mflayermonk
First Post
A couple of things here
1. There is a book "Tales Before Tolkien: The Roots of Modern Fantasy. Tales That Inspired the Author of Lord of the Rings" edited by Douglas A. Anderson that is a good read. Also, the Annotated Hobbit is good.
Tales Before Tolkien leans towards many of these ideas existing pre-JRRT.
2. Moorcock's Corum (1971) was an elf (or half-elf). Hawkmoon may have been as well.
3. There is a library of occult books at San Diego State University: https://library.sdsu.edu/scua/exhibits-library/odd-scraps
I had chance to look at some of these and there was no shortage of hokum, magical items, and magical races (of all size and stature) in the book sphere, pre-JRRT.
4. Anyone see the 1973 movie The Wicker Man? The ending has a pagan town burning a Christian man as a sacrifice for a good harvest. As he burns he screams out "I am a Christian man!". Paganism was under attack and fantasy considered pagan was hidden and instead, Narnia and Lord of the Rings were the substitutes used to fill the void. I don't think the resurgence in popularity of LoTR at the same time was a coincidence (that dialogue was also cut out of a recent remake of the Wicker Man). Its likely that Gygax's view of fantasy was shaped by "pagan" works from before WW2 and that very little contained in LotR was new to him.
https://youtu.be/74DeoFjmA74
1. There is a book "Tales Before Tolkien: The Roots of Modern Fantasy. Tales That Inspired the Author of Lord of the Rings" edited by Douglas A. Anderson that is a good read. Also, the Annotated Hobbit is good.
Tales Before Tolkien leans towards many of these ideas existing pre-JRRT.
2. Moorcock's Corum (1971) was an elf (or half-elf). Hawkmoon may have been as well.
3. There is a library of occult books at San Diego State University: https://library.sdsu.edu/scua/exhibits-library/odd-scraps
I had chance to look at some of these and there was no shortage of hokum, magical items, and magical races (of all size and stature) in the book sphere, pre-JRRT.
4. Anyone see the 1973 movie The Wicker Man? The ending has a pagan town burning a Christian man as a sacrifice for a good harvest. As he burns he screams out "I am a Christian man!". Paganism was under attack and fantasy considered pagan was hidden and instead, Narnia and Lord of the Rings were the substitutes used to fill the void. I don't think the resurgence in popularity of LoTR at the same time was a coincidence (that dialogue was also cut out of a recent remake of the Wicker Man). Its likely that Gygax's view of fantasy was shaped by "pagan" works from before WW2 and that very little contained in LotR was new to him.
https://youtu.be/74DeoFjmA74