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This week on Fable and the Verbivore, we’re continuing our summer of J. R. R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings (LOTR) series by unpacking the influences and inspirations behind this story.

Although we start off the episode by sharing a quote by Tolkien that suggests how difficult it is for anyone (including an author) to truly identify all of the influences that go into a book, we know that nothing is made in a vacuum and everything has some outside sources of inspiration.

We hope that this episode helps challenge the idea that you have to have original ideas and note how paralyzing that can be. We would suggest that no story is truly original and all stories have some influences and inspirations that you can point out.

So, today we unpack some of the things that likely helped inspire Tolkien to write LOTR. Those include:

• Beowulf - Mead halls, Grendel, Complex monsters of human origin, Dragons , Naming Swords

• Norse Mythology - Loki and the Ring myth which includes a ring of power with a bloody past, dwarfs, and a shieldmaiden

• Greek Mythology - Arachne, Quests such as the Labors of Hercules and the Psyche’s Impossible Tasks

• Greek Philosophy - The “Ring of Gyges” by Plato which features a ring of power that corrupts

• Tolkien’s experience with WWI and fairytales

• Early Fantasy Writers -

• Aesops Fables - Talking creatures

We’re not saying that LOTR isn’t a uniquely great story, but we are remembering that even this wonderful story was written by connecting with what came before and giving it a unique and individual spin.

Next week, we’ll be sharing a final episode wrapping up LOTR and the legacy it left for some of the more current stories we enjoy.

We hope you enjoy this episode! Keep reading, writing, and putting your voice out there!

Into the woods,

Fable & The Verbivore

Notes:

In this episode, the Verbivore references several TED-Ed videos in this conversation. They are:

• TED-Ed The Norse myth that inspired “The Lord of the Rings” - Iseult Gillespie

• TED-Ed Plato's allegory of the ring - Alex Gendler  

• TED-Ed The myth of Arachne - Iseult Gillespie

• TED-Ed The myth of Hercules: 12 labors in 8-bits - Alex Gendler

• TED-Ed - The myth of Cupid and Psyche - Brendan Pelsue

The Verbivore also references a quote from Tolkien’s forward that’s included in the 2nd edition. That is:

• “An author cannot of course remain wholly unaffected by his experience, but the ways in which a story-germ uses the soil of experience are extremely complex, and attempts to define the process are at best guesses from evidence that is inadequate and ambiguous.”

We also mention several MasterClasses. They are:

• Neil Gaiman Teaches the Art of Storytelling - https://www.masterclass.com/classes/neil-gaiman-teaches-the-art-of-storytelling

• Ron Howard Teaches Directing - https://www.masterclass.com/classes/ron-howard-teaches-directing

Books and Movies Mentioned:

• The Lord of the Rings Book Set by J. R. R. Tolkien

• The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien

• The Silmarillion by J. R. R. Tolkien

• Beowulf: A Verse Translation by Anonymous  -

• Chronicles of Narnia by C. S. Lewis

• Harry Potter Box Set (Books 1-7) by J. K. Rowling

• The Complete Fables by Aesop

Music from: https://filmmusic.io
‘Friendly day’ by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.com)
Licence: CC BY (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)