I’ve decided to establish a forum about how Irish mythology has influenced some of the major movies and stories of our time. Films such as the Lord of the Rings trilogy, the Star Wars films, and even Harry Potter contain stark similarities with incidents and stories and ideas from Irish myths and legends.

I know that J.R.R. Tolkien spent some time in Ireland. I don’t know to what extent he read the Irish literature (and there is a huge amount of it), but certainly there are many themes and characters and segments of his storyline which are echoes of ancient Irish mythology.

I don’t know if Tolkien was influenced by the Irish texts in any way, and I’m not for a second suggesting that he copied some ideas for Lord of the Rings from our old myths and sagas. The intention of this forum is to point out the similarities between the films and the myths.

There’s the Arthurian-like “cave myth” in The Return of the King, where Aragorn raises the dead army by wielding the sword of the king. I’m not an expert on Arthur, but I do know of a very similar story here in Ireland, which is detailed in the High Man section:
http://www.mythicalireland.com/highman/highman-lecture.php

This story pertains to Garrett’s Fort, near Ardee in County Louth. Ardee is the location where in the epic T?in, C?chulainn killed his friend Ferdia in close combat. According to local legend, there is a mythical enchanted army sleeping in Garrett’s Fort with their leader, a man called Garrett, or in some renditions, Gary Geerlaug, and in others, Garlic Gaolen.

A hero will come and remove a sword from the wall of the underground chamber in Garrett’s Fort. In doing so, he will rouse the sleeping army and bring prosperity to Ireland. I’m told there are other versions of this “cave myth” in different parts of Ireland, but I believe it’s scarce enough to be confined to only three or four locations.

Whether or not Tolkien was directly influenced by the “cave myths” of Britain and Ireland, we may never know. If Lord of the Rings is entirely a new creation, then it has an incredible number of coincidences with the ancient stories.

While the image of a giant fiery eye, that of Sauron, beaming across the landscape of Middle Earth from the top of a tower may seem bizarre, maybe even otherworldly, then turn to the ancient Irish myths about the Tuatha D? Danann and the Fomorians for some similarities.

In the ancient story about the “Coming of Lugh”, who was to be a great leader of the Tuatha D? Danann, and would be skilled in every craft, we read that a Fomorian king, Balor of the Strong Blows, used to live “on the Island of the Tower of Glass”. Balor was also known as “Balor of the Evil Eye”, because no-one could look at him and live. He has been compared with the Cyclops, having one giant, malignant eye in the centre of his forehead. This eye was covered by a giant eyelid, which, when lifted, caused seven degrees of burning, each hotter and more fierce than the last. In our exploration of the ancient landscape and stories, we have painted Balor as a Sun deity, whose huge eye could be compared with the Sun:
http://www.mythicalireland.com/ancientsites/baltray/myth.html

Who can stare at the Sun without hurting their eyes? Balor’s evil eye could literally burn the landscape, so fierce was its fire.

In Star Wars, the scene in The Empire Strikes Back where Luke confronts his father, the evil Darth Vader, we see a great battle between the two in which Vader chops off Luke’s hand. This, reportedly, is taken from the ancient Irish story called the Second Battle of Moytura. During this battle, the Tuatha D? Danann leader Nuadu had his hand chopped off, and because he was blemished, he could no longer be king of Ireland. So he had the healer, Diancecht, make him a new arm out of silver. It worked just as well as the hand he had lost, and because Nuadu was complete again, he could reign as king again. Luke Skywalker’s hand was replaced with a robotic version, akin to something you would see in the Terminator films. Anyway, George Lucas was heavily influenced by world mythology, and there’s some Irish stuff in there too.

Another of the “Ever Living Ones” (the Tuatha D? Danann) was Manannan, who had a famous “cloak of invisibility”. Dare I mention Harry Potter?

Anyway, that’s got the ball rolling. I’d like to come up with as many comparisons as possible, focusing mainly on Lord of the Rings, but including films such as Star Wars and Harry Potter. If there are other films, feel free to suggest them.

