[davem]

Short note: I think what did change was what Tolkien wanted to do - without repeating all the quotes from Tolkien & the Great War which I gave in the Canonicity thread, its clear that Tolkien, under the influence of what Lonrot had achieved for Finland with the Kalevala, wanted to inspire some kind of 'moral regeneration' in England through providing it with a mythology of its own.

What the example of Germany confronted him with was the danger of that -providing England with its own mythology wouldn't ncessarily produce the effect it had in Finland - the consequences could be more akin to Nazi Germany - & that wasn't a far fetched fantasy.

Tolkien had been confronted with the 'fact' of how devastating a mythology could be. In a way he had had the power of myth confirmed to him by the war. I think he had decided he didn't want to take the risk, so he actually stopped writing a 'mythology' - at least in the sense that he had understood the term, & had decided to write something else entirely. What he 'renounced' was writing a mythology for England, with all that implied.