J. R. R. Tolkien was greatly inspired by old English culture and legends, as well as those of other northwestern European countries, in his creation of his world of Arda, in which is the continent of Middle Earth. The name of Middle Earth itself comes directly from the old belief of the earth as suspended in the middle of Heaven and Hell. Tolkien drew much of his inspiration from Beowulf, it being a major piece of Anglo-Saxon literature. There are many obvious surface connections that can be drawn such as a dragon appearing in both Beowulf and The Hobbit, and the name of one of Tolkien’s main heroes, Eomer, being found in the epic poem (Beowulf 1960). The most important connections to be made, however, are not in the shallow similarity of names and events, but similarities of theme and style. Three such similarities between Beowulf and Lord of the Rings are: the importance of gift giving to both reward and show the lordship of the one giving the gift; the importance of digressions in the form of song and tale to give the story a background; and the appearance of fiends as sentient creatures who were once good but have been corrupted and deformed by demonic powers.

Gift giving by the lord to his men was a central part of Anglo-Saxon culture. The mead hall where the gift giving took place was the central point of their world. It stood alone in the middle of a dark and wild world as both a physical barrier and a symbol of the protection the group and the lord provided. Gift giving was the act which demonstrated that the king was lord and in power. He gave out gifts as he gave out protection. His gifts showed his loyalty to his liegemen just as their service to him showed their return allegiance. It is the gifts which separate him from the men that follow him. The thanes do not give gifts to each other; neither do they give gifts to their lord. If anything is given to the lord it is because it is rightfully his. The warriors were fighting for their lord at the time in which they took the treasure. Therefore it is by right the king’s. Thus it is only by the lord’s grace and favor that his men receive their treasure. Yet at the same time the lord is required to give out this treasure because it is a sign that he is a good king and he only bestows it to those men who have proven themselves worthy or whom he especially likes.

After Beowulf slays Grendal, Hrothgar demonstrates this by giving gifts to Beowulf in thanks for his great deed through which he has most definitely proved his worth. Several of the gifts that Beowulf receives are similar to gifts different characters receive in Tolkien’s works. There is "an embroidered banner" (Beowulf 1021), a sign of victory, like the "great standard" that Arwen made for Aragorn, which Aragorn displays while sailing victorious up the Anduin River (Return of the King 826). Beowulf receives armor just as Bilbo Baggins received his mithril coat as a reward from Thorin Oakenshield, the leader of the dwarves, for his burgling services (The Hobbit 215). Merry and Pippin also received armor in The Two Towers. It was not, however, as a reward, but as a sign of their allegiance to their new lords Theodan and Denothor.

After an interlude in the festivities at Heorot, Hrothgar’s queen, Wealhtheow, gives out her own gifts and blessings. In Tolkien’s own major gift giving sequence (The Fellowship of the Ring 365-367), the gifts are also given by a queen: Galadriel of Lothlorien. Galadriel’s gifts, like those given to Beowulf, are practical and useful. Legolas receives a new bow and a quiver full of arrows, Frodo a phial of light which he will later use in defeating the giant spider Shelob, and the entire fellowship is clothed in gray cloaks that will hide them from enemies against most backgrounds. Along with these gifts she gives the fellowship protection in the woods of Lothlorien just as Hrothgar provides protection for his men in Heorot. The important thing, though, is not what Galadriel gives, but that she gives the fellowship anything at all. The fact that Galadriel is giving out gifts would send up a red flag in any Anglo-Saxon’s mind. This is someone with great importance and power. Gift giving is how Tolkien shows the reader that Galadriel is the "lord" of Lothlorien and a great protector. In fact Galadriel is one of the last of a line of high noble elves, though this is not known unless one reads The Silmarillion. She gives these precious gifts to the fellowship both because they have proven themselves worthy and with the hope that they will further prove themselves worthy by using them.

