Robert Graves, following Apollodorus, Homer and Hagias, gives us another example of a battle between hero and shape-changer.
On the way home from Troy, Menelaus' ships were caught in a storm raised by Athene, and those that survived were trapped in southern waters for eight years, unable to return. Eventually the Achaeans came to Pharos, where Menelaus met the nymph Eidothea, who advised him to capture her father, Proteus and force him to use his gift of prophecy.
Accordingly, Menelaus and his men disguised themselves in seal skins and waited until more of the creatures joined them. When Proteus came to sleep among them, Menelaus and his men seized and held him even though he changed into a lion, a serpent, a panther, a boar, running water and a tree, and eventually he told them what must be done to obtain a favourable wind.
It's certain that Tolkien heard both of these myths at a young age, and shape-changing wizards are common mythological fare in any case. I certainly couldn't help thinking of the various metamorphosing Greek deities when I read the scene between Sauron and Huan, and I don't think it unlikely that Tolkien drew some of his inspiration from them. An interesting point well raised.
On a partially related note, Tolkien and Graves held chairs at Oxford during the same era, and Tolkien gives an account of a meeting with his contemporary in one of his letters that sheds an interesting light on both men:
Quote:
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An amusing incident occurred in October, when I went as a courtesy, to hear the last lecture of this series of his given by the Professor of Poetry: Robert Graves (A remarkable creature, entertaining, likeable, odd, bonnet full of wild bees, half-German, half-Irish, very tall, must have looked like Siegfried/Sigurd in his youth, but an As$.) It was the most ludicrously bad lecture I have ever heard. After it he introduced me to a pleasant young woman who had attended it; well but quietly dressed, easy and agreeable, and we got on quite well. But Graves started to laugh; and he said 'it is obvious neither of you has ever heard of the other before'. Quite true, And I had not supposed that the lady would ever have heard of me. Her name was Ava Gardner, but it still meant nothing, till people more aware of the world informed me that she was a film-star of some magnitude, and that the press of pressmen and storm of flash-bulbs on the steps of the Schools were not directed at Graves (and cert. not at me) but at her.
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(Letter #267, to Michael Tolkien (9-10 Jan, 1965)
EDIT: Can it be true? Can the inspiration for this site and the subject of our discussions have fallen foul of the obscenity detector? To an Englishman, of course, the word in question is merely disparaging, not obscene.
[ July 24, 2003: Message edited by: The Squatter of Amon Rûdh ]