Posted: May 24, 2000 at 04:10:40: by Martin Read
: : You don't provide a full context, but I can assure you that Tolkien's use of Celtic folklore in THE HOBBIT is well attested, and he based a number of themes on Greek and Biblical ideas as well.:
: I just finished up a course on Celtic mythology, and I personally don't see a lot of similarities between the Elves of TH and the Síde... Really? Beautiful, of human proportion, immortal, magical, great craftsmen and artists, poetic and musical, mighty at war. Am I talking about Tolkien's Elves or the Sidhe? Actually both - just a few similarities, but telling ones. in fact, on the whole I found most Celtic mythology to be quite inimical to being grouped with other Northern folklore and mythology, especially Scandinavian. Celtic mythology and belief-systems had some unique features but a great deal of it had a common basis with that of other Indo-European peoples. The Romans had little trouble identifying the Gallic and British gods with their own, as many double inscriptions testify (Sulis-Minerva, Taranis-Jupiter etc). Even the Germans were not that far off from the same continuum the German god Tiw is identical to Jupiter and Zeus and is found with the same addition of -Father ie Tiw-fader, Jiu-pater, Zeus-pitar.
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