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I've quoted the following from the website:
http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?TheLordOfTheRings

Apparently, there's more of a Welsh influence than an Irish one in Lord of the Rings and Middle Earth. However, many Welsh and Irish myths are similar. Anyhoo, here goes:

I saw an article in the Western Mail (a newspaper here in Wales) that said that Tolkien was inspired by the celtic languages. It said:
When he was a child living in Birmingham he was inspired by coal trucks bearing names like nantyglo, Penrhiwceiber and Senghenydd.
Tolkien annotated a speech he gave with this: "The names of persons and places in this story were mainly composed on patterns deliberately modelled on those of Welsh"
"Arwen" could well be a female form of the Welsh name "Arwyn"
The misty mountains could well be the black mountains which he visited.
Apparently the elvish language "sindarin" is based on welsh.
After his parents died he was brought up by a welsh priest.

Similarities I've spotted:
Real welsh names that would look at home in middle earth: Anwen, Arwel, Eirionwen, Eifion, Ithel (is there an Ithel's bane?)
There are dwarves with names that look close to the common welsh name for coal: glo. (Gloin in particular looks like the less frequently used welsh word for coal: gl?yn.)
Rhandir (the welsh word for a divison of a country)
"Minas" a word Tolkien used for "tower". When travelling in wales you'll see signs like "Dinas <cityname>". Dinas means "city".
The acute accents on so many of the names look more like irish gaelic (though I don't speak gaelic).
Very rarely in the film one or two words (spoken by the elves) did sound like the welsh equivalent.
Tolikien's stories of middle earth do seem a lot like the mabinogion - stories that come from traditional welsh mythology. This makes me wonder if there'd be a market for a film based on the mabinogion?

http://www.planet-tolkien.com/board/cat/2/thread/569/0

wow..that something interesting to think about!
I thought he was influenced by Norse Mythology such as Beowulf!

here is a quote from this website

http://www.ugcs.caltech.edu/~cherryne/mythology.html

Many people are familiar with J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings or Wagner's The Ring of the Nibelung, but they are not familiar with Norse mythology to which both of these works are heavily indebted.

Tolkien was very well acquainted with Norse mythology, as can be seen by the use of it in his books. The name of one of his main characters, Gandalf, is found in The Poetic Edda. Gandalf is, in some ways, reminiscent of Odin, the leader of the Norse pantheon. Even the name Middle-earth, the setting for Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, comes from Norse mythology.

Interesting point about Tolkien's cave myth. However, in Tolkien's version, the sword of the king has a much less prominent role in the paths of the dead than does the sword of the king in the film versions. It is, in fact, Aragorn's bloodline that compells the oathbreakers to fight for him at the Pelargir. This fact diminishes the similarity somewhat, but the morphic nature of folklore is such that the mere location of the cave, with a resurrectable army, is sufficient to believe that Tolkien might have borrowed something. Besides, his mother was a lover of mythology, and he could very easily have heard stories from Ireland in his youth.

So, while the whole "sword of the king" was dramatically different in the Movie versions, it is still the same idea--that the rightful heir to the ancient throne and all of its former glories and liabilities can in some way compel or marshall a group of ghost-warriors in his effort to re-establish his bloodline on the throne.

Yes Professor, I think it's the mere idea. A king, a sword, a sleeping army.

In the Irish story, the mythical enchanted army is awoken either
(a) to bring glory and victory to Ireland, or
(b) at the end of the world.

There is a hint of this kind of theme in the Book of Revelation, when another king will return, with an army (albeit from the sky). Don't know if there's a sword involved though.

Some other thoughts about the films and Irish myths. The Nazgul king, stabbed in the face by Eowyn, goes into what I can only describe as a "warp-spasm", akin to what Cuchulainn does in the Tain.

http://www.anne-madden.com/LeBPages/printsbookstain10.html

Also, the lighting of the beacons smacks of something which would have been done by the ancient megalithic builders in north-western Europe. A lot of megalithic sites are on the tops of hills. Lighting fires would have been an effective way of communicating across a country. (What kind of message could be sent with a fire is open to debate).

