Content Warning: This list contains mention of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.
J.R.R. Tolkien's stories go far beyond those of The Rings of Power. This series will dive into the details outlined in The Silmarillion and some of Tolkien's other novels, all of which provide thousands of years of stories for fans to consume.
Tolkien is one of the few authors who could inspire a franchise this complex. He not only used his incredible imagination to think up the fictional world of Middle-earth, but he used his knowledge as a scholar, linguist, and philologist to combine ancient legends and history with his inventions. This resulted in one of the most thought-out fantasy worlds in literary history. When observing Tolkien's stories, there are very clear parallels with real-world history and legends. From the exiled King, Aragorn to the landscapes of the Shire and the darker regions of Middle-earth, Tolkien's lore is filled to the brim with actual fragments of human history.
The Exiled Anglo-Saxon Kings
Aragorn is a descendant of a line of kings dating back to a destroyed city centuries before. After the downfall of Isildur, the line lost the crown, and Aragorn was born an exile prophesied to restore his line to the throne of Gondor.
Tolkien was a professor of Old English and spent a lot of time studying the Anglo-Saxon people and their evolution in Europe. One king of this period was King Oswald, born into exile but grew up to defeat the Welsh ruler who had usurped his family's crown. Oswald was far from the only king to follow a similar story. The concept became popular in English legends and mythology, which Tolkien often referenced in his collection of letters titled The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien.
Finnish Mythology And History
In The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien, Tolkien also discusses his fascination with Finnish mythology and history, especially that which was contained in Kalevala, a 19th-century book filled with ancient stories about the creation of the earth and several conflicts between various protagonists and antagonists.
Tolkien revealed that he loved the depth of the tales and lamented that England's culture and history had not been retained that far back. He used the format of these tales to outline the creation of his fictional world and inspire some of the best characters from Lord of the Rings, like Aragorn, Galadriel, and more.
The Norse Völsunga Saga
Tolkien had also deeply studied the Völsunga Saga, a 13th-century poetic retelling of Norse history and mythology, including the story of Sigurd, which The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien revealed to be his particular favorite.
The poem includes an important ring with great and terrible powers and a tale about Odin's sword, which had been shattered, being reforged into a new blade. The yarn is full of beauty, tragedy, and romance, all of which drew Tolkien in. His earliest attempt at a novel was even a recreation of the tale. In addition, several details found their way into Tolkien's works, such as Gandolf's mythological origin of Odin himself.
The Hamlet of Sarehole
The Guardian published a piece written by John Ezard, a friend of Tolkien's, who described when the author had told him about the inspiration for the Shire. From age four to eight, Tolkien lived in a small hamlet called Sarehole. He explained how at such a young age he had fallen in love with the scenery.
Sarehole had old-style mills and rolling hills, ponds with swans, and was completely untouched by the industrialization of European cities. This location stuck in his mind when he created Bilbo's home in The Hobbit. He even ended up including an effort to industrialize the Shire in The Lord of the Rings but ensured that Frodo and his friends restored the suburban paradise to its quaint glory.
The Battle Of Somme
In Tolkien's Worlds: The Places That Inspired the Writer's Imagination, a book written by author John Garth, Tolkien's recount of the Battle of Somme in World War I is discussed, as well as his ission that the location of the battle was the inspiration for the Dead Marshes that Frodo must cross on his journey to Mordor.
In The Lord of the Rings, the marshes are the location of a battle long forgotten. However, the bodies of the men, elves, and orcs are still visible, preserved beneath the murky water. This was symbolic of soldiers that die on the battlefield, and while their bodies are carried away, and their fight is forgotten, the land would always be impregnated by the blood that was spilled there.
King Theodoric I Of The Visigoths
King Theodoric I was King of the Visigoths from 418 to 451 AD and is credited with the defeat of Attila the Hun in the Battle of the Catalaunian Plains. During this battle, Theodoric successfully defeated his enemy, but his horse crushed him after it fell in an attack. After the battle, his people carried his body over their heads, greatly mourning their king and hero.
While Tolkien never confirmed that Theodoric I was the inspiration for King Theoden of Gondor, the similarities may be too remarkable to ignore. Like Theodoric, Theoden was crushed by his horse, and his people mourned and sang him praises as a great leader and hero, proving him to be one of the coolest characters in The Lord of the Rings.
The Results of World War I
What is now understood as PTSD would have been called "shell shock" in Tolkien's time, and he was all too familiar with this concept after the end of WWI. Tolkien insisted that, other than the Battle of Somme, The Lord of the Rings was not symbolic of WWI or WWII. However, several critics have claimed that Tolkien could not avoid including the effects of trauma in Frodo's story.
After Frodo destroys the Ring, he can never return fully to his old life. Instead, he finds himself disconnected and tortured by the trauma of his past. According to an article in The Lord of the Rings' best quotes about the effects of dark times in society.
Edith Tolkien's Great Sacrifice
In his letters to his son, published in The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien, Tolkien describes meeting and falling in love with his wife, Edith. He fell for her quickly, but he was forbidden to talk to her for several years by his guardian because Tolkien was a Catholic, and Edith was Protestant.
In the end, Edith left her church and converted to Catholicism so they could be together. Tolkien recognized how difficult this sacrifice was and created an epic love story, Beren and Lúthien, a tale about a man and an elf in a doomed romance. Lúthien ended up choosing a mortal life so she would never have to be without her love. The parallels with Tolkien's own history were clear, but to ensure everyone knew who his Lúthien was, he had the name engraved on Edith's headstone.
