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Tolkien's legendarium is the body of
J. R. R. Tolkien John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (, ; 3 January 1892 – 2 September 1973) was an English writer and philology, philologist. He was the author of the high fantasy works ''The Hobbit'' and ''The Lord of the Rings''. From 1925 to 1945, Tolkien was ...
's mythopoeic writing, unpublished in his lifetime, that forms the background to his ''
The Lord of the Rings ''The Lord of the Rings'' is an epic high-fantasy novel by English author and scholar J. R. R. Tolkien. Set in Middle-earth, intended to be Earth at some time in the distant past, the story began as a sequel to Tolkien's 1937 children's boo ...
'', and which his son
Christopher Christopher is the English language, English version of a Europe-wide name derived from the Greek language, Greek name Χριστόφορος (''Christophoros'' or ''Christoforos''). The constituent parts are Χριστός (''Christós''), "Jesus ...
summarized in his compilation of ''
The Silmarillion ''The Silmarillion'' () is a collection of myths and stories in varying styles by the English writer J. R. R. Tolkien. It was edited and published posthumously by his son Christopher Tolkien in 1977, assisted by the fantasy author Guy Gavriel ...
'' and documented in his 12-volume series ''
The History of Middle-earth ''The History of Middle-earth'' is a 12-volume series of books published between 1983 and 1996 that collect and analyse much of Tolkien's legendarium, compiled and edited by his son, Christopher Tolkien. The series shows the development over ti ...
''. The legendarium's origins reach back to 1914, when Tolkien began writing poems and story sketches, drawing maps, and inventing languages and names as a private project to create a unique English mythology. The earliest story drafts (of '' The Book of Lost Tales'') are from 1916; he revised and rewrote these for most of his adult life. '' The Hobbit'' (1937), Tolkien's first published novel, was not originally part of the larger mythology but became linked to it. Both ''The Hobbit'' and ''The Lord of the Rings'' (1954 and 1955) took place in the Third Age of Middle-earth, while virtually all of his earlier writing had been set in the first two ages of the world. ''The Lord of the Rings'' occasionally alludes to figures and events from the legendarium, but such ancient tales are depicted as being remembered by few until the story makes them relevant. After ''The Lord of the Rings'', Tolkien returned to his older stories to bring them to publishable form, but never completed the task. Tolkien's son Christopher chose portions of his late father's vast collection of unpublished material and shaped them into ''
The Silmarillion ''The Silmarillion'' () is a collection of myths and stories in varying styles by the English writer J. R. R. Tolkien. It was edited and published posthumously by his son Christopher Tolkien in 1977, assisted by the fantasy author Guy Gavriel ...
'' (1977), a semi-chronological and semi-complete narrative of the mythical world and its origins. The sales were sufficient to enable him to work on and publish many volumes of his father's legendarium stories and drafts; some were presented as completed tales, while others illustrated his father's complex creative process. Tolkien research, a continuing examination of Tolkien's works and supporting mythology, became a scholarly area of study soon after his death.


Etymology

A ''legendarium'' is a literary collection of legends. This medieval Latin noun originally referred mainly to texts detailing legends of the lives of
saint In religious belief, a saint is a person who is recognized as having an exceptional degree of Q-D-Š, holiness, likeness, or closeness to God. However, the use of the term ''saint'' depends on the context and Christian denomination, denominat ...
s. A surviving example is the
Anjou Legendarium The Anjou Legendarium is a Gothic illuminated manuscript of a collection of stories from the life of saints important to the House of Anjou of Hungary. It was made on the occasion of the journey of Charles I of Hungary and his son Prince Andrew to ...
, dating from the 14th century. Quotations in the '' Oxford English Dictionary'' for the synonymous noun ''legendary'' date from 1513. The Middle English ''South English Legendary'' is an example of this form of the noun.Since ''legendary'' in contemporary English is mostly used as an adjective, the Latin form reduces ambiguity, but ''legendary'' as a noun remains in use in specialist (medievalist) vocabulary.


