Finnish influences on Tolkien

Scholars have noted that Christopher Tolkien's subsequent redaction of his father's legendarium made this fiction into a reality, so that both men could be called England's Lönnrot.

[T 2]The Lutheran priest Petri Tikka analyses the languages in the Arda Philology journal, showing that they are genuinely diverse, and arguing that the "Finnicization" of Quenya did not decline during its development through Tolkien's lifetime.

He notes that Tolkien rarely borrowed words directly from Finnish, but absorbed linguistic patterns and used them to create a language that has "an atmosphere of both uniqueness and depth".

[2] The fantasy author Anne C. Petty likens the beauty of Tolkien's Tengwar calligraphy to the effect of "printed Finnish with its limited number of consonants and doubled, umlauted vowels".

Thus the god-names Ilu and Ilukko resemble the Ilúvatar of The Silmarillion; the placename Telea (for Karelia) "evokes the Teleri"; and Manalome (sky, heaven) "recall[s] Qenya Mana/Manwë, chief of the Valar".

[6] Petty and Tolkien's biographer John Garth have noted the similarity of Tolkien's 1914 poem "The Voyage of Éarendel the Evening Star", in which the far-travelled mariner finally sails from the earth's surface into the sky, to the Kalevala's closing scene, where the work's central character, Väinämöinen, "In his vessel made of copper, / Sailed away to loftier regions, / To the land beneath the heavens."

"[7] Among the changes that Tolkien made from Kirby's version to his own short story are "more cogent motivations", "flourishes of vivid detail", removal of "sing-song repetitions"; reorganisation; reduction of the cast of characters; and toning down of the "wilder hyperbole".

[7] Garth adds that The Story of Kullervo is where some "characteristically Tolkienian features" make their debut: it is heroic "with famous and superhuman deeds", but "also sub-heroic, involving a clumsy and sometimes stupid protagonist.

"[7] Further, it makes use of "supernatural folklore elements" including "prophecy, an inherited weapon, a magical gift (three hairs—a triadic grouping repeated by Galadriel), and even trees as shepherds (portending the Ents)".

[9] Scholars including Randel Helms have suggested that the Sampo contributed to Tolkien's magical forged jewels, the Silmarils that form a central element of his legendarium.

Väinämöinen and the powerful wizard Gandalf share their immortal origins and wise nature; and both works end with the character's departure on a ship to lands beyond the mortal world.

Tolkien is quoted as saying in Humphrey Carpenter's biography that a story "grows like a seed in the dark out of the leaf-mold of the mind: out of all that has been seen or thought or read, that has long ago been forgotten, descending into the deeps.