William Morris's influence onJ. R. R. Tolkien was substantial. From an early age, Tolkien bought many of Morris's books, including his fantasies, poetry, and translations. Both men liked theNorse sagas, disliked mechanisation, and wrotefantasy books which they illustrated themselves. On the other hand, Morris was asocialist andatheist, while Tolkien was aCatholic.

Scholars have identified multiple elements of Tolkien's fantasy writings that match Morris's writings. These range from general aspects like use of archaism and a medieval setting, to specific features like details of life in a Nordic hall and a savage character who brings the protagonist rabbits.

Morris's influence extends through Tolkien to the Tolkien artistAlan Lee and the filmmakerPeter Jackson. Together, they have spread a medievalist aesthetic to a wide modern fantasy audience.

J. R. R. Tolkien went toExeter College, Oxford, asWilliam Morris had done. Both men dislikedcapitalism andindustrialisation; and both wrote fiction that proposed an alternative, non-industrial, society. Tolkien followed Morris, too, in the habit ofweaving poems, legends, andproverbs into his novels. Tolkien readBeowulf while at school, possibly in Morris and A. J. Wyatt's 1895 translation.^{[2][T 1]} Like Morris, he studiedIcelandic and became familiar with Norse history and mythology.^[3] Both men published translations before writing works of their own.^[4] In 1914, Tolkien won the Skeat Prize for English, using the money to buy some of Morris's books includingThe House of the Wolfings and his prose translation of theVölsunga Saga.^[3]Christopher Tolkien stated that his father owned most of Morris's written works, including his fantasies, poetry, and translations.^[5]

Timothy Murphy writes that despite the acknowledged influence of Morris on Tolkien, and their shared "dislike of mechanized modernity", the larger picture is of their opposedfantasy legacies. In Murphy's view, the "bourgeois Catholic Tolkien emplifies the idealist or transcendentalist strand" of fantasy, now dominant in the marketplace; while Morris started the "conceptually more fertile strand of materialist fantasy" as seen in the writings ofEdith Nesbit,Ursula Le Guin,Michael Moorcock, andChina Miéville.^[6]

Tolkien was influenced directly or indirectly byGermanic heroic legend, especially itsNorse and Old English forms. During his education at King Edward's School in Birmingham, he read and translated from theOld Norse in his free time. One of his first Norse purchases was theVölsunga saga. While a student, Tolkien read the only available English prose translation,^[7][1] Morris andEiríkur Magnússon's 1870Völsunga Saga: the story of the Volsungs & Niblungs, with certain songs from the Elder Edda.^{[T 2]} The Old NorseVölsunga saga and theMiddle High GermanNibelungenlied were coeval texts made with the use of the same ancient sources.^[8][9] Both of them provided some of the basis forRichard Wagner's opera series,Der Ring des Nibelungen, featuring in particular a magical but cursed golden ring and a broken sword reforged. In theVölsunga saga, these items are respectivelyAndvaranaut andGram, and they correspond broadly to theOne Ring and the swordNarsil (reforged as Andúril).^[10] In addition, theVölsunga saga contains various names used in Tolkien's legendarium. Among Tolkien's academic works,The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrún discusses theVölsunga saga in relation to the myth of Sigurd and Gudrún.^[11]

TheGrettis saga calls the undead monsters Glámr and Kárrhaugbúar ("mound-dwellers", singularhaugbúi; a similar term isdraugr). It influenced Tolkien'sbarrow-wights, whether directly from the Old Norse or by way of Magnússon and Morris's translation,^[12] which Tolkien was familiar with.^[5]

The general form ofThe Hobbit—that of a journey into strange lands, told in a light-hearted mood and interspersed with songs—may be following the model of Morris's 1871The Icelandic Journals.^[13]

Tolkien wished to imitate the prose and poetry romances of the 19th-centuryArts and Crafts polymathWilliam Morris^{[T 3]} in style and approach. The Desolation of Smaug, portraying dragons as detrimental to landscape, is a motif explicitly borrowed from Morris.^[14]