Documents included


Tolkien's usage

Tolkien described his works as a "legendarium" in four letters from 1951 to 1955, a period in which he was attempting to have his unfinished ''
The Silmarillion ''The Silmarillion'' () is a collection of myths and stories in varying styles by the English writer J. R. R. Tolkien. It was edited and published posthumously by his son Christopher Tolkien in 1977, assisted by the fantasy author Guy Gavriel ...
'' published alongside the more complete ''
The Lord of the Rings ''The Lord of the Rings'' is an epic high-fantasy novel by English author and scholar J. R. R. Tolkien. Set in Middle-earth, intended to be Earth at some time in the distant past, the story began as a sequel to Tolkien's 1937 children's boo ...
''. On ''The Silmarillion'', he wrote in 1951, "This legendarium ends with a vision of the end of the world, its breaking and remaking, and the recovery of the Silmarilli and the 'light before the Sun'"; and in 1954, "Actually in the imagination of this story we are now living on a physically round Earth. But the whole 'legendarium' contains a transition from a flat world ... to a globe". On both texts, he explained in 1954 that "... my ''legendarium'', especially the 'Downfall of Númenor' which lies immediately behind ''The Lord of the Rings'', is based on my view: that Men are essentially mortal and must not try to become 'immortal' in the flesh", and in 1955, "But the beginning of the legendarium, of which the Trilogy is part (the conclusion), was an attempt to reorganise some of the Kalevala".


Rateliff's definition

"Tolkien's legendarium" is defined narrowly in
John D. Rateliff John D. Rateliff is an author of roleplaying games and an independent scholar. He specializes in the study of the works of J. R. R. Tolkien, particularly his Middle-earth fantasy writings. Early life and education John D. Rateliff was raised in Ma ...
's '' The History of The Hobbit'' as the body of Tolkien's work consisting of: * '' The Book of Lost Tales'' * ''The Sketch of the Mythology'' and contemporary alliterative verses * The 1930 '' Quenta Noldorinwa'' and first Annals * The 1937 ''Quenta Silmarillion'' and later Annals * The later ''Quenta'' * The final Annals These, with '' The Lays of Beleriand'', written from 1918 onwards, comprise the different "phases" of Tolkien's Elven legendary writings, posthumously edited and published in ''The Silmarillion'' and in their original forms in the series ''
The History of Middle-earth ''The History of Middle-earth'' is a 12-volume series of books published between 1983 and 1996 that collect and analyse much of Tolkien's legendarium, compiled and edited by his son, Christopher Tolkien. The series shows the development over ti ...
'' by
Christopher Tolkien Christopher John Reuel Tolkien (21 November 1924 – 16 January 2020) was an English academic editor, becoming a French citizen in later life. The son of author and academic J. R. R. Tolkien, Christopher Tolkien edited much of his father' ...
.


Scholarly usage

Other Tolkien scholars have used the term legendarium in a variety of contexts. Christopher Tolkien's introduction to ''
The History of Middle-earth ''The History of Middle-earth'' is a 12-volume series of books published between 1983 and 1996 that collect and analyse much of Tolkien's legendarium, compiled and edited by his son, Christopher Tolkien. The series shows the development over ti ...
'' series talks about the "primary 'legendarium'", for the core episodes and themes of ''The Silmarillion'' which were not abandoned in his father's constant redrafting of the work. The scholars Verlyn Flieger and
Carl F. Hostetter Carl Franklin Hostetter is a Tolkien scholar and NASA computer scientist. He has edited and annotated many of J. R. R. Tolkien's linguistic writings, publishing them in ''Vinyar Tengwar'' and ''Parma Eldalamberon''. Career NASA Carl Hostette ...
edited a collection of critical essays on ''The History of Middle-earth'' named "'' Tolkien's Legendarium: Essays on The History of Middle-earth''". Flieger writes that "...the greatest is the creation of the Silmarils, the Gems of light that give their names to the whole legendarium", equating the legendarium with the ''Silmarillion'' (which sometimes denotes the 1977 book published under that name, and sometimes the larger body of un-edited drafts used to create that work). In the ''
J. R. R. Tolkien Encyclopedia The ''J. R. R. Tolkien Encyclopedia: Scholarship and Critical Assessment'', edited by Michael D. C. Drout, was published by Routledge in 2006. A team of 127 Tolkien scholars on 720 pages cover topics of Tolkien's fiction, his academic works, hi ...
'', David Bratman writes that "''The History of Middle-earth'' is a longitudinal study of the development and elaboration of Tolkien's legendarium through his transcribed manuscripts, with textual commentary by the editor, Christopher Tolkien." Dickerson and Evans use the phrase "legendarium" to encompass the entirety of Tolkien's Middle-earth writings "for convenience". Dickerson, Matthew T. and Evans, Jonathan Duane: '' Ents, Elves, and
Eriador The geography of Middle-earth encompasses the physical, political, and moral geography of J. R. R. Tolkien's fictional world of Middle-earth, strictly a continent on the planet of Arda but widely taken to mean the physical world, and '' Eä'', all ...
: The Environmental Vision of J. R. R. Tolkien'' p. 277
This would encompass texts such as the incomplete drafts of stories published before ''The History of Middle-earth'' in the 1980 ''
Unfinished Tales ''Unfinished Tales of Númenor and Middle-earth'' is a collection of stories and essays by J. R. R. Tolkien that were never completed during his lifetime, but were edited by his son Christopher Tolkien and published in 1980. Many of the tales ...
''. Shaun Gunner of
The Tolkien Society The Tolkien Society is an educational charity and literary society devoted to the study and promotion of the life and works of the author and academic J. R. R. Tolkien. It began informally in 1969, and held its inaugural meeting in 1970. It ho ...
has called the 2021 collection of Tolkien's previously unpublished legendarium writings ''
The Nature of Middle-earth ''The Nature of Middle-earth '' is a 2021 book of previously unpublished materials on Tolkien's legendarium, compiled and edited by the scholar Carl F. Hostetter. Some essays were previously published in the Elvish linguistics journal ''Vinyar ...
'', edited by Carl F. Hostetter, "an unofficial 13th volume of ''
The History of Middle-earth ''The History of Middle-earth'' is a 12-volume series of books published between 1983 and 1996 that collect and analyse much of Tolkien's legendarium, compiled and edited by his son, Christopher Tolkien. The series shows the development over ti ...
'' series".


