The Capturing of Myth

[Lalwendë]

Fordim says:

But no-one can just sit down and write a myth; when we come to read such a work, we are not finding an expression of something that we share, but something alien.

What immediately sprung to mind when I read this was Bram Stoker's Dracula. The figure of the vampire is not a part of myth or legend in the UK and Ireland, yet has now entered our collective minds as though it was a part of our myths. Obviously vampires are a strong part of myth in Eastern Europe and other parts of the world, but they are essentially alien elsewhere and yet Bram Stoker began the process of making them a part of our own culture. What this shows to me is that it is possible to create or adapt myths anew.

Whether or not Tolkien was successful in creating a mythology for England is a difficult question; to put it simply, I think he was successful in creating a mythology, but I do not think it is one purely for England. The mythology of England was pushed back, by successive waves of invasion, to the Celtic fringe (Scotland, Wales, Ireland, Cornwall) but many strong mythological elements remain, so I do not think England ever was lacking it's own mythology - it is just not written down.

Davem says:

The point for me, is that LotR communicates the remanants of our mythology in an incredibly effective way

I think that by and large this is true, there are many echoes in Tolkien from English mythology and folklore, but there are some elements which do not appear, the darker, less 'wholesome' aspects.