England andEnglishness are represented in multiple forms withinJ. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth writings; it appears, more or less thinly disguised, in the form ofthe Shire and the lands close to it; in kindly characters such asTreebeard,Faramir, andThéoden; in its industrialised state asIsengard andMordor; and asAnglo-Saxon England inRohan. Lastly, and most pervasively, Englishness appears in the words and behaviour of the hobbits, both inThe Hobbit and inThe Lord of the Rings.

Tolkien has often been supposed to have spoken of wishing to create "a mythology for England"; though it seems he never used the actual phrase, various commentators have found it appropriate as a description of much of his approach in creatingMiddle-earth, and thelegendarium that lies behindThe Silmarillion. His desire to create a national mythology echoed similar attempts in countries across Europe, especiallyElias Lönnrot's creation of theKalevala in Finland.

England andEnglishness appear inMiddle-earth, more or less thinly disguised, in the form ofthe Shire and the lands close to it, includingBree andTom Bombadil's domain ofthe Old Forest and the Barrow-downs.^[1] In England, ashire is a rural administrative region, a county.Brian Rosebury likens the Shire to Tolkien's childhood home on the border ofWorcestershire andWarwickshire in England'sWest Midlands in the 1890s:^[2][3][4]

Sarehole, with its nearby farms, its mill by the riverside, its willow-trees, its pool with swans, its dell with blackberries, was a serene quasi-rural enclave, an obvious model-to-be for ... Hobbiton and the Shire.^[4]

The Shire is described byTom Shippey asa calque upon England, a systematic construction mapping the origin of the people, its three original tribes, its two legendary founders, its organisation, its surnames, and its placenames.^[5] Others have noted easily perceived aspects such as the homely names of public houses likeThe Green Dragon.^[6][7][8] Tolkien stated that he grew up "in 'the Shire' in a pre-mechanical age".^[9]

Tom Shippey's analysis of Tolkien'scalque ofthe Shire uponEngland^[5]

Element	The Shire	England
Origin of people	The Angle between the Rivers Hoarwell (Mitheithel) and the Loudwater (Bruinen) from the East (acrossEriador)	The Angle betweenFlensburg Fjord and theSchlei, from the East (across theNorth Sea), hence the name "England"
Original three tribes	Stoors, Harfoots, Fallohides	Angles,Saxons,Jutes[a]
Legendary founders named "horse"[b]	Marcho and Blanco	Hengest and Horsa
Length of civil peace	272 years from Battle of Greenfields to Battle of Bywater	270 years fromBattle of Sedgemoor to publication ofLord of the Rings
Organisation	Mayors, moots, Shirriffs[c]	like "an old-fashioned and idealised England"
Surnames	e.g. Banks, Boffin, Bolger, Bracegirdle,Brandybuck, Brockhouse, Chubb, Cotton, Fairbairns, Grubb, Hayward, Hornblower, Noakes, Proudfoot,Took, Underhill, Whitfoot	All are real English surnames. Tolkien comments e.g. that "Bracegirdle" is "used in the text, of course, with reference to the hobbit tendency to be fat and so to strain their belts".[T 1]
Placenames	e.g. "Nobottle" e.g. "Buckland"	Nobottle, Northamptonshire Buckland, Oxfordshire

Bree and Bombadil are still, in Shippey's words, in "The Little Kingdom", if not quite in the Shire. Bree is similar to the Shire, with its hobbit residents and the welcomingPrancing Ponyinn. Bombadil represents thespirit of place of theOxfordshire andBerkshire countryside, which Tolkien felt was vanishing.^{[12][1][T 2]}

Shippey analyses how Tolkien's careful account inThe Lord of the Rings of the land in the angle between two rivers, the Hoarwell and the Loudwater, matches the Angle between theFlensburg Fjord and theRiver Schlei, the legendary origin of theAngles, one of the three tribes who founded England.^[13]

