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Originally Posted by Feanorsdoom
It's well-founded, I think, that he was trying to build a mythos for the British Isles, but certainly did not want it to be taken as an authoritative history like the earlier works were intended.
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He did confess in the lettersabout having once tried such an endeavour; however, he ended up calling it "absurd"
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Originally Posted by Letter #131
Do not laugh! But once upon a time (my crest has long since fallen) I had a mind to make a body of more or less connected legend, ranging from the large and cosmogonic, to the level of romantic fairy-story-the larger founded on the lesser in contact with the earth, the lesser drawing splendour from the vast backcloths – which I could dedicate simply to: to England; to my country. It should possess the tone and quality that I desired, somewhat cool and clear, be redolent of our 'air' (the clime and soil of the North West, meaning Britain and the hither parts of Europe: not Italy or the Aegean, still less the East), and, while possessing (if I could achieve it) the fair elusive beauty that some call Celtic (though it is rarely found in genuine ancient Celtic things), it should be 'high', purged of the gross, and fit for the more adult mind of a land long now steeped in poetry. I would draw some of the great tales in fullness, and leave many only placed in the scheme, and sketched. The cycles should be linked to a majestic whole, and yet leave scope for other minds and hands, wielding paint and music and drama. Absurd.
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Originally Posted by Feanorsdoom
Also, I'm not aware of any writing where he outlines its worth as moral fables, but that it is such should hardly be questionable.
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Concerning your initial statement that valar and eldar were vehicles of morality for humanity, I was mostly interested since no vala ever met a human in M-E.
Anyway, story morality is a thorny subject; Tolkien stated time and again, from the prologue to LotR to the Letters, that he did not want to write an allegory; he dislikes such manner of writting and considers it as weakening the mythos. He does admit that Allegory and Story converge, or that ideas of the author inevitable get mixed it, but he was very careful about the "package".