967. They sent him their first draft of the article, which was eventually published in the Daily Telegraph magazine the following year. In it, they quoted the professor's words: “When you invent a language, you base it on something you have heard. You say boo hoo and that means something."

Tolkien was clearly not impressed by their statements and replied that it was strange for him to say something like that, because it completely contradicts his own opinion. But he also said that if he came up with any meaning to the phrase "boo-hoo", it would be inspired by Lord Dunsany's story "Chu-boo and Sheimish": "If I used the word boo-hoo, it it would be the name of some funny, fat, important character."