This may just be a "what if" thing. But here goes. When writing about the underground dwellings of the Sindar namely Thingol and Thranduil. And the hidden city of Gondolin....could it be that Celtic lore on the Sidhe had any influence?
By bouncing around on the net and through my reference library I found that Tolkien sent mixed messages on the Celtic influence on his work. In 1937, Tolkien stated a distaste for things Celtic and their fundamental unreasonlike a broken stained glass window reassembled. (Letters, 26) In 1955 Tolkien declared his work to contained much of what I personally have received from the study of things Celtic. (Letters, 162) Critics have compared his Elves with the Tuatha De Danann (People of the Goddess Dana), the fairy-folk of Celtic myth, and Valinor with Tir-nan-Og (Celtic Paradise) (Anger, D. N. - author "Ireland" J.R.R. Tolkien Encyclopedia. , Michael Drout editor, Scholarship & Critical Assessment ed. 2007.)
I also found this article which answers more directly how Tolkien was influenced by Celtic mythology; J. R. R. Tolkien's influences : Celtic mythology Though Tolkien wrote of "a certain distaste" for Celtic legends, "largely for their fundamental unreason", The Silmarillion may betray some Celtic influence. The exile of the Noldorin Elves, for example, has parallels with the story of the Tuatha Dé Danann. The Tuatha Dé Danann, semi-divine beings, invaded Ireland from across the sea, burning their ships when they arrived and fighting a fierce battle with the current inhabitants. The Noldor arrived in Middle-earth from Valinor and burned their ships, then turned to fight Melkor. Another parallel can be seen between the loss of a hand by Maedhros, son of Fëanor, and the similar mutilation suffered by Nuada Airgetlám ("Silver Hand/Arm") during the battle with the Firbolg. Nuada received a hand made of silver to replace the lost one, and his later appellation has the same meaning as the Elvish name Celebrimbor: "silver fist" or "Hand of silver" in Sindarin (Telperinquar in Quenya). Another similarity between the Silmarillion and the Lebor Gabála Érenn can be seen by comparing Nuada and Lugh (who possessed a famed magic spear, the Spear Luin) and the outcome of their respective confrontations against Balor of the Evil Eye with the events surrounding Celebrimbor and Gil-Galad (whose weapon is the spear Aeglos) and their conflicts with Sauron of the Lidless Red Eye in the Second Age. There is a striking similarity between Tolkien's description of Gil-galad (and the origin of his name): It is recorded that Ereinion was given the name Gil-galad "Star of Radiance" "because his helm and mail, and his shield overlaid with silver and set with a device of white stars, shone from afar like a star in sunlight or moonlight, and could be seen by Elvish eyes at a great distance if they stood upon a height. (Unfinished Tales, Note 24 of Aldarion and Erendis) "So equipped, he appeared one day before an assembly Of the Danaan chiefs who were met to pay their tribute to the envoys of the Formorian oppressors; and when the Danaans saw him, they felt, it is said, as if they beheld the rising of the sun on a dry summer's day". (Rolleston, T.W., Myths and Legends of the Celtic Race) The Mabinogion itself was part of the Red Book of Hergest, which the Red Book of Westmarch probably imitates. This fact suggests that The Silmarillion might have been conceived using the Mabinogion as one of its inspirations, a source of both its name and its structure. ( J.R.R. Tolkien Influences, Celtic Mythology, Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org)
Celtic Mythology In a letter to an Allen & Unwin readers description of an early draft of Silmarillion as Celtic, Tolkien writes that Silmarillion is not Celtic; he adds that he knows Celtic things in Irish and Welsh, and feels a certain distaste for them, finding them lacking in reason and design. (Letters, 26) Tolkiens fondness for the Welsh language is well documented. He was less fond of medieval Irish, calling Old Irish difficult (Letters, 385), but he was not incapable of reading it. His references to etymology and Celtic mythology in The Name Nodenns imply greater expertise and access to references than his modest statements suggest. Ability, however, is not the same as liking. (Spangenberg, L.L. - author. "Celtic Mythology," J.R.R. Tolkien Encyclopedia. , Michael Drout editor, Scholarship & Critical Assessment ed. 2007.) Pieces of his works seem to carry other Celtic references. More to come.
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Vocatus atque non vocatus, Deus aderit Called or uncalled, God is present
Don't be shy Glorfindil, I want people to have fun with this as well, it doesn't have to scholarly just throw something in if you think it fits.....or if you don't think it does. I'm open minded.
"a certain distaste" for Celtic legends, "largely for their fundamental unreason",
The middle English mindset has always struggled with the Celt...their values and essence are so different.......we are chaos around and around and around we go...around and around
The Celt's never had a written lanuage on account of not being bothered....
