[MITAQ]

... into ancient mythology? I don't know if anyone else has noticed this, but I found SO many Ancient and modern religion connections with Eru and the Valar.

[Neniel]

Yeap! Well, we all know who Eru remides as of...

As far as the Valar are concerned, I can only speak for greek mythology, and there are far too great analogies in that! Just remember the 12 gods of Olympus! (and forget everything those dreaded series Hercules, Xena etc ever showed! It was the worst butchering of our mythology I have ever witnessed!)
It's basically about 12 gods, 6 males-6 females, with Zeus and Hera as their King and Queen residing on the top of Olympus, away from mortals' reach (Taniquetil sounds familiar to anyone?). Although there aren't exact analogies, the similarities are there, such as Ulmo/Posidon (both Vala/God of the sea and both the odd one out among the rest) or Mandos/Hades (they were both responsible for the souls of the dead and they were both commonly called by the names of their realms instead of Námo/Pluto). We also have several pairings or family relations, no matter how silly that seems among gods.

And then we have the lesser gods, nymphs and immortals, pretty much like Tolkien's Maiar.

Evil deities are shunned in the abyss (Outer Void/Tartara) in both cases (although the Valar only did that to Melkor, while Zeus had banished half his enemies in there, namely most of the Titans and I can't remember who else right now).

So, I could just go on like that for ever, but I'm sure there are other mythologies with similar analogies to the Valar... How about Valhalla and the gods of the Vikings or even the egyptian pantheum?

[SpaceWeavil]

Well, I mean Tolkien's works were strongly influenced by mythology, and he drew on a lot of different sources, didn't he? In particular there's a Finnish legend cycle called the Kalevala, which you can find the whole text of at www.sacred-texts.com
(btw that is an excellent site for anyone interested in mythology - so far half the research for my book has come from there ). He also drew on things like the Icelandic Eddas (epic poems) and Anglo-Saxon sagas like Beowulf.

I'd always thought of the Valar as being reminiscent of the Norse gods, for instance Tulkas has always reminded me of Thor, Manwë as Odinn (Odinn had two ravens as his messengers, whereas Manwe had his eagles, and birds in general, for example).

The Maiar, I've always kind of thought of in terms of angels, (in that that's the closest thing I can think of to compare them to) or to other 'angelic' beings in mythology, like the ahuras or 'shining ones' in Zoroastrian mythology. Sort of messengers / servants of the higher beings who would be sent in to the physical world or world of men to do specific tasks when necessary.

In Persian mythology there were two types of these angelic beings, the ahuras who followed Ahura Mazda or Ormuzd, the highest of these beings, and the daevas, who were known as the 'followers of the lie', and followed Angra Mainyu (which I may have spelled wrong - working from memory here), who was the opposite, negative counterpart of Ahura Mazda, and could be compared to Melkor I suppose.

In my opinion there's a great deal of Celtic mythology wrapped up in Middle-earth as well. For instance in Irish legend a race called the Tuatha de Danaan were one of the many mythical races to invade Ireland. They fought against other races, however eventually they lost Ireland to a group called the Sons of Mil Espaine, and came to a settlement where the Sons of Mil Espaine would inhabit the lands above the ground and the Tuatha de Danaan the area below the ground. These 'hollow hills' the Tuatha de Danaan were given to dwell within were called Sidh, and they became known as the Aes Sidhe, or people of the hollow hills. Later these stories developed into the legends of elves / fairies in the Celtic lands, (where one would be abducted and taken into the underground realm of the elves / fairies).

I'm actually just rambling on here, so sorry. Just I've been working a lot on comparative mythology for my novel (how many times can I mention that in one post? ), so it's kind of fresh in my mind. Even if my mind isn't working particularly well right now.

[ellisk]

[SpaceWeavil]

[MITAQ]

And I'm pretty sure (don't quote me on this) that in Ancient Egyptain mythology the sun is carried in some sort of chariot. I think...

And the major one I've noticed in Greek mythology Hades, Zeus and Posidion (sp?) are all brothers. I'm not positive if that's the some with Tolkien, but I found that interesting.

[Shanalir]

[quote="MITAQ"]And the major one I've noticed in Greek mythology Hades, Zeus and Posidion (sp?) are all brothers. [quote]

Expanding on that thought, a particular Greek legend I ran accross on a mythology kick says that the entire Greek pantheon were siblings, save for a few like Athena who was birthed from Zeus' skull, Aphrodite, who was birthed by the sea but not of Posiedon, and a couple of others that were children of the siblings. Apparently the Greeks had a thing for incest, brother/sister being the most well known.

In regards to the Celtic, everything I've read (which admittedly is not a lot, Celtic mythology is hard to find!!) says that the Tuatha de Danaan (or People of Danae) were on earth long before the race that eventually became called men, and it was men that invaded and pushed them back into the wild places, and eventually underground by the sheer force of their numbers (being that they multiplied much more rapidly tha the People of Danae). The other versions I'm seeing here are fascinating. It's good to rememvber too that much of mythology is probably very scrambled from the original forms........


Sorry if I'm rambling here.......

[Alassante]

The book Tolkien for Dummies (yes there is one and yes I have it ), they have little blurbs throughout comparing different characters to different myths or historic figures. You might want to check it out sometime.

[SpaceWeavil]

[quote="Shanalir"][quote="MITAQ"]And the major one I've noticed in Greek mythology Hades, Zeus and Posidion (sp?) are all brothers.

[Shanalir]

Wow! My few sources on Celtic are very sketchy, and I haven't had the oppourtunity since I got a personal computer (and could stop using the library pay ones ) to search anything out on this. It sucks, too, since my favorites are Celtic, followed closely by Norse. (And Norse is even harder to find than Celtic! ) Thank you for expanding on that. I'm gonna have to see what kind of books I can dig up here in the US or through online bookstores on the subject. I tend to prefer doing research on paper rather than online. It's easier to have four or five books open to different pages for comparison on one subject than four or five computer windows.

Again, Thank you for expanding on that!!!!

[MITAQ]

About Celtic myths, just a little bit off-topic but I had to put it. Stephen Lawhead is a great author who writes a lot of Celtic mythology based stuff. My favorite is his King Arthur series which incorperates Atlantis into it.

OH! Duh, another thing. Atlantis. It was said to have fallen into the waters because the Atlantians displeased the gods. Why did I not think of that earlier?![/quote]

[SpaceWeavil]

[Eyborg]

I think it's amazing how Tolkien mixes together elements from both Christianity and various types of mythology. I probably recognize best the Norse and Greek mythology; unfortunately I know almost nothing about the Celtic mythology.
BTW Melkor/Morgoth has always reminded me of the fallen angel Lucifer who later became Satan.