| by Anthony S Burdge Tolkien, at times, as compared to the Beowulf poet, felt man’s one imaginative act is myth. (Helms,Tolkien's World,6) That in poetic hands, it becomes a largely significant, profound human endeavor. “A learned man writing of old times,” Tolkien felt the poet in his sub-creation (a secondary world to our own) should deal, as myth does, with deep moral and spiritual issues. (Helms,Tolkien's World,6) One should not have to wholly ascribe to the verbal skill or metre of the form either. In reviewing the forgotten literary form of the Northern eddies, Tolkien wished to provide his people with an epic of their own. In so providing this epic, Tolkien wished to put us back in touch with nature in an age overrun by machines. In awe of our living universe, Tolkien sought to provide man with the same primordial contact that he saw in the eddies. The imagined wonder of an archaic mode of life, within the realm of forests and fairy-storied, was part of what Tolkien provides. Inherently tied to myth, and fairy-stories, was its allegorical language, of which, direct conscious allegory he disliked. "There is no ‘allegory,’ moral political or contemporary in the work at all… It is a fairy-story." The relevance of the tale must have some elements of the “human situation,” “to exemplify general principles,” and “to deliver us from ‘evil.’” One of the beauties of the Beowulf poem was the embodiment of evil in the monsters. In The Lord of the Rings the evil of Sauron is embodied in the ring. On the other side are these “vulgar and simple goodly hobbits” whom he loved, would move from the simple to the noble in this act. He felt he did not invent the tale, he was meant to do it, capturing what lay on the edge of consciousness. In so providing this secondary world, Tolkien has not embodied one god, though a monotheistic tale. The Creator, Eru of the Silmarillion, is only directly accessible through the Rulers as the Valar. Tolkien admits “a… mythological structure to the story… a monotheistic but sub-creational mythology.” Though, the one god does retain all ultimate authority. This sub-creation of Tolkien’s began with language and through language these “myths” or “legends” began to take shape. These “myths” had to be believable and in accordance with the laws of our world. “We make still by the law in which we’re made.” (Helms,Tolkien's World, 13) A prime example for the basis of his languages that lead to the myth is Finnish, and the language of the Kalevala. He felt its form was hapless and wished to reorganize it into a form of his own. The phonetic pattern and structure of the elvish languages Tolkien admits is heavily Finnacized. The world of Arda, or Middle-earth, in his tales, especially that of The Lord of the Rings, is his sub-creation. It is world in touch with its primordial essence and in accordance with the laws of our own. The evils Middle-earth relate, as Tolkien admits to the exploration of radical evil. Its basis is the Judeo-Christian form of Satan. With an outside power, a malevolent force parallels Tolkien’s Christianity. Against this evil man is doomed, but this is where Tolkien’s other influences come into play. Being learned in the Norse, Germanic, Tolkien ennobles the most humble and strengthens the weak. It is through these archetypal mythological representations that Tolkien helps us perceive our own reality. 
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