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Also--and here I hope I shall not sound absurd--I was from early days grieved by the poverty of my own beloved country: it had no stories of its own (bound up with its tongue and soil), not of the quality that I sought, and found (as an ingredient) in legends of other lands. There was Greek, and Celtic, and Romnce, Germanic, Scandinavian, and Finnish (which greatly affected me); but nothing English, save impoverished chap-book stuff.
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First off, Child, I have never denied the essential "Englishness" of Tolkien's work. I mean, the man's English. His place names, character traits and descriptive text are full of English references, that even me, a very untraveled American, can easily recognize.
Shoot, the man's almost as English as Dickens, and definitely more English than Shakespeare. [img]smilies/biggrin.gif[/img]
But I'm not really sure just what Tolkien was looking for. I mean, who were the "first Brits" anyway? I had thought that it would be the Picts, but apparently they were "johnny-come-latelys", anthropologically speaking. The only reference I can find is some vague mention of "hunter-gatherers who settled the island, and left no written records".
And after that you had the Picts, the Gauls, the Celts, the Romans, the Angles, the Saxons, and whoever else chose to wander down the pike. So England was all of these people. A glorious mixture of folk who brought their own beliefs and tales with them, and eventually combined them to make their own story.
I never realized it before, but you Brits are every bit a bunch of "mutts" as we Yanks are. (Hey, I use that term with the greatest affection. I often refer to myself as an "American Mutt.")
I can't think that Tolkien would ever have found the culture of a "true Brit", unless he wanted to go clear back to the culture of the Cro-Magnon or the Neandertal, and they weren't writing anything down for posterity.
Oh, wait, the Cro-Magnon and Neandertals came from someplace else, too. Sorry.