Development


A private mythology

Unlike "
fictional universe A fictional universe, or fictional world, is a self-consistent setting with events, and often other elements, that differ from the real world. It may also be called an imagined, constructed, or fictional realm (or world). Fictional universes may ...
s" constructed for the purpose of writing and publishing popular fiction, Tolkien's legendarium for a long period was a private project, concerned with questions of philology, cosmology, theology and mythology. His biographer Humphrey Carpenter writes that although by 1923 Tolkien had almost completed ''The Book of Lost Tales'', "it was almost as if he did not want to finish it", beginning instead to rewrite it; he suggests that Tolkien may have doubted if a publisher would take it, and notes that Tolkien was a perfectionist, and further that he was perhaps afraid of finishing as he wished to go on with his
sub-creation Worldbuilding is the process of constructing a world, originally an imaginary one, sometimes associated with a fictional universe. Developing an imaginary setting with coherent qualities such as a history, geography, and ecology is a key task fo ...
, his invention of myth in Middle-earth. Tolkien first began working on the stories that would become ''The Silmarillion'' in 1914, intending them to become an English mythology that would explain the origins of English history and culture, and to provide the necessary "historical" background for his invented Elvish languages. Much of this early work was written while Tolkien, then a British officer returned from France during World War I, was in hospital and on sick leave. He completed the first story, " The Fall of Gondolin", in late 1916. He called his collection of nascent stories ''The Book of Lost Tales''. This became the name for the first two volumes of ''
The History of Middle-earth ''The History of Middle-earth'' is a 12-volume series of books published between 1983 and 1996 that collect and analyse much of Tolkien's legendarium, compiled and edited by his son, Christopher Tolkien. The series shows the development over ti ...
'', which include these early texts. Tolkien never completed ''The Book of Lost Tales''; he left it to compose the poems " The Lay of Leithian" (in 1925) and "
The Lay of the Children of Húrin The Lay of the Children of Húrin is a long epic poem by J. R. R. Tolkien which takes place in his fictional fantasy-world, Middle-earth. It tells of the life and ill fate of Túrin Turambar, the son of Húrin. It is written in alliterative verse ...
" (possibly as early as 1918). The first complete version of ''The Silmarillion'' was the "Sketch of the Mythology" written in 1926 (later published in Volume IV of ''The History of Middle-earth''). The "Sketch" was a 28-page synopsis written to explain the background of the story of Túrin to R. W. Reynolds, a friend to whom Tolkien had sent several of the stories. From the "Sketch" Tolkien developed a fuller narrative version of ''The Silmarillion'' called ''Quenta Noldorinwa'' (also included in Volume IV). The ''Quenta Noldorinwa'' was the last version of ''The Silmarillion'' that Tolkien completed.