Aye get back to the books......us Celts are ripping it up !
I think the sidhe had a general influence. In her book Interrupted Music, Verlyn Flieger devoted a chapter on what she sees as the Celtic connection (chapter 6 The Otherworld), a small part of which reads:
'His Elves of Middle-earth (originally called 'Fairies,' let us not forget) do indeed possess that 'fair elusive beauty' of the Irish Tuatha De Danann, the sidhe or People of the Hills whose hidden strongholds are revealed only to the chosen.'
According to James MacKillop the Tuatha De Danann disembark from sombre clouds, settling on a mountain in the west, causing a three day eclipse -- although a variant (as Bear noted already) has them arriving in ships, which were burned on the shore, with the smoke from the conflagration also causing an eclipse.
One could draw Norse connections to the Quendi too, for instance, but I would not find it odd that certain Celtic things were in the leaf-mould of JRRT's mind, and ended up in the general boiling pot, so to speak. Tolkien's Elves, with their legendary history and traditions, were arguably intended to explain certain things which the Welsh and the Irish told (telling their 'garbled things' as is said below), at least when he started out writing tales which included fairies, anyway:
'Thus it is that through Eriol and his sons the Engle (i. e. the English) have the true tradition of the fairies, of whom the Iras and the Wealas (the Irish and Welsh) tell garbled things.'
Of course the question of Tolkien's sources in general can be a bit speculative in areas. I note Tom Shippey's chosen title to Appendix A of his Road to Middle-Earth: 'Tolkien's sources: the true tradition'
Shippey mentions the Irish Imram, The Voyage of Bran Son of Febal
I hope you recall, in the Fellowship, the party felt that "time" had somehow accelerated whilst in Lorien. The hobbits remember days but not weeks.......
This is a common trait in Fairy stories...oh not nice fairys not nice like Disney.
Strangely these old stories have tickled the fancy of alien abduction fans......wooooooooo
More on the Celtic influences in J.R.R. Tolkien's works. "In "The Cottage of Lost Play," Tolkien describes a cottage that appears tiny until Eriol enters, then it is capacious and full of light, and where he is fed and entertained. (Lost Tales I) This episode is similar both to a Celtic motif of the otherworldly feast, and to a small house in the medieval Irish tale, the "Compert Con Culainn" or "Birth of Cu Chulainn." Whether or not Tolkien had the tale in mind is a different question. It is wise to remember that a Celtic motif may occur in a Celtic text, as well as in Old French or Middle English text, since all draw upon the common pool, and many motifs are part of a shared Indo-European heritage. The Motif-Index of Early Irish Literature may be of some use in determining the Celticity of a given motif." (Spangenberg, L.L. - author. "Celtic Mythology," J.R.R. Tolkien Encyclopedia. , Michael Drout editor, Scholarship & Critical Assessment ed. 2007.) In his early work Tolkien was looking to create an early English mythology that would underpin and reflect the depth of mythos in other cultures; Germanic, Norse, and both French and Irish Celtic traditions. But clearly he was not copying these mythological themes, but rather he was extrapolating from these his own creative mythos. So we continue. What were the elements of this mythos that are Celtic.? "There are indications that Tolkien knew some of the medieval Irish myths about the semi divine Tuatha De Dannan. These immortal beings dwell under and inside the hills, that is, the sid of Ireland, and are often referred to as the Sidhe, the people of the hills, or in English, fairies. In The Lost Road, in an early outline for a projected historically episodic work, Tolkien has a note listing possible episodes. (Lost Road) He lists the Tuatha De Dannan, Fintan the "oldest man," Irish saints Brendan and Maelduin, and various otherworld Irish paradises, including Tir nan Og, the "Land of Youth," or "Land of the Ever Young." Tolkien glosses the Irish name Finntan as Narkill, with the etymology "white fire." A note refers to Maclean's The Literature of the Celts, a summary of medieval Irish and Welsh literature. Christopher Tolkien supplies the passage in question (Lost Road). Finntan derives from Proto-Celtic vindo-tenos "White fire," or possibly vendos-senos, "white ancient," indicating again that Tolkien senior knew his Celtic etymology. It's perhaps worth noting as well that H.Rider Haggard used the name "white fire" as a sword-name in Eric Brighteyes, a novel Tolkien read." (ibid) I think these notations are important as they indicate the scholarly study that Tolkien brought consciously and subconsciously to his work. Tolkien resigned from the National University of Ireland in 1959 after ten years work there. He received a doctorate of letters from the University College Dublin in 1954. The fact was he retained a fondness for Ireland, its stories, and its people.