Lothlórien, too, carries overtones ofa perfect, timeless England; Shippey notes how the hobbits feel they have stepped "over a bridge in time" as they cross yet another pair of rivers to enter Lothlórien.^[13]

England appears in its industrialised state asIsengard andMordor.^[1]In particular, it has been suggested that the industrialized area called "theBlack Country" nearJ. R. R. Tolkien's childhood home inspired his vision of Mordor;^[14][15] the name "Mordor" meant "Black Land" in Tolkien's invented language ofSindarin, and "Land of Shadow" inQuenya.^{[T 3]}Shippey further links the fallen wizardSaruman and his industrial Isengard to "Tolkien's own childhood image of industrial ugliness ...Sarehole Mill, with itsliterally bone-grinding owner".^[16]

Anglo-Saxon England appears, modified by the people's extensive use of horses in battle, in the land ofRohan. The names of the Rohirrim, the Riders of Rohan, are straightforwardlyOld English, as are the terms they use and their placenames:Théoden means "king" in Old English;Éored means "troop of cavalry" andÉomer is "horse-famous", both related toÉoh, "horse";Eorlingas means "sons of Eorl"; the name of his throne-hall isMeduseld, which means "mead-hall". The chapter "The King of the Golden Hall" is constructed to match the passage in the Old English poemBeowulf where the hero approaches the court ofHeorot and is challenged by different guards along the way, and many of the names used come directly from there.^{[17][18][19][T 4]} The name of the Riders' land, the Mark, is Tolkien's reconstruction of the Germanic word from which the Latinised name "Mercia", applied to the central kingdom of Anglo-Saxon England and the region where Tolkien grew up, derives.^[20]

Englishness appears in the words and behaviour of the hobbits, throughout bothThe Hobbit andThe Lord of the Rings.^[21] Shippey writes that from the first page ofThe Hobbit, "the Bagginses at least were English by temperament and turn of phrase".^[22] Burns states that^[21]

it too lies within the English, in the best of English-kind. It lies in the courage and tenacity Tolkien admired in his fellow countrymen during the First World War; it lies in the English ability to recognize duty and carry resolutely through...

It is the same with the hobbits, who return and rebuild the Shire. Though it is their complacent and comfort-seeking qualities that stand out most consistently, a warrior's courage or an Elf's sensitivity can arise in hobbits as well.^[21]

Burns writes thatBilbo Baggins, the eponymous hero ofThe Hobbit, has acquired or rediscovered "an Englishman's northern roots. He has gained an Anglo-Saxon self-reliance and a Norseman's sense of will, and all of this is kept from excess by a Celtic sensitivity, by a love of earth, of poetry, and of simple song and cheer."^[21] She finds a similar balance in the hobbits ofThe Lord of the Rings,Pippin,Merry, andSam.Frodo's balance, though, has been destroyed by a quest beyond his strength; he still embodies some of the elements of Englishness, but lacking the simple cheerfulness of the other hobbits because of his other character traits, his Celtic sorrow and Nordic doom.^[21]

Kindly characters such asTreebeard,Faramir, andThéoden exemplify Englishness with their actions and mannerisms. Treebeard's distinctive boomingbass voice with his "hrum, hroom" mannerism is indeed said by Tolkien's biographer,Humphrey Carpenter, to be based directly on that of Tolkien's close friend, fellowOxford University professor andInkling,C. S. Lewis.^[23]Marjorie Burns sees "aRobin Hood touch" in the green-clad Faramir and his men hunting the enemy inIthilien, while in Fangorn forest, she feels that Treebeard's speech "has a comfortable English ring".^[1] Théoden's name is a direct transliteration of Old Englishþēoden, meaning "king, prince";^[24][25] he welcomes Merry, a Hobbit from the Shire, with warmth and friendship.^[26]Garry O'Connor adds that there is a striking resemblance between the wizardGandalf, the English actorIan McKellen who plays Gandalf inPeter Jackson's Middle-earth films, and, based onHumphrey Carpenter's biographical account, of another Englishman, Tolkien himself:^[27][28]