Ælfwine framing device

The stories in '' The Book of Lost Tales'' employ the narrative framing device of an
Anglo-Saxon The Anglo-Saxons were a Cultural identity, cultural group who inhabited England in the Early Middle Ages. They traced their origins to settlers who came to Britain from mainland Europe in the 5th century. However, the ethnogenesis of the Anglo- ...
mariner named
Ælfwine Ælfwine (also ''Aelfwine'', ''Elfwine'') is an Old English personal name. It is composed of the elements ''ælf'' " elf" and ''wine'' "friend", continuing a hypothetical Common Germanic given name ''*albi- winiz'' which is also continued in Old Hi ...
or Eriol or Ottor Wǽfre who finds the island of
Tol Eressëa Valinor (Quenya'': Land of the Valar'') or the Blessed Realms is a fictional location in J. R. R. Tolkien's legendarium, the home of the immortal Valar on the continent of Aman, far to the west of Middle-earth; he used the name Aman mainly to me ...
, where the Elves live, and the Elves tell him their history. He collects, translates from
Old English Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain, Anglo ...
, and writes the mythology that appears in ''
The History of Middle-earth ''The History of Middle-earth'' is a 12-volume series of books published between 1983 and 1996 that collect and analyse much of Tolkien's legendarium, compiled and edited by his son, Christopher Tolkien. The series shows the development over ti ...
''. Ælfwine means "Elf-friend" in Old English; men whose names have the same meaning, such as Alboin, Alwin, and Elendil, were to appear in the two unfinished time travel novels, ''
The Lost Road ''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the m ...
'' in 1936 and '' The Notion Club Papers'' in 1945, as the protagonists reappeared in each of several different times. There is no such framework in the published version of ''The Silmarillion'', but the ''
Narn i Hîn Húrin The list of ''Babylon 5'' characters contains characters from the entire '' Babylon 5'' universe. The Babylon station was conceived as a political and cultural meeting place. As such, one of the show's many themes is the cultural and social inter ...
'' is introduced with the note "Here begins that tale which Ǽlfwine made from the ''Húrinien''." Tolkien never fully dropped the idea of multiple 'voices' who collected the stories over the millennia.


A context for ''The Hobbit'' and ''The Lord of the Rings''

When Tolkien published '' The Hobbit'' in 1937 (which was itself not originally intended for publication, but as a story told privately to his children), the narrative of the published text was loosely influenced by the legendarium as a context, but was not designed to be part of it. Carpenter comments that not until Tolkien began to write its sequel, ''The Lord of the Rings'', did he realise the significance of hobbits in his mythology. In 1937, encouraged by the success of ''The Hobbit'', Tolkien submitted to his publisher George Allen & Unwin an incomplete but more fully developed version of ''The Silmarillion'' called ''Quenta Silmarillion''. The reader rejected the work as being obscure and "too
Celtic Celtic, Celtics or Keltic may refer to: Language and ethnicity *pertaining to Celts, a collection of Indo-European peoples in Europe and Anatolia **Celts (modern) *Celtic languages **Proto-Celtic language * Celtic music *Celtic nations Sports Fo ...
". The publisher instead asked Tolkien to write a sequel to ''The Hobbit''. Tolkien began to revise ''The Silmarillion'', but soon turned to the sequel, which became ''The Lord of the Rings''. Writing ''The Lord of the Rings'' during the 1940s, Tolkien was attempting to address the dilemma of creating a narrative consistent with a "sequel" of the published ''The Hobbit'' and a desire to present a more comprehensive view of its large unpublished background. He renewed work on ''The Silmarillion'' after completing ''The Lord of the Rings'', and he greatly desired to publish the two works together. When it became clear that would not be possible, Tolkien turned his full attention to preparing ''The Lord of the Rings'' for publication.
John D. Rateliff John D. Rateliff is an author of roleplaying games and an independent scholar. He specializes in the study of the works of J. R. R. Tolkien, particularly his Middle-earth fantasy writings. Early life and education John D. Rateliff was raised in Ma ...
has analysed the complex relationship between ''The Hobbit'' and ''The Silmarillion'', providing evidence that they were related from the start of ''The Hobbit''s composition.