There is another way in which gift giving is used in Lord of the Rings that is also brought to the reader’s attention in Beowulf. Many times in Beowulf the good king is referred to as a "ring giver." Hrothgar is called this many times in reference to his generous gift giving. Rings were a symbol of wealth. Tolkien turns the good implication of this title on its head in the personage of Sauron, the dark lord. Sauron gives out rings not because he is a good lord, but as a way to subvert the recipients to his will. He even gives himself the name "Annatar" which means "lord of gifts" (Silmarillion 287). Sauron, though evil, gives gifts for the same reasons as Hrothgar and other kings. He wants to show that he is powerful, and he wants others to be loyal to him.

Many readers of both Beowulf and Lord of the Rings are puzzled by the frequent digressions from the plot. In Beowulf these digressions take the form of songs sung at banquets, as with the battle of Finnsburg (1070); references by characters in their speech to others, Beowulf’s fight with the sea monsters (530); and digressions taken by the narrator himself, such as the fall of Hygelac(1200). All the digressions in Lord of the Rings are spoken by characters in the story, usually in the form of songs, like Aragorn’s chant about Beren and Luthien when the party is camped at Weathertop (Fellowship 187-9).

These digressions, though they seem to have no importance (they in no way further the plot of the story), are actually vitally important to the overall atmosphere of the literature. The digressions tell the history of the land in which the story takes place and of the people carrying out the story. This is very important in setting up the world on which the stories hang. Beowulf and Lord of the Rings are not stories that are merely set before the reader as solitary units beginning and ending in the exact confines of their pages. They are moments pulled out of a history that happen to be described in greater detail than what comes before or after. If Beowulf had not been written the Anglo-Saxon culture and world would still have existed; and one has the sense that if Lord of the Rings had not been written Middle Earth would still exist. That is what the digressions are for. They tell the reader "This world you are glimpsing was here long before you peaked in on it. It has a history, and it will have a future. It will continue to exist after you have looked away."

Beowulf opens with one such important digression. The first fit tells the history of Hrothgar’s people and how he came to be in power and build Heorot (1-85). The story could begin and make complete sense without it. Knowing that Hrothgar’s father’s name was Halfdane, or that Shield was a great warrior in no way effects the reader’s understanding that Grendel attacked Heorot and Beowulf in turn killed Grendel. It is not important to the plot, but it is important to the world. This telling of the history of the Danes gives the tale a background. The story of Grendel’s attacks has a different tone because it is just one piece in a long history of violent events in the Dane’s past, rather than an isolated incident in the lives of a peaceful people. Fighting and monsters were commonplace among these people as shown in Beowulf’s boastings about his fight with the sea monsters (530-581).

References to the past in Tolkien’s digressions are slightly more obscure than those in Beowulf. When Tolkien created Middle Earth he made an entire world, complete with history and mythology, peoples and languages. The history of Middle Earth up until the time of Lord of the Rings is recorded in The Silmarillion. This history is constantly being alluded to throughout all three books of Lord of the Rings. For instance, when Frodo and Sam are climbing the stairs of Cirith Ungol Sam makes reference to the Silmarils. "Beren now, he never thought he was going to get that Silmaril from the iron crown in Thangorodrim, and yet he did…. But that’s a long tale, of course…" (The Two Towers 696). It is indeed a long tale. The tale of the Silmarils, great jewels made by the elves long ago, takes up nearly the whole of The Silmarillion, though no more of that story is explained in Lord of the Rings than that brief reference that Sam makes. It is assumed that everyone in Middle Earth would know of the history of the Silmarils, just as the Anglo-Saxons originally listening to Beowulf would know all about Hygelac’s fall (2914-20); and so Tolkien keeps up his pretense of a pre-existing world.

Digressions can also just plain set the mood for a scene, or occur simply for the reader’s enjoyment. The song sung of the battle of Finnsburg at Beowulf’s victory banquet (1070-1158) sets a scene of festivities and song-singing just as Bilbo’s song of Earendil (Fellowship 227-30) and the elves’ song to Elbereth (231) do in the Hall of Fire at Rivendel.

