Syncretic Elements In The Hobbit

Syncretic Middle-Earth Bilbo Baggins’ adventure to the Lonely Mountain opens the doors to J. R. R. Tolkien’s vast Middle-Earth. Tolkien describes his intricate world with such exquisite detail from the mythic creatures occupying his heroes’ every turn, to the deep woods where their adventures seem to go awry. Tolkien’s characters experience from region to region the glamourous figures that cross through dense woods and winding rivers to guide them on their way, he excludes concrete religious deities as a factoring role among the adventures he has created. The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit are syncretic endeavors in which Tolkien synthesizes different religious traditions into a unifying spirituality rather than infusing his world with a specific religious ideology. Tolkien pulls key religious traditions from mostly medieval ideologies to create a unifying struggle for the common good. Nature is Tolkien’s main force to bring many of these different cosmogonies together, and as history develops throughout the Middle Ages and “by 700 A.D. [as] Christianity’s place in Irish culture [is] secure;” Celtic, Norse and Catholic
Paul W. Lewis elaborates that Tom identifies with the natural influences of Celtic tradition by “the most common perspective about [him]…that he was a ‘merry, singing ageless little nature sprite,” who took form as a, “kind of archetypal ‘vegetation god” (Lewis 150). While Tom Bombadil is the closest deity figure any of Tolkien’s characters have come to besides the elves; however, he is not all knowing (Tolkien 142). Tom Bombadil is the embodiment of Britain’s native Celtic and Welsh history, he is the magical presence of nature found in the Irish countryside still today, and while he has not changed since “before the Dark Lord came from Outside” he is a large part of pushing the hobbits to continue in their quest and combine forces with other races in Middle-Earth (Tolkien