I think there's a slight difference in the cases of Disney's use of the Snow-White fairy tale and Tolkien's use of the Legend of Kullervo. Disney studios actually took Grimm's old story and based their film openly on it. But although Tolkien was greatly affected by Kullervo's fate that legend wasn't his only source; I see Turin's story as a complex of many sources but still an individual piece of work. Not arguing just stating my opinion. [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img]
But to get back to the topic... I've just started reading the Letters but it has already been a great experience! If only I had time to read them all day long. This is a really short quote but when I read it I had this instant feeling:
I have heard this somewhere else!
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....I knew that a 'word or two' would suffice (though I could not feel that any words under my name would have any particular value unless they said something worth saying - which takes space)....
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Can't you just hear Treebeard talking! Oh well, I'm not sure if Tolkien had even greated Treebeard yet (the quote is from letter 38 To Stanley Unwin, 30 March 1940) but most likely he had, at least unconsciously, thought of him/Ents, as he puts it in his letter to W.H. Auden (163, 7 June 1955, side note):
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Take the Ents, for instance. I did not consciously invent them at all. The chapter called 'Treebeard', from Treebeard's first remark on p.66, was written off more or less as it stands, with an effect on my self (except for labour pains) almost like reading some one else's work. And I like Ents now because they do not seem to have anything to do with me. I daresay something had been going on in the 'unconscious' for some time, and that accounts for my feeling throughout, especially when stuck, that I was not inventing but reporting (imperfectly) and had at times to wait till 'what really happened' came through....
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Interesting picture of Tolkien's 'working methods' too! [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img]