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hey! i'm a big a fan of the LOTR boks as the next but what's the deal with all these idiots going on about Tolkien's originality when it comes to the creation of his Middle Earth? i mean for the love of god, he concocted the LOTR on a good dose of irish folk tales and mythology! hobbits=leprechauns! (it's bilbo's gold they give away!), elves= celts!(tall people! who around three thousand years ago were blonde and blue eyed and stuff... well in Ireland anyway, cos of the invading scandinavians) Sauron=Bertie Ahern!(cos....no one likes him and he's a dark B*stard!).... ah it's still an impressive series of books though

dude, he was like thought up the whole thing about middle earth himself, it's a hobby, he was making the story up to accompany the languages he made up. ( though, yeah , maybe he used the creatures in other myth for inspiration.)
hobbits r hardly like leprechauns.
here's a description - ugly little creature with pointed ears and is about two to three feet tall who avoids having any contact with humans or any other leprechauns or fairies. He lives alone and puts all of his energy into his passion of shoemaking as he is well known as a fairy shoemaker.
hobbits love to socialise, they love to eat and drink. if the physical appearance is abit alike, i don't think it's on purpose, he just wanted the hobbit to be small for literary effect.
as for the elves being like the celt, well most caucasian look like that. that was just his ideal of what a fair human being would look like. besides their appearance also varies among themselves.
i don't know how could say that sauron is supposed to be Bertie Ahern.
ur whole view is totally tainted.
the story is supposed to be a myth, so there r places that would seems familiar, and predictable, but there is no doubt that this is one original story.

---BTW, only very few of the Elves were really blond and blue-eyed... the Vanyar.
The others were silver- or darkhaired with grey, green or brown eyes.

yeah man, wtF r u smokin?

Ah lighten up! jesus, i just feel that he took a lot of 'inspiration' from celtic myth