Tolkien and the medieval
The Lord of the Rings makes use of many borrowings from Beowulf, especially in the culture of the Riders of Rohan, as well as medieval weapons and armour, heraldry, languages including Old English and Old Norse, and magic.
By the sixth century, Anglo-Saxon England, "the bit [of Medieval culture] that Tolkien knew best",[1] consisted of many small kingdoms including Northumbria, Mercia, and East Anglia, engaged in ongoing warfare with each other.
[3] J. R. R. Tolkien was a scholar of English literature, a philologist and medievalist interested in language and poetry from the Middle Ages, especially that of Anglo-Saxon England and Northern Europe.
There `Théoden `fell, `Thengling `mighty, to his `golden `halls and `green `pastures in the `Northern `fields `never `returning, `high lord of the `host.
Tolkien was trying to reconcile different conceptions of the world, including the medieval Germanic migrations and the culture of Anglo-Saxon England, to create his mythology.
[23] Tolkien's Riders of Rohan are distinctively Old English, and he has made use of multiple elements of Beowulf in creating them, including their language,[24] culture,[25][26] and poetry.
[8] Tolkien admired the way that Beowulf, written by a Christian looking back at a pagan past, as he himself was, embodied a "large symbolism"[18] without ever becoming allegorical.
Later, when he wrote The Lord of the Rings, he was freer in his approach; and in the complex use of symbols for Aragorn's sword and banner, he clearly departs from medieval tradition to suit his storytelling.
[T 4] An item that the philologist and Tolkien scholar Tom Shippey suggests may have been crucial in his creation is the Old English word Sigelwara, found in the Codex Junius to mean "Aethiopian".
Magical beasts derived directly from medieval concepts include dragons with their hoards of gold, birds such as crows and ravens carrying omens, and the ability to shapeshift into the form of an animal, like Beorn and the great fighting bear of The Hobbit.
[37][38][39] Thus for example the Hobbit Merry returns from Rohan with a magic horn, brought from the North by Eorl the Young, from the dragon-hoard of Scatha the Worm.
[43] Tolkien described The Lord of the Rings not as a novel but as a heroic romance, meaning that it embodied medieval concepts unfamiliar or unfashionable in the 20th century, such as the hero, the quest, and interlacing.
[44] Elena Capra writes that Tolkien made use of the medieval poem Sir Orfeo, both for The Hobbit's Elvish kingdom, and for his story in The Silmarillion of Beren and Lúthien.
In Capra's view, Sir Orfeo's key ingredient was the political connection "between the recovery of the main character's beloved and the return to royal responsibility.
[45] Yvette Kisor writes that Tolkien made repeated use of the Old English theme of exile, seen in poems such as The Wanderer, Genesis, and Beowulf.
