Researching J. R. R. Tolkien : how Kalevala influenced his legendarium

Abstract

This thesis pursues to explain how Kalevala influenced J. R. R. Tolkien’s legendarium by comparing various characters and places from both mythologies. My hypothesis is that Tolkien was inspired by the Finnish mythology and there is a connection. The main question of this thesis is how Kalevala influenced Tolkien’s early legendarium and secondary question is what parts of his legendarium, like the characters of Túrin Turambar and Tom Bombadil can be traced back to Kalevala. Tolkien was a researcher of Nordic mythology and his first, but unfinished, fictional novella was an attempt to reform Kullervo poems from Kalevala into a prose narrative. Method of research used in this thesis is literature review.