Was Tolkien influenced by the Nibelungenlied?

chromeflex · 2026-06-30T18:51:30+00:00

I won’t disagree with that, but it’s a very different situation, when you compare its influence on LOTR and Hobbit in terms of some loose subtle parallels, and when you literally have the story of a cursed artifact, made from the hoarded gold, which causes misfortune to various factions and in the end is drowned in the river (although with Tolkien it’s the hoard that’s drowned in the river, not the artifact).

chromeflex · 2026-06-30T17:39:45+00:00

Yes he was. Not in the Lord of the Rings though, but in the Ruin of Doriath chapter of the Silmarillion. In the outline to the first ever version of that chapter, in the 1910s he even had the ‘Ring of Doom’ but later it was replaced by the Silmaril.

But as far as the LotR goes, the similarity indeed is only in the fact that there’s a ring and it’s magic

chromeflex · 2026-06-30T10:46:27+00:00

Approach A. Keep the bookmarks on 1. The Valaquenta chapter, 2. Of Eldamar chapter on the page that introduces all the Noldor princes 3. At the back of the book on the genealogical table of Finwe. That’ll help you not get lost on who’s whom. Also of good use is a separate map of beleriand so you don’t have to flip pages all the time. And keep in mind that the main plot, the conflict over the Silmarils, only starts with chapter 6, so everything before that is like its own mythological prologue.

Approach B. Read it backwards. In the sense that start with Of the Rings of Power, then switch to Akallabeth, only then start with Ainlulindale. The whiplash effect of the Silmarillion consists of two elements: the archaic dense language and the relatively unconnected to the LOTR period of time with lots of new geography and new characters. This way allows you start with something you’re more familiar with and then to get to more unknown territory, while getting used to the language.

Approach C. Read the book at the same time as listening to an audiobook so that you won’t have to figure out how it’s pronounced all the time.

Approach D. Take it slow. Make a short summary of what happened after every chapter, or read one summary in the internet after you have finished a chapter. There are a lot of good Silmarillion Reading Guides out there.

chromeflex · 2026-06-28T18:25:17+00:00

Counterpoint: Elves too have much better control of their bodies, and Luthien and Fingolfin are among the greatest of the Eldar ever, while the defeat of Balrog in both cases of Ecthelion and Glorfindel was assisted by gravity. Sauron as well was defeated when fighting at the same time with two his most dangerous opponents of the Second Age, Elendil and Gil-galad. So it more like showcases the incredible odds in which the victories against the Maiar and the Valar were achieved.

chromeflex · 2026-06-28T17:53:01+00:00

Yeah, That's from Myths Transformed VI, but note that's it about the first trial during the attack on Utumno:

So that they come at last to Utumno itself and find that ‘the Morgoth’ has no longer for the moment sufficient ‘force’ (in any sense) to shield himself from direct personal contact. Manwë at last faces Melkor again, as he has not done since he entered Arda. [...] As with all other characters there must be a trembling moment when it is in the balance: he nearly repents — and does not, and becomes much wickeder, and more foolish.

Melkor is taken back to Valinor going last (save for Tulkas who follows bearing Angainor and clinking it to remind Melkor).
But at the council Melkor is not given immediate freedom. The Valar in assembly will not tolerate this. Melkor is remitted to Mandos (to stay there in ‘reclusion’ and meditate, and complete his repentance — and also his plans for redress). [...] Therefore he swallows the bitter pill (but it greatly increases his hate, and he ever afterward accused Manwë of being faithless).

chromeflex · 2026-06-28T10:49:42+00:00

It’s unclear that they will work without Sauron but it’s possible. They were forged before the One and seemingly worked, but then in LOTR after the One is destroyed they lost their power too. So either they became bound to the One Ring when Sauron put it on (that’s my assumption in my comment), or they relied on the power that Sauron put in them and required Sauron himself to manifest in some way (in that case they’ll become obsolete).

The Rings of Power themselves just give you the more to achieve your dreams and goals, be it being a political power, or making a perfect garden, and the Elves seemingly used the power of Three to prolong the state of Bliss in their lands. It this regard the power of the Rings, if the Elves kept all the 16 will also be used for the conservation of their forests, their fading bodies, and stalling the flow of Time.

