Tolkien greatly prefers this motif over the later medieval trend of using the dragon as a symbolic or allegorical figure, such as in the legend of St. George.

C. S. Lewis, friend of Tolkien ( and later author of The Chronicles of Narnia between 1949 – 1964 ), writing in The Times reports:

Auden was later to correspond with Tolkien, and they became friends.

Tolkien wrote the later story in much less humorous tones and infused it with more complex moral and philosophical themes.

On the association between the two ' Inklings ' societies, Tolkien later said " although our habit was to read aloud compositions of various kinds ( and lengths!

* The following samples presumably predate the Lord of the Rings, but they were not explicitly dated: DTS 16, DTS 17, DTS 18 – Elvish Script Sample I, II, III, with parts of the English poems Errantry and Bombadil, first published in the Silmarillion Calendar 1978, later in Pictures by J. R. R. Tolkien, as well as DTS 23 – So Lúthien, a page of the English Lay of Leithan text facsimiled in The Lays of Beleriand: 299.

Tolkien wrote, many years later: " it was like discovering a complete wine-cellar filled with bottles of an amazing wine of a kind and flavour never tasted before.

When writing The Hobbit in the early 1930s Tolkien gave the name Gandalf to the leader of the Dwarves, the character later called Thorin Oakenshield.

Tolkien explicitly links Gandalf to the element Fire later in the same essay:

There he learnt a lot about writing and editing, and later admitted of Tolkien's influence, " to be successful in fantasy, you have to take the measure of Tolkien — work with his strengths and away from his weaknesses ".

Textual history was traced by Christopher Tolkien in the volumes of The History of Middle-earth, and the overall subject has gained attention among later researchers and fans.

The word tarlang means " stiff neck " in Sindarin, and was stated by Tolkien to have originally been the name of the mountain ridge, later interpreted by folk as a personal name .</ div >

As he later recalled, Tolkien thought about " adventures " that the Company would meet on their way to Mordor and considered employing " Stone-Men " as one of them ; other preserved notes mention a " city of stone and civilized men ", its siege and a " Land of Ond ".

By the time Tolkien began rewriting " The Council of Elrond " a year later, he had developed a story that Aragorn's ancestors were in past Kings in Boromir's hometown.

While working upon the " Homeric catalogue ", as he called it, of the reinforcements coming to Minas Tirith, Tolkien devised the names Lossarnach, Anfalas, Lamedon and Pinnath Gelin, all of which appear on a new version of the map in final locations with the exception of Lamedon, first placed in northern Lebennin and later moved westward.

The appendices to The Lord of the Rings were brought to a finished state in 1953 – 54, but a decade later, during preparations for the release of the Second Edition, Tolkien elaborated the events that had led to the Kin-strife and introduced the regency of Rómendacil II.

Along with a few words in Khuzdul, Tolkien also developed runes of his own invention ( the Cirth ), said to have been invented by Elves and later adopted by the Dwarves.

The most Dwarf-centric story from The Book of Lost Tales, " The Nauglafring ", was not redrafted to fit with the later positive portrayal of the dwarves from The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, nor other events in the Silmarillion, leading Christopher Tolkien significantly to rewrite it with input from Guy Gavriel Kay in preparation for publication.

While studying at Oxford, Tolkien developed a constructed language that later became known as Quenya.

It may be that Tolkien conceived the Elvish word Arda as the fictional prehistoric source of such words in later Mannish languages.

However, it is unclear if this is the case, and it appears that Tolkien may have dropped the use of " vanya " as a verb in his later conceptions of Quenya.

Dragons will be still present but they will not interfere until later ages according to letter 144 of Tolkien.

While Tolkien originally described Middle-earth as a fictional early history of the real Earth he later adjusted this slightly to describe it as a mythical time within the history of Earth.

But this is not borne out in any of the later genealogies that Tolkien left behind.

In 1997 Tolkien Enterprises licensed the film rights to Miramax, which assigned them in 1998 to New Line Cinema.

However, Christopher Tolkien notes in Unfinished Tales that the assumption Radagast failed in his task may not be entirely accurate considering that he was specifically chosen by Yavanna, and he may have been assigned to protect the flora and fauna of Middle-earth, a task that would not end with the defeat of Sauron and the end of the War of the Ring.

This is the same school that author J. R. R. Tolkien attended and where Steyn was assigned a Greek dictionary that had also been used by Tolkien.

J. R. R. Tolkien, in the legendarium surrounding his Elves, uses " Gnomes " as a name of the Noldor, the most gifted and technologically minded of his elvish races, in conscious exploitation of the similarity with gnomic ; Gnomes is thus Tolkien's English loan-translation of Quenya Noldor, " those with knowledge ".

When Lean left Oxford during 1933, the society ended, and its name was transferred by Tolkien and Lewis to their group at Magdalen College.

J. R. R. Tolkien is one of many scholars who have studied and promoted the Mercian dialect of Old English, and introduced various Mercian terms into his legendarium – especially in relation to the Kingdom of Rohan, otherwise known as the Mark ( a name cognate with Mercia ).

Tolkien came to regret his ad hoc use of Old Norse name, referring to a " rabble of eddaic-named dwarves, ... invented in an idle hour " in 1937.

The name was derived from the " Great Worms " of Tolkien: Scatha and Glaurung.

Tolkien created the name from the archaic meanings of English words " fallow " and " hide ", meaning " pale skin ".

Boromir was described by Tolkien as a name " of mixed form ", and possibly combines Sindarin bor ( on )- ' steadfast ' with either Sindarin mîr or Quenya míre ' jewel '.

Tolkien intended the name Gondor to represent a sample of Sindarin, an Elven language devised by him, and within the books used by the Dúnedain for nomenclature.

A reader once asked Tolkien whether the name Gondor had been inspired by the ancient Ethiopian citadel of Gondar.

The element falas in the name of the region is a Sindarin word for " shore " or " beach ", while bel was stated by Tolkien to derive from a pre-Númenórean name of Elvish origin .</ div >

The name Lamedon was listed by Tolkien as Sindarin, but no etymology was provided .</ div >

Christopher Tolkien stated that the name, which means " black valley ", was given to it " not only because of the two high mountains between which it lay, but because through it passed the road from the Gate of the Dead Men, and living men did not go there ".</ div >

A Tolkien researcher H. K. Fauskanger has interpreted the name as " lovely flower-vale ".</ div >

The element arnen in the name was stated by Tolkien to have been of pre-Númenórean origin, while emyn is a Sindarin word for " hills ".< ref name =" har-lond-amon "></ div >

According to Christopher Tolkien, its name means " golden circle " and refers to the culumalda trees that surrounded it .</ div >

In the appendices of The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien says the " true " or Westron form of Sam's name is Banazîr Galbasi ( also spelled Galpsi ).

Tolkien took the name " Gamgee " from a colloquial word in Birmingham for cotton wool.

Tolkien claimed to be genuinely surprised when, in March 1956, he received a letter from one Sam Gamgee, who had heard that his name was in The Lord of the Rings but had not read the book.

After publication of The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien traced the origin of the name back to Gamgee and eventually the earlier English surname ' de Gamaches '.