Dear WotC - You suck at names.

[Desdichado]

For a setting which isn't Ultra-Denmark or whatever, Norse names do rather, well, suck. They're moderately hard to pronounce and spell (hence Tolkien's anglicizations), they sound kinda dorky, on the whole, particularly to the modern mind, and they're very specific to a culture.

It is ultra-England, after all, in many ways.

And the Norse were a huge component of the English population and language. Tons of English words have a Norse root. Perhaps you've heard of Danelaw, for instance?

Tolkien trying to create "a mythology for England" which ignored the Norse would be really bizarre.

Although, frankly, ignoring the Celts is also really bizarre, IMO, yet he did that. IMO that's a glaring omission.

 

[Lurks-no-More]

IAlthough, frankly, ignoring the Celts is also really bizarre, IMO, yet he did that. IMO that's a glaring omission.

IIRC, it was because Tolkien didn't like the Celtic languages, whereas he was a fan of the Germanic ones. And Finnish, of course.

 

[Wormwood]

Although, frankly, ignoring the Celts is also really bizarre, IMO, yet he did that. IMO that's a glaring omission.

Letter from JRR Tolkien to Stanley Unwin, 16 December 1937 (regarding, fittingly enough, a criticism of Tolkien's naming conventions.):

[The names] are coherent and consistent and made upon two related linguistic formulae, so that they achieve a reality not fully achieved to my feeling by other name-inventors (say Swift or Dunsany!). Needless to say they are not Celtic! Neither are the tales. I do know Celtic things (many in their original languages Irish and Welsh), and feel for them a certain distaste: largely for their fundamental unreason. They have bright colour, but are like a broken stained glass window reassembled without design. They are in fact 'mad' as your reader says - but I don't believe I am.

Emphasis mine. In is other writings, Tolkien makes numerous references to his dislike for Celtic style.

That's an Anglo-Saxon for you, I suppose.

 

[Desdichado]

IIRC, it was because Tolkien didn't like the Celtic languages, whereas he was a fan of the Germanic ones. And Finnish, of course.

Au contraire. He was a fan of Welsh, at least (although he doesn't appear to have known much about it, he thought it was a very beautiful language) and Sindarin has very similar phonology and phonotactics to Welsh, believed by most to have been by design.

But for some reason, Tolkien doesn't appear to have been very fond of the Celtic tradition in British folklore.

At least in one regard, he had it right, though, and maybe that's why he did it. The British languages, as a substrate to English, have had surprisingly little linguistic impact on the development of English. Norse, on the other hand, had a very profound and significant impact. Which is why Tolkien used Norse frequently when referring to cultures that were similar to his "default" culture; folks like the dwarves (who got their names from the same geographical and cultural area that Dale and Long Lake were in) were linguistic cousins to, say, the Rohirrim, just like the actual Norse were linguistic cousins to the Angles and Saxons.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

It is ultra-England, after all, in many ways.

And the Norse were a huge component of the English population and language. Tons of English words have a Norse root. Perhaps you've heard of Danelaw, for instance?

Tolkien trying to create "a mythology for England" which ignored the Norse would be really bizarre.

Although, frankly, ignoring the Celts is also really bizarre, IMO, yet he did that. IMO that's a glaring omission.

I agree that's it's MEANT to be Ultra-England (definately not including Scotland and Wales), but to me, that's never how it came across. The Northern European traditions and languages, especially Norse, were very strong in England and the British Isles, but as you say, ignoring the Celts is freakin' bizarre. So to me, LotR never felt like an "English" story, let alone a "British" story, but rather some kind of "Northern European" story (like Beowolf, I guess), and closest he got to any single culture was definately Denmark, I'd say (which unsurprising, considering virtually all our "Anglo-Saxons" came from around there, as I understand it, which may be imperfectly).

I mean, maybe I'm not perfectly "English" enough to appreciate LotR's alleged "Englishness", given that my father is technically Scottish (though raised in England), but it just doesn't seem "English" to me at all. King Arthur, with it's wierd celtic roots, and it's straining via Anglo-Saxon culture and Christianity, seems much more like an "English" story to me.

I always wondered if the Elves were meant to be the Celts, but they never seemed much like them. Time for a LotR reboot and some re-envisioning, neh? <runs away and hides in a deep, dark place>

 

[jasin]

Au contraire. He was a fan of Welsh, at least (although he doesn't appear to have known much about it, he thought it was a very beautiful language) and Sindarin has very similar phonology and phonotactics to Welsh, believed by most to have been by design.

Quite so.

"Most English-speaking people, for instance, will admit that cellar door is 'beautiful', especially if dissociated from its sense (and its spelling). More beautiful than, say, sky, and far more beautiful than beautiful. Well then, in Welsh for me cellar doors are extraordinarily frequent."

I couldn't find that specific Welsh phrase which I know he mentioned as particularly beautiful: an inscription he saw on a church, meaning something like "It was build in <year>".

 

[Desdichado]

I mean, maybe I'm not perfectly "English" enough to appreciate LotR's alleged "Englishness", given that my father is technically Scottish (though raised in England), but it just doesn't seem "English" to me at all. King Arthur, with it's wierd celtic roots, and it's straining via Anglo-Saxon culture and Christianity, seems much more like an "English" story to me.

Tolkien specifically called out King Arthur as a hybrid of Celtic legends and much later Norman French influences, and therefore not English at all.

But by English, he specifically meant Anglo-Saxon. I think Tolkien believed that William of Orange winning the battle of Hastings in 1066 was one of the greatest tragedies of Western history.

 

[jasin]

I always wondered if the Elves were meant to be the Celts, but they never seemed much like them.

Tolkien mentioned somewhere that the closest Celts-analogue in his stories were the Dunlendings. Not very flattering, eh?

Time for a LotR reboot and some re-envisioning, neh? <runs away and hides in a deep, dark place>

Now that was funny.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Tolkien mentioned somewhere that the closest Celts-analogue in his stories were the Dunlendings. Not very flattering, eh?

Yeah that's the impression I got, and I was hoping it was wrong. I guess not!

Tolkien specifically called out King Arthur as a hybrid of Celtic legends and much later Norman French influences, and therefore not English at all.

But by English, he specifically meant Anglo-Saxon. I think Tolkien believed that William of Orange winning the battle of Hastings in 1066 was one of the greatest tragedies of Western history.

Hah! I guess Tolkien had a pretty unique idea on what "English" was. That explains a lot, though.

 

[Desdichado]

Tolkien mentioned somewhere that the closest Celts-analogue in his stories were the Dunlendings. Not very flattering, eh?

True, but also the people of Bree, and for that matter, much of the "indigenous" population of Gondor itself would be of that same stock. Culturally they were pretty thoroughly "Numenorized", but they still originally had the same ancestry as the Dunlendings.

Actually, the people of Haleth, who were one of the "founding" families of Elf-friends (albeit the most stand-offish, and clearly unrelated linguistically to the other two) were also from that same stock. They made up a vast continuum of the pre-Numenorean population of Eriador.

Check this essay out if you're a bit of a Tolkien fanatic and don't mind a little bit of mild speculation. http://lalaith.vpsurf.de/Tolkien/Fr_Ind.html

Good stuff. I had independently reached pretty much the same conclusions from researching what I could through the History of Middle-earth about the early state of human populations in Middle-earth. But I tend to like Tolkien more than is good for me, clearly.