I was reading a viking myth and I think Tolkein may have been copying...

The story goes, that Loki (the god of fire) stole a ring of a dwarf, as a blood price for someone he murdered. However, the dwarf enchanted the ring so it corrupted the owner to grow overly protective of it, one of the owners of this ring even turned into a dragon to protect it. What follows on is long and boring so I wont bpther explaining it. However, I think it seems just a little similar to LOTR, anyone agree with me?

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Not really, no. There are stories of magical rings in almost all folk legends, and the rings usually 'ensnare'(is that the right spelling?) those that carry them.
Tolkien was certainly inspired by such stories, but his word is so complex and original as a whole that copying is the wrong word.

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Very true, there are even more Norse myths dealing with ring making. Many stories have some roots in mythology.

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Do not come between a Nazgul and his prey and he will not slay thee in thy turn.

My friend was doing a report on Norse Mythology and I read that story. I think that Tolkien may have been awar of the story, but I don't think he thought "Wow, what a great story. I should write it down."

Yeah, I don't think copying would be the correct term, but Tolkien was definitely inspired by ancient myths. There are a lot of similarities between his brand of fantasy and the style of the old legends, including the name "Frodo" and the name of the king in Beowulf ("Froda").

I do get annoyed when people decide that Tolkien was influenced by sources like Wagner, to whom Tolkien never would have paid attention.

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I think he took European myths and used pieces ..and created his own whole history from them. That's why so many names have roots in Old English, Norse, etc...

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Yes, I do think the Professor used the Norse mythology to a certain extent.

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Aye, there are many similarities between LotR and Beowulf, for example. The elvish languages are based off of Finnish, and Tolkien was fascinated with northern mythology like the Kalevala.

I was reading a book about how the Norse gods connected ewith the Valar. It was interesting, but I didn;t get to read it all.

Tolkien ued lots of Norse mythology, and other things connected with many European languages [especially Finland I've heard], but I do not believe he copied it.

Tolkien was inspired by Norse myths, but he wouldn't copy. He may have gotten a few ideas for characters, maybe a little bit of the plot, but not like the WHOLE thing.

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Loki is actually the trickster god of mischief, but never mind. Tolkien took a lot of his stuff from myths, but everything has to come from somewhere. I believe there are only around 7 books in the world which cannot have parallels drawn from them to anything else. (If TV is correct lol).

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Heh... My mom put a book of myths on my desk a week ago and said there were some Norse myths in there. I opened to where the bookmark was and found... the book was in Essay format! So I didn't read any. Bulfinch's myths. Would not reccomend for pleasure reading. I'm reading it for literature right now though; but only the greek and roman ones.

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Aren't we all influenced by our favorite authors or stories in our writings? Someone above mentioned Beowulf, which, from what I've heard was one of Tolkien's favorite stories. Whenever you read something great and enjoy it, don't you wish to write something that will be as beautiful to others as that story is to you?
I don't think Tolkien copied off of anyone or anything. Middle Earth was his special world, that one we all have inside of us that we can escape to. Tolkien was just able to tap into it so vividly and communicate it so clearly to the rest of the world. Now, having said that it was a world created by his mind, it naturally follows that what he has in his mind makes up the world. Therefore, if Norse legends are in his mind, there will be shadows of them in the world he creates.
Do I make any sense?

^ yup yup. i agree and i can totally relate to what u just said.

Actually, the reason why Tolkien wrote LotR, was that he wanted to give Brittain a... mythological history, you may say. He loved Norse mythology and stuff like that, and he was always sorry that Brittain didn't have anything like it. However, his attempt to make it, didn't quite turn out the way he had planned it...

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