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Origin of Wizards Tower in Legend and Literature?
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<blockquote data-quote="jester47" data-source="post: 1286042" data-attributes="member: 2238"><p>I just had a thought. Its not going to be anything majorly obscure. Most everything in LotR comes from some other obvious literary source. The ents, come from macbeth, Eowyn, Arwyn, and Galadriel are representatives of the three witches- the tripple goddess, the maiden (arwyn) the mother (Eowyn) and the Crone (Galadriel). Aragorn comes from robin hood/ivanhoe, the hobbit in almost its entirity comes from beowulf, huge parts come from the finnish mythologies. </p><p></p><p>It occurs to me- does TH White put Merlin in a tower like Disney does in their rendition of the Sword in the Stone? If so we might have a winner or another victim given that the date of publication is 1939. </p><p></p><p>However, I just remembered that there were some Norse (?) fairy/folk tales I read a while back that had wizards in towers. </p><p></p><p>So here are the culprits as far as I can tell:</p><p></p><p>Gothic Romance - maybe "The Monk?"</p><p>Nordic Fairy/Folk tales</p><p>Kalevala</p><p></p><p>Here is a page from national geographic that talks about JRRT and gives some good links. </p><p></p><p><a href="http://www.nationalgeographic.com/ngbeyond/rings/" target="_blank">http://www.nationalgeographic.com/ngbeyond/rings/</a></p><p></p><p>Also, from that page is this one </p><p></p><p><a href="http://www.mythsoc.org/" target="_blank">http://www.mythsoc.org/</a></p><p></p><p>I think the question we need to ask is "Where did JRRT get the idea of the Wizard in the Tower from?" If you ask a Tolkein Scholar the question is "Where did he get the idea for Saruman and Orthanc?"</p><p></p><p>Aaron.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="jester47, post: 1286042, member: 2238"] I just had a thought. Its not going to be anything majorly obscure. Most everything in LotR comes from some other obvious literary source. The ents, come from macbeth, Eowyn, Arwyn, and Galadriel are representatives of the three witches- the tripple goddess, the maiden (arwyn) the mother (Eowyn) and the Crone (Galadriel). Aragorn comes from robin hood/ivanhoe, the hobbit in almost its entirity comes from beowulf, huge parts come from the finnish mythologies. It occurs to me- does TH White put Merlin in a tower like Disney does in their rendition of the Sword in the Stone? If so we might have a winner or another victim given that the date of publication is 1939. However, I just remembered that there were some Norse (?) fairy/folk tales I read a while back that had wizards in towers. So here are the culprits as far as I can tell: Gothic Romance - maybe "The Monk?" Nordic Fairy/Folk tales Kalevala Here is a page from national geographic that talks about JRRT and gives some good links. [url]http://www.nationalgeographic.com/ngbeyond/rings/[/url] Also, from that page is this one [url]http://www.mythsoc.org/[/url] I think the question we need to ask is "Where did JRRT get the idea of the Wizard in the Tower from?" If you ask a Tolkein Scholar the question is "Where did he get the idea for Saruman and Orthanc?" Aaron. [/QUOTE]
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