Themedievalist and Tolkien scholarMarjorie Burns writes that Bilbo's character and adventures match many details of Morris's expedition in Iceland. She comments, for instance, that the humorous drawings of Morris riding through the wilds ofIceland in the early 1870s by his friend the artistEdward Burne-Jones can serve well as models for Bilbo on his adventures. Like Bilbo's, Morris's party set off enjoyably into the wild onponies. He meets a "boisterous" man called "Biorn the boaster" who lives in a hall beside Eyja-fell, and who tells Morris, tapping him on the belly, "... besides, you know you are so fat", just as Beorn pokes Bilbo "most disrespectfully" andcompares him to a plump rabbit.^[3] Burns notes that Morris was "relatively short, a little rotund, and affectionately called 'Topsy', for his curly mop of hair", all somewhat hobbit-like characteristics. Further, she writes, "Morris in Iceland often chooses to place himself in a comic light and to exaggerate his own ineptitude", just as Morris's companion, the painterEdward Burne-Jones, gently teased his friend by depicting him as very fat in his Iceland cartoons.^[3] Burns suggests that these images "make excellent models" for the Bilbo who runs puffing to the Green Dragon inn or "jogs along behind Gandalf and the dwarves" on his quest.^[3] Another definite resemblance is the emphasis on home comforts: Morris enjoyed a pipe, a bath, and "regular, well-cooked meals"; Morris looked as out of place in Iceland as Bilbo did "over the Edge of the Wild"; both are afraid of dark caves; and both grow through their adventures.^[3]

Tolkien identified Morris's novels as an influence onThe Lord of the Rings in a 1960 letter:^{[T 4]}

The Dead Marshes and the approaches to the Morannon owe something to northern France after theBattle of the Somme. They owe more to William Morris and his Huns and Romans, as inThe House of the Wolfings orThe Roots of the Mountains.^{[T 4]}

Burns writes that several "Northern elements" in Tolkien'sMiddle-earth writings have "counterparts" in Morris's novels.^[3]

Tolkien's biographerHumphrey Carpenter wrote that the first draft ofThe Silmarillion used the literary device of "a sea-voyager arriv[ing] at an unknown land" and hearing a series of stories, just as in Morris's epic poemThe Earthly Paradise.^[15]

Morris used a great dark forest namedMirkwood in his 1889 novelThe House of the Wolfings; Tolkien had forests of the same name in bothThe Silmarillion (where there are two Mirkwoods) andThe Lord of the Rings. The philologist and Tolkien scholar scholarTom Shippey explains that the name evoked the excitement of the wildness of Europe's ancient North.^[16] Tolkien stated in a 1966 letter that he had not invented the name Mirkwood, but that it was "a very ancient name, weighted with legendary associations", and summarized its "Primitive Germanic" origins, its appearance in "very early German" and in Old English,Old Swedish, andOld Norse, and the survival ofmirk (a variant of "murk") in modern English. He wrote that "It seemed to me too good a fortune that Mirkwood remained intelligible (with exactly the right tone) in modern English to pass over: whether mirk is a Norse loan or a freshment of the obsolescent O.E. word."^{[T 5]}

The scholar of folkloreDimitra Fimi writes thatThe Wood Beyond the World strikingly parallels a scene inThe Lord of the Rings. In chapter X, Golden Walter meets a "wicked Dwarf" with a "fearful harsh voice".^[17] The Dwarf offers Walter some "loathsome bread". To Walter's hesitation, he offers to get him "a coney or a hare", and recalls that the man will not eat it raw, but "must needs half burn it in the fire, or mar it with hot water".^[17] Fimi remarks the detailed parallels with the scene inThe Two Towers, "Of Herbs and Stewed Rabbit", where Gollum brings rabbits (which Sam calls coneys) for Frodo and Sam.^{[17][T 6]} Fimi writes that this encounter with savagery serves a structural function in both cases.^[17] She notes that scholars such as Andrew Dodds and Hilary Newman have labelled Morris's Dwarf as the protagonist's "darker aspect"; while other scholars, such as the classicistDouglass Parker and the Tolkien scholarVerlyn Flieger, have similarly described Gollum as Frodo's "dark side", i.e.the two are psychologically paired by both Morris and Tolkien.^[17]

The philologist and Tolkien scholarTom Shippey writes that the King of Rohan's hall ofMeduseld inThe Lord of the Rings isanachronistically described as havinglouvres in its roof to remove the smoke; the word, from French, was first used in English in 1393.^[19] The feature is derived directly fromThe House of the Wolfings,^[18] where Morris wrote:^{[T 7]}

