Tolkien's Sources and Influences

This compilation is based on JRR Tolkien-A Biography (by H. Carpenter), the The Letters of JRR Tolkien (by H. Carpenter), The History of Middle-earth (by J.R.R. Tolkien & C. Tolkien)) and T. Shippey's books The Road to Middle-earth and JRR Tolkien-Author of the Century.

Old English Poems

• Beowulf
• The Ruin, The Wanderer and The Battle of Maldon
• Maxims I and II
• Solomon and Saturn II
• Exodus
• Finn and Hengest

Norse and Germanic Mythology and Poems

• The Poetic (or Older) Edda
• The Prose (or Younger) Edda (of Snorri Sturluson)
• Richard Wagner: Der Ring des Nibelungen
• The Saga of King Heidrek the Wise

Ballads, Fairy Tales & Folklore

• Grimm's Fairy Tales (coll. by Jacob & Wilhelm Grimm)
• Popular Tales from the Norse (coll. by P.C. Asbjörnsen & J.I: Moe, extant in various translations, the most popular probably by G.W. Dasent)
• English Fairy Tales (by Joseph Jacobs)
• Popular Tales of the Western Highlands (by J.F. Campbell)
• The English and Scottish Popular Ballads (by F. J. Child)
• Danmarks gamle Folkeviser (Svend Grundtvig et al.)

Medieval Poems and Tales

• Pearl, Sir Gawain and Sir Orfeo.
• Ancrene Riwle (or Ancrene Wisse)
• Brut (by Lazamon)
• Mandeville's Travels
• Lays of Marie de France

Celtic & Irish Myths

• Imram, The Voyage of Bran Son of Febal

Other Mythologies

• Kalevala; a finnish mythology
• Old Testament, especially the Genesis.
• Illiad & Odyssey

Analytical, Critical and Historical Works

• Tacitus' Germania
• Jacob Grimm: Deutsche Mythologie (transl. By J.S. Stallybrass: Teutonic Mythology)
• Lowry C. Wimberly: Folklore in the English and Scottish Ballads
• R. W. Chambers: Widsith, A Study in Old English Heroic Legend
• R. M. Wilson: The Lost Literature of Medieval England
• Gibbon: Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
• Saxo Grammaticus: History of the Danes
• The Gothic History of Jordanes
• Sir Charles Oman: A History of the Art of War in the Middle Ages

Late 19th Century & Contemporary Works

• George MacDonald:
• The Princess and the Goblin,
• The Princess and Curdie
• Phantastes and
• Lilith

• William Morris:
• The House of the Wolfings,
• The Roots of the Mountains and
• The Glittering Plain