Thethology In Myth In Tolkien's The Hobbit

Many of J R. R. Tolkien’s books relate to or contain mythology in some way. Some of those myths included in Tolkien 's work were made up completely by Tolkien or borrowed from popular myth. Popular myths have been proven to have similarities with other myths across many eras. This particular type of mythology is comparative mythology, which is the comparison of myths from different cultures used to identify shared themes and characteristics. By investigating these myths and where they show up, we can understand a deeper meaning of the myths and possibly where they originated or how they came about. Tolkien’s books portray a type of comparative myth as the ideas in his myths overlap with mythology such as Norse mythology. Across many cultures,

In Tolkien’s work it is evident that he was heavily influenced by Norse and Finnish mythology. In Norse mythology and in Tolkien’s book the Hobbit there is a place called Midgard. In Norse mythology Midgard, often called middle earth, is where humans live and is one of the nine worlds of the universe. Tolkien uses this realm to create a place from his dwarves, elves, and other miscellaneous creatures to inhabit. Also in both Tolkien’s book and Norse mythology is the idea of a powerful ring. In The Hobbit, Bilbo uses the ring to escape Gollum who is trying to catch him for his dinner. This ring is also so powerful that it has the ability to control nineteen similar rings. However, in Norse mythology the ring’s abilities are a little bit different: “However, Odin’s ring Draupnir is able to multiply itself. Every ninth night, eight new rings “drip” from Draupnir creating rings of the same size and weight as the original” (Norse) . Both rings have their own special abilities, but it is easily seen that Tolkien based his ring off of Odin 's ring Draupnir from Norse Mythology. The ideas Tolkien took from Norse mythology can be most readily seen in his books when it is mentioned that this one ring has power over all the other rings that were created, making it the most powerful— and dangerous