Towards publishable form

With the success of ''The Lord of the Rings'', Tolkien in the late 1950s returned to ''The Silmarillion'', planning to revise the material of his legendarium into a form "fit for publication", a task which kept him occupied until his death in 1973. Much of his later writing from this period was concerned more with the theological and philosophical underpinnings of the work than with the narratives themselves. By this time, he had doubts about fundamental aspects of the work that went back to the earliest versions of the stories, and it seems that he felt the need to resolve these problems before he could produce the "final" version of ''The Silmarillion''. During this time he wrote extensively on such topics as the nature of evil in
Arda Arda or ARDA may refer to: Places *Arda (Maritsa), a river in Bulgaria and Greece * Arda (Italy), a river in Italy *Arda (Douro), a river in Portugal * Arda, Bulgaria, a village in southern Bulgaria * Arda, County Fermanagh, a townland in County ...
, the origin of Orcs, the customs of the Elves, the nature and means of Elvish rebirth, the "flat" world, and the story of the Sun and Moon. In any event, with one or two exceptions, he made little change to the narratives during the remaining years of his life.


A presented collection

The scholar Verlyn Flieger writes that Tolkien thought of his legendarium as a presented collection, with a frame story that changed over the years, first with an Ælfwine-type character who translates the "Golden Book" of the sages Rumil or Pengoloð; later, having the Hobbit Bilbo Baggins collect the stories into the '' Red Book of Westmarch'', translating mythological Elvish documents in Rivendell. The scholar Gergely Nagy observes that Tolkien "thought of his works ''as texts within the fictional world''" (his emphasis), and that the overlapping of different and sometimes contradictory accounts was central to his desired effect. Nagy notes that Tolkien went so far as to create facsimile pages from the Dwarves' ''
Book of Mazarbul Tolkien's artwork was a key element of his creativity from the time when he began to write fiction. The philologist and author J. R. R. Tolkien prepared illustrations for his Middle-earth fantasy books, facsimile artefacts, more or less "pictur ...
'' that is found by the Fellowship in
Moria Moria may refer to: Arts and entertainment * Moria (Middle-earth), fictional location in the works of J. R. R. Tolkien * '' Moria: The Dwarven City'', a 1984 fantasy role-playing game supplement * ''Moria'' (1978 video game), a dungeon-crawler g ...
. Further, Tolkien was a philologist; Nagy comments that Tolkien may have been intentionally imitating the philological style of Elias Lönnrot, compiler of the Finnish epic, the '' Kalevala''; or of
St Jerome Jerome (; la, Eusebius Sophronius Hieronymus; grc-gre, Εὐσέβιος Σωφρόνιος Ἱερώνυμος; – 30 September 420), also known as Jerome of Stridon, was a Christian priest, confessor, theologian, and historian; he is comm ...
, Snorri Sturlusson,
Jacob Grimm Jacob Ludwig Karl Grimm (4 January 1785 – 20 September 1863), also known as Ludwig Karl, was a German author, linguist, philologist, jurist, and folklorist. He is known as the discoverer of Grimm's law of linguistics, the co-author of th ...
, or Nikolai Gruntvig, all of whom Tolkien saw as exemplars of a professional and creative philology. This was, Nagy believes, what Tolkien thought essential if he was to present a mythology for England, since such a thing had to have been written by many hands. Further, writes Nagy, Christopher Tolkien "inserted himself in the functional place of Bilbo" as editor and collator, in his view "reinforcing the mythopoeic effect" that his father had wanted to achieve, making the published book do what Bilbo's book was meant to do, and so unintentionally realising his father's intention.


See also

*
Middle-earth canon The term Middle-earth canon, also called Tolkien's canon, is used for the published writings of J. R. R. Tolkien regarding Middle-earth as a whole. The term is also used in Tolkien fandom to promote, discuss and debate the idea of a consistent fict ...
– the set of Tolkien's writings on Middle-earth *
J. R. R. Tolkien bibliography This is a list of all published works of the English writer and philologist J. R. R. Tolkien. Tolkien's works were published before and after his death. Fiction Middle-earth #1937 '' The Hobbit, or There and Back Again'', ( HM) #1954–1955 ''T ...
– list of all Tolkien's writings *
J. R. R. Tolkien's influences J. R. R. Tolkien's fantasy books on Middle-earth, especially ''The Lord of the Rings'' and ''The Silmarillion'', drew on a wide array of influences including language, Christianity, mythology, archaeology, ancient and modern literature, and pe ...
– influences on Tolkien's Middle-earth writing * '' Tolkien's Legendarium: Essays on The History of Middle-earth'' – a 2000 collection of scholarly essays on the legendarium


References


Primary

::''This list identifies each item's location in Tolkien's writings.''


Secondary


Sources

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * {{J. R. R. Tolkien * Tolkien studies Fantasy worlds High fantasy novels