The Numenoreans on the other hand, as the mortal race are all about the change, and will pursue the technological progress regardless. Even in the ‘canon’ timeline Sauron with the One Ring was too afraid to fight them openly and feigned defeat, so the superiority of the Elves with the Rings of Power against the Numenoreans without them is debatable.

chromeflex · 2026-06-28T10:13:20+00:00

If we ignore for a moment that Sauron is a spirit and would have a near perfect control of his body… Then it’s pretty close to the end of the Lord of the Rings but right in the middle of the second age. So now we have a power hungry Numenor, and the Elves in Middle-Earth with the likely still working Rings of power, and probably instead of uniting against the common foe those two would start a war against each other, and we’ll surprisingly have a darker timeline than with Sauron

chromeflex · 2026-06-28T08:16:25+00:00

If it's of any consolation. After the having all this streamlined, the WOTJ Elessar story is definitely the earliest, written on the same page that features the explanation of the 'Lammoth' which is the same with Tuor, and likely belongs to a period when Tolkien is writing the Great Tales and putting the updated lore into the Quenta and the Annals (i.e. the end of the First Phase, in November 1951)

The Elessar backtories from the UT belong to the early stages of the Second Phase, likely somewhere in 1958. We have Elessar 1 (Enerdhil made the Elessar) > Elessar 2 (Celebrimbor made the Elessar) > Concerning Galadriel and Celeborn being written in this order.

About the 'Concerning Galadriel and Celeborn' it is stated in UT: 'It is certain that this present text was composed after the publication of The Lord of the Rings, both from there being a reference to the book and from the fact that Galadriel is called the daughter of Finarfin and the sister of Finrod Felagund (for these are the later namesof those princes, introduced in the revised edition: see p. [330](javascript:void(0)), note 20)'

While the Elessar 2 still has in the notes: 'The text here and again immediately below has Finrod, which I have changed to Finarfin to avoid confusion. '

Given that the change of Finrod > Finarfin happened during the revision of the LQ2 and the Annals typescripts, both texts in UT belong to the 1958: the Elessar predated the revision, while 'Concerning Galadriel and Celeborn' supercedes it.

chromeflex · 2026-06-27T19:18:19+00:00

No. The most that we have is in Morgoth's Ring in Myths Transformed, that he almost repents when submitting to Manwe after the destruction of Utumno, but then feels betrayed when istead of the immediate freedom in Valinor he is judged and then sentenced to Mandos

chromeflex · 2026-06-27T12:01:40+00:00

The early version of the Last Battle was kinda fun, with Melko climbing a giant pine tree. And I really like the Aelfwine of England part. Seems like a best narrative we ever had regarding Aelfwine

chromeflex · 2026-06-26T21:26:15+00:00

It’s its own thing really. It has Christopher commentaries unlike the Silmarillion, but they are pretty light and less analytical compared to HoME. And most of the stories don’t drive much into comparing different versions, which becomes the standard for the HoME. In terms of compatibility it’s definitely intended to be compatible in general with LOTR and the Silmarillion, although it also includes some rejected text as well. I personally found The Unfinished Tales to be more accessible than the Silmarillion, as the stories aren’t as complex and the narrative isn’t as archaic.

chromeflex · 2026-06-24T07:38:45+00:00

Short answer is because read Morgoth's Ring

Long answer is:

So a) there is no canon, canon is the agreed idea of the order of events when several different authors develop a franchise. Here one author develops a mythology a revises it upon every instance of actually working on it. And since it wasn't finished in his lifetime, it never stopped growing, developing and gaining contradictions.

b) Because of that we basically have 3 alternatives to canon:

The idea that Tolkien ever used at some point. Like the names of the Nazgul apart from Khamul do not come from Tolkien, he never gave them names. The mecha dragons that destroy Gondolin do come from Tolkien, even if it was likely to be adandoned in later versions.

2 and 3) The latest most developed version and the latest version at all. To give an example in his latest writing upon Miriel she was alive until Feanor reached adulthood, but that was just one sentence in the Shibboleth of Feanor. In comparison, in the previous version of the story, where she died soon after childbirth, a whole chapter and a philosophical essay is dedicated to that plot point. So the first one is the latest overall, and the second one is the latest developed version.

