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iamleeg's review against another edition
2.0
Bates's main thesis is that the "Real" Middle-Earth is the Britain (and, when it suits, other parts of north-west Europe) of the first millennium AD, when Celts and Anglo-Saxons practised their magical shamanism after the Romans left but before Christianity wiped it out.
And, to some extent, that's true. Tolkien was writing a legendarium for Western Europe, and took a lot from the mythology and language of that period. He wrote about that, and others have written about how he did that too. Middle-Earth is named for middangeard, the conception of our world as the liminality between the overworld of the Aesir and Vanir and the underworld of Hel. Bates's own endnotes offer a great amount of further reading materials. Despite this, the book comes across as contorting its evidence to fit its thesis in many places.
For example, cases from "Celtic" mythology on shape-shifting are used to illuminate Anglo-Saxon ideas of form, which Tolkien himself would have seen as an ill fit. Christianity is the big bad that wiped out this urwissenheit rich with ideas, stories and magic; but what of the evidence that the Germanic religions also took ideas from Christianity? Bates makes much of nine being a magic number in the Norse tales: nine is the "trinity of trinities"; is Odin hanging as if dead on Yggdrasil for nine days not a tripling of Christ's similar feat, centuries earlier?
And lastly, "the real Middle-Earth" takes a much wider influence than merely first-millennium folklore, and the book's narrow focus excludes that even while its title promises more. The tower of Orthanc (unmentioned in this book) takes its name from the "work of cunning giants" (orthanc enta geweorc) in the poem The Ruin; but it represents industrial-era factories rending the peaceful world of the Shire.
And, to some extent, that's true. Tolkien was writing a legendarium for Western Europe, and took a lot from the mythology and language of that period. He wrote about that, and others have written about how he did that too. Middle-Earth is named for middangeard, the conception of our world as the liminality between the overworld of the Aesir and Vanir and the underworld of Hel. Bates's own endnotes offer a great amount of further reading materials. Despite this, the book comes across as contorting its evidence to fit its thesis in many places.
For example, cases from "Celtic" mythology on shape-shifting are used to illuminate Anglo-Saxon ideas of form, which Tolkien himself would have seen as an ill fit. Christianity is the big bad that wiped out this urwissenheit rich with ideas, stories and magic; but what of the evidence that the Germanic religions also took ideas from Christianity? Bates makes much of nine being a magic number in the Norse tales: nine is the "trinity of trinities"; is Odin hanging as if dead on Yggdrasil for nine days not a tripling of Christ's similar feat, centuries earlier?
And lastly, "the real Middle-Earth" takes a much wider influence than merely first-millennium folklore, and the book's narrow focus excludes that even while its title promises more. The tower of Orthanc (unmentioned in this book) takes its name from the "work of cunning giants" (orthanc enta geweorc) in the poem The Ruin; but it represents industrial-era factories rending the peaceful world of the Shire.
bookwomble's review against another edition
4.0
Despite the book's flaws as historical and folkloric analysis and, tragically, as a review of Tolkien's sources for his legendarium, I really enjoyed this book, hence it gets four stars.
I've shelved it as non-fiction, which I think is the author's intention, but it could perhaps be considered more of a Batesian legendarium of a more historically grounded, though fantastical and mythological, imaginary world. Perhaps an attempt to produce a coherent neo-pagan mythology (though I'm not really knowledgeable enough in the area to convincingly speculate)?
I've shelved it as non-fiction, which I think is the author's intention, but it could perhaps be considered more of a Batesian legendarium of a more historically grounded, though fantastical and mythological, imaginary world. Perhaps an attempt to produce a coherent neo-pagan mythology (though I'm not really knowledgeable enough in the area to convincingly speculate)?
pers's review against another edition
3.0
An interesting look at the religion, magic, mythology, etc, of the post-Roman Britons.
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