[Child of the 7th Age]

Yes, Davem is right. Tolkien approved of artistic and musical adaptations and certain plays, but never included stories in print.

On the other hand, I read something interesting a few weeks ago. I believe it was in one of the early society publications (not the main Tolkien society). (Those early fan publications include some interviews with JRRT, articles by certain members of the Tolkien family, etc....tidbits of information not available anywhere else.) One of the other members of Tolkien's family actually did a fanfiction tale based on either Hobbit or LotR. Possibly a teenage son, but don't hold me to that identity. Of course, it wasn't called "fanfiction". Tolkien incidentally said he was delighted with it.

But the real question to me is this. If the Legendarium constitutes a myth rather than mere contemporary novels/poems, then won't we reach a point perhaps years down the road where others try their hand with it? Even now, CT's work with Hurin suggests this. When is an editor more than an editor....perhaps, when he makes a decision to publish a stand-alone story where none existed before, even if leaning heavily on the author's own words.

For the Legendarium to be "successful" on Tolkien's own terms of creating a myth, then don't others have to read it and be inspired to retell it in their own way. Sometime in the misty past, individuals came up with the ideas to form the germ of the Arthurian tales, but those tales have now been told and retold in a hundred different ways. The same holds true for the Illiad and Odyssey. In an age of printed books and computers, we are unlikely to "forget" the orginal creation by Tolkien. Still, five hundred years from now, will we be better off with only the original tales frozen in ice or with a continuing chain of creativity? There will be drek, just as exists for the Arthurian legends but won't the best ultimately come to the surface?