J.R.R. Tolkien is most well-known for
his trilogy, The Lord of the Rings. However, behind the tale of
hobbits, eleves, dwarves, and wizards traveling through Middle Earth
to save their world is a untold history of Tolkien's fantasy realm.
It is elaborate, rich in detail, bountiful, and above all, it draws
from the religions of the real world Tolkien lived in.
I hadn't read anything further than the
Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit until I took a Tolkien course here
at CNU. In this class, we not only studied Tolkien's literature, but
also his biography and personal works. This gave excellent insight
into what influenced his creation of Middle Earth.
The book I will refer to for this post
will be Tolkien's Silmarillion, a
in-depth history of the creation of Middle Earth by divine beings. Aw
many are aware, Tolkien himself was a devout Catholic, so it is
inevitable that this would influence much of his work, even though he
himself claims that his faith had little to do with his mythic
creations. (Perhaps it was a subconscious effort?)
The deity that is responsible above all is known as Iluvatar, or Eru - 'The One'. His angelic-like beings below him are known as the Ainur. These Ainur listen to Eru's commands and they create music together under his directions. The music creates the World under one song, known as the 'Song of the Ainur'. These Ainur are wise and each represent a separate domain (eg. The seas, the earth, etc.), but only Eru is omniscient.
But during the creation of the 'Song of
the Ainur', one of the Ainur named Melkor, puts in a few chords that
are of vanity and selfishness, making Eru's world filled with
dischord and chaos as well. After the creation of Middle Earth, some
of the Ainur decide to go to their created world in order to help it
develop further, such as giving it water, trees, fertility, etc, and
to counter balance the world from Melkor's evil. These Ainur that go
down into Middle Earth become known as the Valar, with the wisest of
the Ainur, Manwe, leading them. They create loving creature, like the
tree shepards to protect nature, etc. Meanwhile, Melkor pours all his
music abilities into creating evil and distorted beings, like
balrogs, dragons, and orcs (which are corrupted elves that he took
from Eru, the original creator of elves).
Immediately reading this in class made
us draw the conclusion that Tolkien took this from Greek mythology,
as well as Christianity. From these facts, we could deduce that Eru
is like the almight Christian God. Meanwhile, the other Valar, all
representative of a certain domain, are parallels to Greek gods like
Manwe being Zeus and Melkor (his brother) being Hades. In addition,
the smith Valar, Aule, is responsible for the creation of dwarves to
protect the world of Arda, just as Hephestus created fire for the
protection of the mortals.
For those familiar with the Lord of the
Rings, Sauron was the lieutenant of Melkor, or Morgoth after he was
exiled by the Valar. In many senses, Melkor is very similar to
Lucifer. Both once worked under God, but due to corruption in vanity,
selfishness, etc., they fell to darkness and were banished from the
angelic realm.
All the 'Children of Illuvatar' are the
different races in Middle-Earth – humans, elves, and (long story
short) the dwarves. They made up the world of Arda, or Middle Earth,
and began to inhabit it. However, the evil of Melkor would never be
gone, even after the Valar captured him.
In a similar manner, Melkor represents
evil and sin. According to Christianity, we are born into the world
with sin, and it is not until we near the end of our lives that we
are rid of this. In the same vein, Melkor tainted the world with
corruption, and now every child of Eru has to work hard to please the
Gods and fight against this corruption so that they may redeem
themselves.
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