Just some further thoughts.

I assumed that Tolkien drew upon the Archtypes of all the Indoeuropean mythos (Meaning in truth the combined Celtic mythologies and Germanic/Norse) to create his realm. In doing so he struck familier chords in all the readers so that parts could be Identified no matter your cultural background or reading.

i think the references to Celtic myth are more subtle in Tolkien than his references to other mythologies... the scene in the book inside of the Barrow is interesting -- it is at once a sidhe mound, and it also invokes the aforementioned "dead army" myth. i have read version about both Fionn MacCumhail, and Arthur, where a boy or a farmer finds his way into a hill or mound or rock, inside of which Fionn or Arthur is sleeping. he is told by someone that he must draw a sword and cut tether or rope that binds them, and then blow on a trumpet to wake them, but, being afraid, he doesn't complete the task, runs out of the hill, never to find it again.

i also wonder whether Weathertop is Tolkien's inference of a megalithic stone circle structure like Stonehenge.

i don't have evidence, but i'm pretty sure Tolkien was influenced by a few greek concepts -- namely the Ring of Gyges (the ring that makes you invisible as well as corrupts you, etc ) although there is perhaps a cognate in the welsh story of Owein) and Oedipus and the Sphinx. (no, not Oedipal in the Freudian sense)

the scene in the Hobbit between Bilbo and Gollum i think is definately based on this scenario -- the hero and the monstrous adversary playing a riddle game. what tripped my sensor though was the fact that the world Sphinx shares the rootword that also gives us "sphincter" -- the rootword means to squeeze or contract, or throttle -- which is Gollum's chosen method of murder, strangulation.

Tolkien's use of the Ents also seems based on the Welsh Cad Goddeu or battle of the trees, in which an army of trees and shrubs is brouth to life by a wizard to go to war.


--BelHound

The question is quite a good one,and my own opinion is that anyone who says that there is no irish influence in his writing ,is NOT paying attention!Especially in the movie version where the artwork and the clothing-color for almost all of the Rohirrim (people of Rohan) is 'Celtic" and GREEN!!In both the books,and the movie versions the "Irish" is practically blatant.The 'Barrow-weights' in the FOTR,is (too my understanding) an Irish /Welsh belief,and Dickerson in his book "Following Gandalf",refers to the most of Tolkeins' mysticism as 'strictly Druidic' in nature.He also states that the Rohirrim are "Anglo/Saxon" but not strictly "Irish" ,because of their "love of horses"...In the USA,we always thought that horses CAME from IRELAND!!..'course I could be wrong...

knotwork is also a feature of nordic and germanic cultures as well, and seems to be the influence on the movie's interpretation of the Rohirrim. the green is from the book and is part of the heraldry of Theoden's lineage.

i had seen some documentary on Tolkien where they speculated that the Rohirrim were supposed to be "the English (or probably the Anglo/Saxon forerunners) as they were meant to be." also, the language of the Rohirrim and the rest of its culture (aside from familiarity with horses) are strictly Germanic. the reference to Eowyn as a shield maiden is typical of norse/germanic literature.

They covered this in a different posting already didnt they?


Eric

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Couple of interesting points

1 the Men of the West, the name given by Tolkien to the Rangers, is perilously similar to the old Norse / Icelandic name for the Irish "Westmen", the first inhabitants of Iceland after whom the Icelanders still call the Westman Isles, which were inhabited by Irish monks

2) in homer the river Scammander rises up to protect the separate the greeks and trojans. Scholars have often remarked on how this is similar to a tale in the Tain Bo Culaigne (cattle raid of cooley) where a river rises up to magicallyprotect Cu culainn from the men of the rest of Ireland while the Ulstermen labour under their birth pangs, until he is ready to give combat. Is Tolkien having a bit of a scholarly joke when the Anduin rises up to protect Frodo from the Black Riders?