He has a strange voice, deep but without resonance, entirely English but with some quality in it that I cannot define, as if he had come from another age or civilization. Yet for much of the time he does not speak clearly. Words come out in eager rushes ... He speaks in complex sentences ...^[29]

Shippey suggests that Tolkien cautiously respected the English playwrightWilliam Shakespeare, and that he appears to have felt some kind of fellow-feeling with him, given that they were both from the county ofWarwickshire in the English midlands, where Tolkien had passed his happiest childhood years.^[30] Some of the plot elements inThe Lord of the Rings resemble Shakespeare's, notably inMacbeth. Tolkien's use of walking trees, theHuorns, to destroy the Orc-horde at theBattle of Helm's Deep carries a definite echo of the coming ofBirnam Wood toDunsinane Hill, though Tolkien admits the mythic nature of the event where Shakespeare denies it.^[30]Glorfindel'sprophecy that the Lord of theNazgûl would not die at the hand of any man directly reflects the Macbeth prophecy; commentators have found Tolkien's solution – he is killed bya woman anda hobbit in theBattle of the Pelennor Fields – more satisfying than Shakespeare's (a man brought into the world byCaesarean section, so not exactly "born").^[30]

Tolkien has often been supposed to have spoken of wishing to create "a mythology for England". It seems he never used the actual phrase, but commentators have found his biographerHumphrey Carpenter's phrase^[31] appropriate as a description of much of his approach in creatingMiddle-earth, and thelegendarium that lies behindThe Silmarillion.^[32][33] Tolkien's desire to create a national mythology^{[T 6]} echoed similar attempts in countries across Europe, especiallyElias Lönnrot's creation of theKalevala in Finland, which Tolkien read and admired.^[34][35] Other attempts had been made in Denmark, Finland, Germany, Scotland, and Wales in the 18th and 19th centuries.^[36] The mythology was initially intended as a home for his invented languages such as those that becameQuenya andSindarin, but he discovered as he worked on it that he wanted to make a properly English epic, spanning England's geography, language, and mythology.^[37]

Tolkien recognised that any actual English mythology, which he presumed, by analogy withNorse mythology and the clues that remain, to have existed until Anglo-Saxon times, had been extinguished. Tolkien decided to reconstruct such a mythology, accompanied to some extent by an imagined prehistory or pseudohistory of the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes before they migrated to England.^[33][38] Tolkien therefore looked to Norse and other mythologies for guidance.^[39][40] He found hints inBeowulf^[37] and other Old English sources. These gave him his ettens (as in the Ettenmoors) and ents, his elves, and his orcs; his "warg" is a cross betweenOld Norsevargr and Old Englishwearh.^[41] He took hiswoses orwood-woses (theDrúedain) from the seeming pluralwodwos in the Middle EnglishSir Gawain and the Green Knight, line 721; that comes in turn from Old Englishwudu-wasa, a singular noun.^[42] Shippey comments that

As for creating a "Mythology for England", one certain fact is that the Old English notions ofElves,Orcs,Ents, Ettens andWoses have through Tolkien been re-released into the popular imagination to join the much more familiar Dwarves ...,Trolls, ... and the wholly-inventedHobbits."^[40]

Verlyn Flieger comments that

If Tolkien's legendarium as we have it now is a mythology for England, it is a song about great power and promise in the throes of decline, racked by dissensions, split by factions, perpetually threatened by war, and perpetually at war with itself.It seems closer toOrwell's1984 than to the furry-footed escapist fantasy that detractors ofThe Lord of the Rings characterize that work as being."^[43]

