Tolkien and Wales.
Tolkien and Wales.
A map of Wales
Middle Earth
Notice the similarities of the West, in Middle Earth to Wales.
Coelbren Alphabet:
An alphabet created in the 18th century for Cymraeg. (Welsh)
The Anglo-Saxon Runic Alphabet.
Tolkien was familiar with both, having been exposed to both via his professional work in Languages.
Parallels lie in the Dwarven and Elvish Alphabets of Tolkien.
Another similarity is the Elvish languages.
To quote,
From the article:
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-south-east-wales-13472344
"He read a lot of medieval Welsh literature, taught medieval Welsh when he was working at Leeds University and you can see the influence of the language and the literature in his creative writing and his scholarly work."
He added: "Welsh is important as an influence particularly on one of the Elvish languages, Sindarin.
"It's not so much that he borrowed Welsh words, more the sounds.
"This particular Elvish language is very like the sounds of Welsh and deliberately so.
"I have a friend of mine who is a native Welsh speaker who went to see the Lord of the Rings films and when they started speaking Elvish in the film she turned to her daughter and said 'they are speaking Welsh' so people do see this relationship."
The history, culture, mythology, and language of Wales is clearly an important source of inspiration in the Works of Tolkien.
An often overlooked work by Tolkien is Gawain and the Green Knight.
https://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Sir_Gawain_and”
The history, culture, mythology, and language of Wales is clearly an important source of inspiration in the Works of Tolkien.
An often overlooked work by Tolkien is Gawain and the Green Knight.
https://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Sir_Gawain_and_the_Green_Knight_(edition)
An early work by Tolkien.
This is an example of Tolkien, studying Welsh mythology.
The Mabinogian, and Arthurian tale played a large influence.
The sinking of Lyonesse and Cantre'r Gwaelod are reminiscent of the fall of Numenor.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cantre%27r_Gwaelod
Wales is by no means the sole inspiration for the entirety of Tolkien’s Middle Earth.
Though it is to my mind, the primary inspiration for the West of Middle Earth.
Physically as well as culturally.
Tolkien's true genius I believe is in the Synthesis he created mixing the primal elements of North western and Northern European Mythology.
Creating a sort of Jungian gestalt that has an instant appeal on an unconscious level for all of Western Civilization.
This is also why I believe the works of Tolkien are under attack by the agents of chaos on the left.
Tolkien's world is a synthesis of Western Civilizations core cultural identity.
Western Civilization is the antithesis of everything that the progressive left believes.
I find it interesting that the government of Great Britain, now lists the works of C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien and George Orwell as dangerous extremist material now.
Cymry Embedd!
Y' Gwir Yn Erbyn Byd!
Wales Forever,
The Truth Against The World.
I loved Tolkien from the first reading (40+ years ago) and continue to this day. As you point out, Wales is perfect for the West of Middle Earth. Having been to South Wales in my early 20s I always considered it to be, at least in some ways, a model for middle earth (I thought of Swansea and Glamorgan area as kind of "The Grey Havens" but I suppose that is simply because that's where I was. Until today, I never realized just how similar the coastline is to Eriador, though! Thank you for this wonderful post.
Tolkien, Lewis, Chesterton might be more important now than ever.
Really. Dangerous? How the world has fallen. Great post!