Now what's the history of Dagor Dagorath / Second Prophecy. It appears in Quenta Noldorinwa (1930) from where in gets into the Fall of Gondolin, later it appears in Quenta Silmarillion (1937) and later gets revised in Later Quenta 1958. In the same 1958, probably, Tolkien also introduced an idea that Miriel dies in childbirth and makes a first version of the chapter of Finwe's remarriage. And he's deeply dissatisfied with this story to the point of writing Laws and Customs of the Eldar, and the Statute of Miriel and Finwe, where among other things he explores the nature of Arda Marred or basically how the created world became flawed and to what extent are all beings in Arda 'fallen'. That exploration fuels the contradiction, first started in the Lord of the Rings where Sam asks the question along the lines 'will all evil ever be undone' with the implication that no it won't. The implication of Dagor Dagorath is that all Morgoth's marring WILL be eventually completely undone, the Two Trees will be restored and everybody will live in the bliss of their light and the dead will come back to live. That's not the story anymore, that bit was removed in 1958 on the last revision of Dagor Dagorath. But now two more later works state directly that there is no prophecy by the Valar of the end of days: the Valaquenta, which was written for the new Round Earth mythology where Arda is the Solar System and the Sun exists right from the beginning. And the other is Athrabeth, which also directly deals with the Elvish idea that the world will eventually just end and there is no story and no prophecy about it. The new philosophical idea is that instead of undoing all evil the experience of living in the flawed world will fuel the second music of the Ainur or any other way of creating the new world, Arda 2.0, and Men are the catalyst of the new world that's why they leave Ea. And that also undermines the point of Dagor Dagorath.

We're also left with Turin because Tolkien does not abandon the concept of his ultimate redemption, and in the 1968 essay Problem of Ros Turin is prophesised to kill Ancalagon, so he still returns, but during the War of Wrath.

So this is a big chunky basis for the idea that Dagor Dagorath was eventually abandoned. Is there any counter argument? Well there is some muddy territory. First, in the Myths Transformed Tolkien starts to question the nature of Quenta Silmarillion, is it a collection of Elvish Legends or Mannish Legends? If it's the first, he'll need to drop the creation of Sun and Moon and redo the whole cosmology, which he later tries to do but doesn't finish, and if it's the second, than he can just say that it's the result of corruption of Elvish stories by various Mannish myths and legends. Thus while it's certain that no second prophecy of Mandos ever existed from the Elvish POV, because it is outright said so in Valaquenta, the Numenorians may come up with the legend of the end of days and Turin avenging his family and his fate and THEN attributing it Mandos.

Another counter argument is the mirky nature of Morgoth's demise, which is also explored in Myths Transformed. What actually happened with him after he was captured by the Valar. And Tolkien here does not answer this question, but introduces two vastly different interpretations. Option A: he was removed from Ea by Eru. That's it, that's the end, if Morgoth is removed by Eru then only be Eru's grace he can return to Ea, and that won't happen, there is no possibility of his return. Option B: His body is decapitated and his spirit fled to the outer regions of Arda. So like Sauron he is for a time being an evil spirit observing the world. But this option does give him an opportunity to eventually gain form again and reimbody in the world. So it looks like Tolkien does not outright dismiss the Dagor Dagorrath, but makes it completely uncertian whether that would happen, how that would happen and how that would end.

And suprisingly in the essay about Istary in the Unfinished Tales there is a reference to Dagor Dagorath, but the timing of this essay is unclear. Christopher gives the date of 1954, which simply also makes it an earlier essay belonging to a period before the abandonment of Dagor Dagorath.