The basic theme of both Beowulf and Lord of the Rings is the struggle of good and evil. Beowulf fights the monsters of Grendel, Grendel’s dam, and the dragon. The free people of Middle Earth: elves, dwarves, and men, fight the evil lord Sauron and his minions, orcs, along with other fell beasts such as balrogs, Gollum, ring wraiths, and barrow-wights. All of these fiends, with the exception of Beowulf’s dragon, are said to be creatures taken over and twisted by evil; sentient creatures who were themselves, or are the descendants of those who were once good, but who have been mutilated, deformed, and corrupted for doing the work of evil.

Grendel is said to be from "Cain’s clan, whom the Creator had outlawed…" (106) Also from Cain is said to come "ogres and elves and evil phantoms / and the giants too" (112-3). Cain killed his brother Abel and for that was cursed by God (Gen 4:11). "Then the Lord put a mark on Cain" (Gen 4:15) which the author of Beowulf believes to have been passed down to his descendants along with his evilness. So Grendel is descended from what once was a man who was good but then did evil and was transformed because of that evil to having monstrous traits that were passed down to his descendants.

Tolkien’s orcs are quite similar to Grendel in their origin. Tolkien even took the word "orc" strait out of Old English. The word appears in line 112 of Beowulf as "orc-nass" (theonering.net). Orcs were once elves who were taken captive by the dark lord Morgoth and tortured and mutilated. Morgoth broke not only the elves’ bodies through this torture, but also their minds so that now they would do evil for him (The Silmarillion 50). So too, orcs are descended from what once were good elves but were taken by evil and transformed into having monstrous traits that were then passed down to their descendants as a new race. Tolkien also has in his works the original corrupted and changed beings: Gollum and the Nazgul, or ring wraiths, who were made evil by the rings they received.

The fiends in both works share traits other than mere physical deformation. All orcs, excepting the Uruk-hai, cannot abide the sun, neither can Gollum, and Grendel only attacks Heorot at night. The dragon at the end of Beowulf is most analogous not to Smaug in The Hobbit, but to the barrow-wights in the first part of The Fellowship of the Ring. Both have large sums of treasure hidden away in barrows that they fiercely defend from outsiders even though they have no real use for it. After the respective treasure guarders are defeated the treasure remains "as useless to men now as it ever was" (Beowulf 3168); in Beowulf being buried with the fallen king, and in The Fellowship of the Ring being left by Tom Bombadil on top of the barrow to be scattered by "all finders, birds, beasts, Elves or Men, and all kindly creatures" (Fellowship 142).

Beowulf is a lament for the past. The poet looks back to the way things used to be, the great treasure giving kings, the struggle between men and monsters, good and evil, and sees a loss. So too does Tolkien in his great work, The Lord of the Rings. His world of Arda is in many ways our own world in the distant past, before any known history. Tolkien looks back at this ancient world before memory and stirs in the hearts of many readers a longing for the things of old and of "myth:" for elves and dwarves and magic. As the tales end there is a shift from the world of "myth" to the world of men. Beowulf, the fighter of monsters, dies and so it is no longer the monsters that are men’s foes but other men, the Swedes who will soon be attacking. When the ring is destroyed the elves lose their power in Middle Earth and so they too pass away, Middle Earth now to be ruled by men. The elves, dwarves and monsters fade into the past and become merely myths, and with them is lost something of the knowledge of the men with whom they once shared the earth.

Works Cited

Beowulf. Trans. Seamus Heaney. In The Norton Anthology of English Literature. Eds.

M.H. Abrams, et al. 7^th ed. Vol. 1. New York: Norton, 2000. 32-99.

The NIV Study Bible. Eds. Kenneth Barker, et al. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1984.

theonering.net, Questions and Answers. September, 2002. <http://greenbooks.theonering.net/questions/files/090102.html#worldevents>

Tolkien, J.R.R. The Fellowship of the Ring. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1994.

---. The Hobbit. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1994.

---. The Return of the King. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1994.

---. The Silmarillion. Boston: Houghton Mifflin,1977.

---. The Two Towers. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1994.