In the aisles were the sleeping-places of the Folk, and down the nave under the crown of the roof were three hearths for the fires, and above each hearth a luffer or smoke-bearer to draw the smoke up when the fires were lighted.^{[T 7]}

Tolkien's description of the hall runs:^{[T 8]}

But here and there bright sunbeams fell in glimmering shafts from the eastern windows, high under the deep eaves. Through the louvre in the roof, above the thin wisps of issuing smoke, the sky showed pale and blue.^{[T 8]}

Tommy Kuusela suggests that Morris's 1896 fantasy novelThe Well at the World's End may have influencedThe Lord of the Rings. Parallels include "King Gandolf" (Tolkien'sGandalf), and a quick, white horse named "Silverfax" (Tolkien'sShadowfax).^[20]

Kelvin Lee Massey analyses the influence of Morris's 1889 romanceThe Roots of the Mountains onThe Lord of the Rings. Parallels include the novel's intentionally archaic diction and syntax, elements of the plot, and descriptions of landscape.^[21]

The work's good people, the Burgdalers, are pagan, but are "beautiful, generous, brave, and harmonious, in contrast to the society of the Dusky Men, who are ugly, foul, evil, and predatory."^[23] Massey likens all this to elements of Tolkien's novel. Further, women are allowed to be warriors, as with Tolkien'sÉowyn.^[23] Morris describes the Dusky Men as "long-armed like apes", "as foul as swine", fighting with crooked swords, and forming "a stumbling jostling throng".^[24] Massey comments that their nature is dehumanised, so theycan be slaughtered "with impunity", and that Tolkien modelled the Orcs on them.^[24] Morris made use of other races including kobolds, dwarfs, elves, ghosts, trolls, and wights, parallelling many of Tolkien's races.^[22]

BothRoots and its predecessor,The House of the Wolfings, incorporatedpoems and songs in the text;Roots differs in its happy fairytale ending, and in using invented rather than historical figures.^[25] Massey remarks the work'simpression of depth,^[26] much as Shippey has described forThe Lord of the Rings.^[26][27] Like Tolkien after him, Morris was closely involved in the book's printing, with "input into cover and jacket designs, illustrations, and maps".^[25]

Morris's books, such as those printed by hisKelmscott Press, are elaborately illustrated, in a style which strongly medieval, recallingilluminated manuscripts in which text and images, prose and poetry, are tightly interwoven.^[29] Tolkien's biographerJohn Garth wrote that this is reflected inTolkien's artwork, especially his "frieze patterns and decorative picture-borders, his Númenórean tiles andElven heraldic devices, and particularly his book-jacket designs".^[29][28] Hans Velten suggests that Morris's influence on Tolkien's "visual design of illustrations, ornamentation and manuscripts" was just as important as his influence on Tolkien's writing.^[29]

The Tolkien scholarsWayne G. Hammond andChristina Scull wrote that Tolkien evidently "agreed with the underlying philosophy of Morris and his followers, which looked back to a much earlier time: that the 'lesser' arts of handicraft embodied truth and beauty".^[29][30] They gave as examples the "carved pillars, floor of many hues, and 'woven cloth' ofThéoden's Hall"Edoras.^[29][30]

Velten adds that Morris's graphic approach also had a powerful effect on fantasy after Tolkien, including onTolkien artists such asAlan Lee. Velten suggests that Lee was comfortable with Tolkien's acceptance of Morris, and accordingly made his Middle-earth illustrations more like Morris's style. In Velten's view, Lee has in turn, through his work onPeter Jackson's 2001–2003The Lord of the Rings film trilogy, influenced the "collective imagination" of how places and people should look in Middle-earth.^[31]

• 
  Morris's novels, such asThe Story of the Glittering Plain, combine elaborate illustrations and drawn ornaments integrated with the text. This aesthetic influenced Tolkien,^[32] as did the text itself.^[3]
• 
  Morris's visual influence on Tolkien and beyond, viaAlan Lee's illustrations andPeter Jackson's films^[31]
• 
  Velten suggests that the Tolkien artistAlan Lee followed Tolkien's liking of Morris by adopting something of his visual style.Morris's tapestryThe Failure of Sir Gawaine illustrated.^[31]

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