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There's a fair bit of irony involved in Tolkien's appropriation of authorial "ownership", although I suppose it can be understood as his business practice in defending his right to income from his "intellectual capital."
Still, as the writer of a mythology and as a profoundly inspired reader of the ancient mythologies, Tolkien would have been very aware of how mythologies take on a life of their own, a narrative existence not limited by copyright, etc. He must have been torn by his own niggling over 'getting it right' and his understanding that stories evolved and change focus and direction depending upon the social and cultural climate that gives them life.
Stories, like languages, change.
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I’ll sing his roots off. I’ll sing a wind up and blow leaf and branch away.
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