• Baratta, Chris (15 November 2011).Environmentalism in the Realm of Science Fiction and Fantasy Literature.Cambridge Scholars Publishing.ISBN 978-1-4438-3542-8.
• Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898).An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary. Prague:Charles University.
• Burns, Marjorie (2005).Perilous Realms: Celtic and Norse in Tolkien's Middle-earth.University of Toronto Press.ISBN 978-0-8020-3806-7.
• Butler, Catherine (2013). "Tolkien and Worldbuilding". In Hunt, Peter (ed.).J. R. R. Tolkien: The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 106–120.ISBN 978-1-137-26399-5.
• Carpenter, Humphrey (1977).J. R. R. Tolkien: A Biography. New York:Ballantine Books.ISBN 978-0-04-928037-3.
• Carpenter, Humphrey, ed. (2023) [1981].The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien: Revised and Expanded Edition. New York:HarperCollins.ISBN 978-0-35-865298-4.
• Chance, Jane (1980) [1979].Tolkien's Art: 'A Mythology for England'.Macmillan.ISBN 978-0-333-29034-7.
• Drout, Michael D. C. (2004). "A Mythology for Anglo-Saxon England". InChance, Jane (ed.).Tolkien and the Invention of Myth: a Reader.University Press of Kentucky. pp. 229–247.ISBN 978-0-8131-2301-1.
• Duriez, Colin (1992).The J.R.R. Tolkien Handbook: A Comprehensive Guide to His Life, Writings, and World of Middle-earth.Baker Book House.ISBN 978-0-8010-3014-7.
• Fimi, Dimitra (2010) [2008].Tolkien, Race, and Cultural History: From Fairies to Hobbits.Palgrave Macmillan.ISBN 978-0-230-21951-9.OCLC 222251097.
• Flieger, Verlyn (2005)."7. An Unfinished Symphony".Interrupted Music: The Making Of Tolkien's Mythology.Kent State University Press. pp. 139–142.ISBN 978-0-87338-824-5.
• Hostetter, Carl F.;Smith, Arden R. (1996)."A Mythology for England".Mythlore.21 (2). Article 42.
• Kuusela, Tommy (May 2014)."In Search of a National Epic: The use of Old Norse myths in Tolkien's vision of Middle-earth".Approaching Religion.4 (1):25–36.doi:10.30664/ar.67534.
• Solopova, Elizabeth (2009).Languages, Myths and History: An Introduction to the Linguistic and Literary Background of J. R. R. Tolkien's Fiction. New York City:North Landing Books.ISBN 978-0-9816607-1-4.
• O'Connor, Garry (2019).Ian McKellen: a biography.St. Martin's Press.ISBN 978-1-250-22388-3.OCLC 1113218800.
• Rateliff, John D. (2009)."'A Kind of Elvish Craft': Tolkien as Literary Craftsman".Tolkien Studies.6.West Virginia University Press: 11ff.doi:10.1353/tks.0.0048.S2CID 170947885.
• Rosebury, Brian (2003).Tolkien: A Cultural Phenomenon.Palgrave.ISBN 978-1-4039-1263-3.
• Shippey, Tom (2001).J. R. R. Tolkien: Author of the Century.HarperCollins.ISBN 978-0-261-10401-3.
• Shippey, Tom (2005) [1982].The Road to Middle-Earth: How J. R. R. Tolkien Created a New Mythology (Third ed.).HarperCollins.ISBN 978-0-261-10275-0.
• Tolkien, J. R. R. (1954).The Two Towers.The Lord of the Rings. Boston:Houghton Mifflin.OCLC 1042159111.
• Tolkien, J. R. R. (1955).The Return of the King.The Lord of the Rings. Boston:Houghton Mifflin.OCLC 519647821.
• Tolkien, J. R. R. (1967)."Guide to the Names in The Lord of the Rings". Academia.edu. Retrieved14 September 2021. Also published inA Tolkien Compass (1975) andThe Lord of the Rings: A Reader's Companion (2005).
• Tyler, J. E. A. (1976).The Tolkien Companion.Macmillan.ISBN 978-0-333-19633-5.
• Wynne, Patrick H. (2006)."Theoden". InDrout, Michael D. C. (ed.).The J. R. R. Tolkien Encyclopedia (first ed.).Routledge. p. 643.ISBN 978-0-415-96942-0.

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