our geography teacher said Tolkien stole the name Middle-Earth from the Chinese who origianally called themselves middle people. I think it's just a qoincidence. Tolkien certainly didn't steel anything!

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I revisited AU on Jan 14th after an almost 10-year break! The nostalgia..!

tolkien stole a lot of stuff - he borrowed from existing mythology to give his own mythology more weight, and he admitted it (really need to refind that quote).

i don't know if tolkien knew about the chinese tradition, but "middle-earth" was also used by medieval europeans and tolkien certainly knew that - the word "middengeard" (translated as middle earth) appears in the lines of anglo-saxon poetry that inspired the voyage of earendil.

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Yes. I wouldn't call it steal, though. He just used it for his own purpose. Like Eowyn said, Middengard in Norse mythlogy is translated as Middle Earth. Its the place where mortals live. The name frodo was dirived from a name in the book Beawulf. The Rohirric language is extremely close to Old English.

well, maybe he changed some old things into mythologies of his own. but i wouldn't call it stealing. our teacher did. i know there are similar stories and names in old texts, but Tolkien's works are still something very different. =)

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I revisited AU on Jan 14th after an almost 10-year break! The nostalgia..!

he stole nothing. sure he may have borrowed things and changed them around into his own words, i don't call that really stealing

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And as he looked into her eyes
Within the auburn of her hair
The trembling starlight of the skies
He saw there mirrored bright and fair

♥In a poly relationship with Kili and Tauriel♥

Stealing is a form of Fan Fiction.
Tolkien did not write Fan Fiction, therefore he did not steal.

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absolutely true. but remember i didn't say it was stealing. it was my teacher who appears to have [for some reason] something against Tolkien. hihi but maybe we should just ignore people who think they know better

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I revisited AU on Jan 14th after an almost 10-year break! The nostalgia..!

exactually! the best you can do is ignore them. what do the Non-Tolkien fans know anyway

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And as he looked into her eyes
Within the auburn of her hair
The trembling starlight of the skies
He saw there mirrored bright and fair

♥In a poly relationship with Kili and Tauriel♥

Stealing? Stealing would be if one takes something that belongs to a rightful owner. Do we know exactly who wrote these myths and legends? And is it wrong to take the idea of a system of an existant (or once existant) civilization? No! Fantasy is fiction, and therefore, so is myths and legends. Shakespeare used Myths and Legends to write his plays. There would be not even one fantasy author if it weren't for being able to use Myths Legends and ancient ideas.

If Tolkien was indeed a thief of ideas and a "stealer" then so is every other fantasy author.

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don't get het up, please and anyway, Rowling and Paolini lent Tolkien's ideas. If someone has a good idea, others are going to use it as well.

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I revisited AU on Jan 14th after an almost 10-year break! The nostalgia..!

I wouldn't call it stealing...he most cetainly based cultures, myths and stuff that have existed to create Middle Earth
like rohirrim look like Vikings, the Sindarin language sounds like Gaelic and rohirric is very similar to Old English among other things

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hmmm, from what I can remember in geography, the Chinese did call themselves something similar to middle earth, but I think it was more like central nation....the believed that the world <i>literally</i> revolved around their country....

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the rohirrim are based on anglo-saxons, not vikings. big difference. fewer horned helmets to start with!

i'm studying anglo-saxon culture as an elective module at uni atm, and almost every work i find something else that tolkien used. for example, this week i realised that the "burg" of "hornburg" comes from the anglo-saxon "burh", which was a fortress built during the reign of king alfred; and tolkien's basic framework for writing about battles comes from the poem "the battle of maldon" (read it if you can).

i don't see why people get so touchy about this subject. the fact that tolkien borrowed so heavily isn't a slur on his reputation - it's a nod to his vast knowledge and ability to "mix writings" (as barthes would put it). tolkien deliberately took ideas, names etc from existing mythologies, literature and history and made no attempt to hide his influences, and he did so for a very clear purpose - to write fantasy that feels immediately familiar to the reader and therefore reads like history. okay, so i'll conced that "stealing" probably isn't the best word because of the negative connotations he had, but there's no good trying to down play the extent to which tolkien used existing ideas.

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Oh I'm sorry I didn't mean to sound rude.. I guess the absence of smilies does mean something



It was Middle East.. "East" isn't related to "Earth" anyway so.. yeah.

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no problem aww that smily is so cute I think the Chinese called themselves 'Middle-People'.. though I'm not 100% sure..

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I revisited AU on Jan 14th after an almost 10-year break! The nostalgia..!

Hee-hee. I'm just so proud of how everyone rushes to Tolkien's defense!

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