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jaredmith.livejournal.com posting in

The myth Enki and Inanna.

Tells the story of the young goddess of the É-anna temple of Uruk, who visits the senior god of Eridu, and is entertained by him in a feast. The seductive god plies her with beer, and the young goddess maintains her virtue, whilst Enki proceeds to get drunk. In generosity he gives her all the gifts of his Me, the gifts of civilized life. Next morning, with a hangover, he asks his servant Isimud for his Me, only to be informed that he has given them to Inanna.

I was reading this the other day, and thought "Maybe how Luthien takes the Silmaril from Morgoth is like Tolkien's G rated version of this?"

What do you guys think?

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From:

engarian.livejournal.com

I like that idea, and certainly could see it as a foundation to the later tale.

- Erulisse (one L)

From:

hhimring

I suppose it might have been an influence?
But surely it's not the only source--Luthien is acting both as a trickster and a magical helper, here, and both of those are fairy-tale motifs.
Besides, I'm not sure Tolkien's version is exactly G-rated...

From:

dawn_felagund

Tolkien was almost certainly familiar with Sumerian myth. I believe he alludes to it in one of his letters. (I can track this down if you want; it's just late and I'm lazy ...)

I hesitate to attribute direct inspiration from myths in all but the most blatant instances (like the connection between the Finnish Kullervo and Turin), mostly written when JRRT was very young. I think, instead, that he read so deeply of myth and folklore and internalized the motifs and archetypes that made those stories tick as myths and folktales, and he applied them naturally in his own work, creating the sense of the mythic without resorting to direct imitation. This is what I've found in my research on his cosmogony: He relies more on motifs and archetypes than a direct patterning of his work after an existing myth.

In light of Himring's comment, I see that here too: the interweaving of multiple mythic/folkloric elements into the story of Luthien. It'd be interesting to survey the myths he was most familiar with to see what elements they share in common with the Luthien and Beren story.