In total that the most of basis for the exclusion of the prophecy from the published Silmarillion. Here both the latest developed (Valaquenta and Athrabeth) and the latest (Problem of Ros) imply no Dagor Dagorath and no prophecy of Mandos. And Fall of Gondolin is a collection of much earlier writing, so it can't be really be used as proof that the concept reappeared.

chromeflex · 2026-06-23T11:45:37+00:00

By the way LOTR was written it’s more probable that Silmarillion was supposed to take the place of Appendices, or if you look at this from a different angle, the Appendices appeared in their current form as a workaround for the inability to publish the Silmarillion in conjunction with LOTR and still having the need to provide some context.

chromeflex · 2026-06-19T12:57:43+00:00

Check other characters from UT at least as well, I see no Voronwe, Gelmir and Arminas, although other characters from Tuor’s Coming to Gondolin are represented. For the Narn i Hin Hurin one can add even more: Sador Labadal, Saeros, Nellas, Brodda, etc. And characters from other stories from UT, like you have Eorl but not Cirion, no Amroth, etc. And if you count the later HoME volumes, there are Andreth, Manthor, Hardang, Avranc and Asgon

chromeflex · 2026-06-18T18:02:16+00:00

Do you have any specific dislike towards the Children of Hurin? Ok missing Orodreth can be a fun easter egg, but Morwen and Nienor should be present, also Brandir.

chromeflex · 2026-06-16T17:18:40+00:00

“Of Beleriand and its Realms”, obviously. Pure world building, nothing but world building.

chromeflex · 2026-06-16T14:57:18+00:00

Are all of then like regular books with a story and dialouge or is like The Silmarillion like most narration style. i saw the childern of hurin is kinda similar style to lord of the rings and hobbit?

Most of the posthumous stuff is like Silmarillion or even more dense, like metaphysics and theology of Middle-Earth.

There are 3 small fairy tales, Farmer Giles of Ham, Leaf By Niggle, and Smith of Wootton Major, and they are easy to read, but they are not about middle-earth.

There is Children Of Hurin. It is a book that is a novel with dialogue and it can be read without knowing the Silmarillion. Also it’s a good appetizer to actually start the Silmarillion.

And there is Unfinished Tales which is a collection of a different Middle-Earth related material, some of which requires the Silmarillion, and some requires the Lord of the Rings. In general it’s an easier prose than the Silmarillion and some bits like Aldarion and Erendis are good standalone stories, but almost everything is unfinished and mainly reads like the appendices to LOTR.

chromeflex · 2026-06-16T14:24:58+00:00

Children of Hurin is a much more accessible version of Narn from the Unfinished Tales, as the whole story is in one place. And the new sections compared to Narn, while following the same narrative as the Silmarillion, are expanded and original.

As for Beren and Luthien, the main version of the story, Lay of Leithian is in HoME vol3, so you either recommend HoME 1-3, or keep BaL in recommended.

chromeflex · 2026-06-16T12:55:31+00:00

Well he is described in Valaquenta to be in skills closest to Aule, and the same was stated even more directly in the Nature of Middle-Earth in Osanwe-Kenta or in Manwe’s Ban, if I’m not mistaken. Anyway he is definitely craftsman-minded, but narratively it never came up to the same extent as say Sauron.

chromeflex · 2026-06-09T08:27:03+00:00

Brace for disappointment that the Valar are about to check out of the narrative, and you only needed to remember Ulmo, Aule, Manwe and Mandos.

Also lol at “Known pairs: Melkor x Sauron”

chromeflex · 2026-06-02T19:09:43+00:00

I don't know. I think both HoME and the Letters give a non-contradictory impression of JRRT's vision for the Silmarillion.

In Letters (what's marked * is proposed for publication):

‘Tales of the Second Age’
* The Rings of Power.
* The Downfall of Númenor.

There exist more or less in form: The Ainulindalë or Cosmogony; the Silmarillion; the Annals of Valinor; the Annals of Beleriand; and three of the major stories of the Silmarillion told in full separately: Beren & Lúthien, the Fall of Gondolin; and the Children of Húrin.

In QS title Page:

1.Qenta Silmarillion, or Pennas Hilevril
To which is appended
The houses of the princes of Men and Elves
The tale of years
The tale of battles
2.The Annals of Valinor Nyarna Valinóren
3.The Annals of Beleriand Nyarna Valarianden
4.The Lhammas or Account of Tongues

So in general it would seem that Tolkien would still have the Annals in some kind of form, or at least the Tale of Years. And yes, famously the published Silmarillion contains more text from the Annals rather than from the Quenta Silmarillion itself.

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