Tolkien and Norse Mythology

[Anguirel]

The thing is, in my view that "unsatisfying" mix is what makes British legend beautiful; and what makes Tolkien beautiful, as, willingly or not, he inherited it. It isn't a question of frequent invasions spoiling British, or English if you prefer, mythology, but rather enriching it. I know I'm sounding frightfully politically correct and multi-cultural, but I really do mean it and as a Scoto-Persian-Oxfordian I believe I have the right to say it...

Further, this lack of cohesion in myth is not a phenomenon unique to Britain. Egyptian mythology contains a host of varying faces of gods within the larger deities, and the servants of Akhenaten and Tutankhamun killed each other deciding which aspects, with legends, which stories had the greatest authority. They set the precedent. In that cradle of myth, that beautiful, hilly, scattered, peculiarly shaped land Greece, every island and hilltop had different songs, and gave particular, local gods and heroes predominance.

And so in Italy, in Ireland, and yes, in Scandinavia too. And of course in Tolkien. Hybridity is what makes it breathe; it's not a pure-bred Aragorn but a mongrel Butterbur in terms of derivation, and good for it!