(Letters, 289) Despite his claim that Irish Gaelic language "heavily defeated " him (Letters, 134), root names of many of his characters and places are Celtic in nature. "In the Breton lay poem "Aottou and Itroun," a husband and wife want a child, and the husband makes a rash promise to the Corrigan for her magical assistance. Like his Breton lay models, Chaucer's Franklin's Tale, Sir Orfeo, and the Lais of Marie de France, Tolkien uses Celtic folklore. The korrigan is a Breton fairy with a fondness for springs, fountains, and liaisons with mortal men... In many Celtic texts, an otherworld animal, typically a white deer, dog, or boar, leads the hero into the woods and the otherworld. In Tolkien's "Aottou and Itroun," the korrigan changes into a white hart and leads the hero into the forest and an enchanted spring. In The Hobbit, a white dear with fawns appears, and the Dwarves spend their arrows without hitting the deer. (The Hobbit, Chapter VIII - "Flies and Spiders", pg. 133) Tolkien uses the word "glimmering" to describe the snow-white deer, reminiscent of the brilliant glittering of the white dogs with red ears Pwyll encounters while hunting in the first branch of the Welsh Mabinogi. This episode from the Mabinogi is one of Tolkien quotes in "English and Welsh."(Spangenberg, L.L. - author. "Celtic Mythology," J.R.R. Tolkien Encyclopedia. , Michael Drout editor, Scholarship & Critical Assessment ed. 2007) It may be tempting to draw the conclusion that if one of Tolkien's images has a parallel in Celtic folklore that Tolkien drew it from Celtic folklore. This reasoning is not rational and leads towards erroneous assumptions. Because there are dragons in Chinese folklore does not mean that Tolkien's dragons such as Smaug and Glaurung are Chinese in origin. "They appear as characters in The Hobbit and The Silmarillion, with references in The Lord of the Rings confined to brief allusions. Tolkien modeled his dragons on classical and medieval Germanic exemplars; his dragon-slayer narratives equal or exceed his sources in dramatic effect." (Evans, Jonathan - author. "Dragons", J.R.R. Tolkien Encyclopedia. , Michael Drout editor, Scholarship & Critical Assessment ed. 2007)This is important as we look for instances of influence and their sources. Tolkien's scholastic and academic career of course would be wells of influence. But so also are his childhood literary loves and those stories he told and created for his own children. "Tolkien reworked part of the unfinished The Lost Road into an episode in The Notion Club Papers, part of which he published, extensively revised, as the poem "Imram." An immram is a medieval Irish tale genre. Immram literally means "rowing about" but is usually translated "voyage"...the immram is a frame tale, allowing for various adventures in the course of a voyage. Tolkien's poem, while personal, is also inspired in part by the life of Saint Brendan the Navigator. During Saint Brendan's voyage, he encounters an enchanted stream that puts those who drink from it into a deep sleep, much as the stream encountered by Bilbo and the Dwarves in The Hobbit."(The Hobbit, Chapter VIII - "Flies and Spiders", pg. 132)The connection to the stream in Mirkwood to the Irish antecedents of the "Imram" have been subject and references by half a dozen scholars... It is quite likely,...that the march of the Ents is inspired by both Macbeth and by the Old Welsh poem "Cad Godden" from The Book of Taliesin. "Cad Godden" means "army" or "battle" of trees, and the poem depicts such an army. Perhaps the most striking connection between The Lord of the Rings and Celtic mythology is one of form; Irish medieval stories mix verse and prose, with songs and poetry interspersed in the prose narrative. Finally, the idea that time in the otherworld or in fairie functions on a different scale than it does in the mortal world, as when Sam attempts to count the days the companions pass in Lothlorien (The Lord of the Rings, The Fellowship of the Ring, Book Two, Chapter IX - "The Great River", pg. 388), is a motif common in both Irish myth and in fairy folklore"...(Spangenberg, L.L. - author. "Celtic Mythology," J.R.R. Tolkien Encyclopedia. , Michael Drout editor, Scholarship & Critical Assessment ed. 2007) As listed above we can extrapolate and document several examples where Celtic folklore can claim an influence all Tolkien's work. But it should also be noted that these examples may not always foster this connection as direct. We can also see that some of those instances of Celtic influence rise from academic and scholarly roots. And at the same time we can trace those influences to the personal sources of Tolkien telling bedtime stories to his children. Celtic influences? How can they be denied? How about a short, pipe smoking, rural character who has the ability to disappear and reappear with bags of gold. Perhaps this is an apt description of a leprechaun. But what if he had the name of Bilbo Baggins?
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Vocatus atque non vocatus, Deus aderit Called or uncalled, God is present
