Volume 32 Article 6

Number 1

10-15-2013

Troy and the Rings: Tolkien and the Medieval Myth of England
Michael Livingston
The Citadel, SC

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Recommended Citation
Livingston, Michael (2013) "Troy and the Rings: Tolkien and the Medieval Myth of England," Mythlore: A
Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature: Vol. 32 : No. 1 , Article
6.
Available at: https://dc.swosu.edu/mythlore/vol32/iss1/6

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Abstract
Asserts that, far from abandoning his early grounding in the classics upon discovering Northern
mythology and languages, Greek and Roman motifs remained an important element of Tolkien’s “soup”
and he used them in many ways in The Lord of the Rings. Livingston pays particular attention to themes,
characters, incidents, and Mediterranean history that have roots in The Iliad. Family structure is one place
where we can see convincing parallels, with Boromir as an asterisk-Hector and Faramir as an asterisk-
Paris, rewriting the deficiencies in their source-characters as Gondor is the history of Troy re-written.

Additional Keywords
Homer. The Iliad—Influence on J.R.R. Tolkien; Quintus Smyrnaeus. Posthomerica (The Fall of
Troy)—Influence on J.R.R. Tolkien; Tolkien, J.R.R.—Characters—Boromir; Tolkien,
J.R.R.—Characters—Faramir; Tolkien, J.R.R.—Sources—Classical; Trojan War in J.R.R. Tolkien

This article is available in Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic
Literature: https://dc.swosu.edu/mythlore/vol32/iss1/6
 Troy and the Rings:
T olkien and the M edieval
M yth of E ngland

M ichael Livingston

A M yth for E ngland

One of the most well-known quotes attributed to J.R.R. Tolkien
regarding the composition of both The Lord of the Rings and the greater
surrounding body of Middle-earth materials is his intent to create a "mythology
for England" that he otherwise felt lacking (Carpenter 89; italics original). I say
"attributed" because while few critical engagements by either fans or scholars
have failed to take note of this aim, Tolkien himself can nowhere be quoted as
having utilized the phrase.1
Despite the fact that the "quote" itself appears to be a critical invention
rather than an authorial statement, there is little question that the desire to create
a myth for England was in one way or another a founding principle of Tolkien's
creativity. Indeed, Tolkien himself expressed a similar sentiment at multiple
points in his life. Discussing the content of The Lord of the Rings in a letter to
publisher Milton Waldman (probably written in late 1951), for instance, Tolkien
described at length the fact that he "was fromearly days grieved by the poverty
of my own beloved country: it had no stories of its own (bound up with its
tongue and soil), not of the quality that I sought, and found (as an ingredient) in
legends of other lands." Thus, he wrote, he once "had a mind to make a body of
more or less connected legend" that he "could dedicate simply to: to England; to
my country" (Letters 144).2Though this effort to fill in the gaps by crafting a myth
for England admittedly grew into something far more complex, the essentially

1 To the contrary, the phrase occurs first in Carpenter's standard biography of Tolkien,
apparently moving over time from biographer to biographee: Anders Stenstrom is likely
right in his theory that the phrase is the result of Carpenter splicing snippets from Tolkien's
letters ("A Mythology?" 310-11). For a brief history of the pervasiveness of the phrase in
Tolkien studies, see Jason Fisher, "Mythology for England."
2 This letter has had an enormous influence on the direction of Tolkien criticism, a control
that critics are beginning to question; see, e.g., Michael D.C. Drout, "Towards a Better
Tolkien Criticism," pp. 19-20. It is nevertheless cited here as a foundation point for what
Drout and Hillary Wynne have labeled the "Source School" of Tolkien studies of which this
present essay is unashamedly a part ("Tom Shippey's J.R .R . T o lk ie n ," 106-08).

M y th lo r e 32.1, Fall/Winter 2013 75

 T roy a n d the Rings: T olkien a n d the M edieval M yth of E ngland

"English" quality of the m ythology of M iddle-earth has never been forgotten.

N ot surprisingly, it has perv ad ed m uch of the criticism of T olkien's w ork.3 All
the m ore odd, then, th a t so little attention h as been p aid to the fact th a t—as
Tolkien w ell k n e w —the M iddle A ges already had a m y th for E ngland, an d th at
any m edievalist creating a m y th for E ngland fo u n d ed on m edieval texts —as
Tolkien u n d en iab ly w a s—w o u ld presum ably utilize th a t m y th in the m ak in g of
his ow n. The p rim ary aim of this essay is to suggest th a t critics of Tolkien m ay
have neglected the debt th a t the author ow ed to the m y th s of Troy: those of b oth
the W ar and its afterm ath. Identifying this debt, in turn, m ig h t reveal a great deal
about how Tolkien utilized source m aterials, an d h o w h e in ten d ed to create his
so-called "m yth for E ngland," particularly as it relates to his com pleted
m asterpiece, The Lord o f the Rings.4

T ro jan B ritain
From at least the n in th century, w hen the legend w as in clu d ed in the
Historia Brittonum, com m only attributed to N ennius, m ost m edieval w riters
th o u g h t the nam e Britain derived from Brutus, a d escen d an t of the Trojan
A eneas, w ho him self fled T roy d u rin g the w ar first recounted in H o m er's Iliad.5
A fter a nu m b er of adventures, A eneas b ro u g h t the nobility of H o m er's T roy to
Italy, w here he becam e a founding ancestor to Rom e itself (this p a rt of the tale
originating in V irgil's Aeneid). C ircum stances forced Brutus, either the gran d so n
or great-grandson of A eneas, to bring a Trojan fleet to the British Isles (then
called Albion), an d there he defeated a race of giants an d established a
civilization w ith its capital at N ew Troy (that is, London). Thus, in sim plified
sum m ary, H om er's T roy fou n d ed first Rom e (via A eneas) an d th en E ngland (via
Brutus), m aking the English the heirs to both R om an an d Trojan (and arguably
Greek) histories.
This m edieval m y th for E ngland w as the "Trojan 'h y p erm y th ,'" as
T hom as H onegger term s it (116), a com plex construction w ro u g h t from a w eb of
w riters over the centuries. The m ost fam ous sources am ong th em are surely the

3 As but a few examples not discussed later in this essay, see Chance, T o lk ie n 's A r t , and
Lobdell, E n g la n d a n d A lw a y s . For a specific reading of Tolkien's "England" as an Anglo-
Saxon England, see Drout, "A Mythology for Anglo-Saxon England." More broadly, the
concept of building a "mythology for England" has been utilized by critics investigating
the influence of both Anglo-Saxon and Norse literature, culture, and history in Tolkien's
work; see, for instance, Paul Kocher's "Mythology for England."
4 Reference will be made to the materials of the Silmarillion, but for reasons of space and
clarity of focus, the main thrust of the argument will be engaged upon L o rd o f th e R in g s .
5 This etymology—like the mythology of which it is a part—is false: the name B rita in
derives not from the legendary Brutus, but from Brythonic, one of the two primary native
languages of the Celts living on the Isles and the basis for modern Welsh and Cornish

76 M y th lo r e 123, Fall/Winter 2013

 M ichael L ivingston

Classical writers Homer and Virgil, but there are other ancient sources, and even
later medieval contributors, too, like Dares Phrygius, Dictys Cretensis, and others
to be discussed in this essay. The most well-known presentation of the full-
fledged hyperm yth as it relates to England is arguably that given by Geoffrey of
Monmouth, a twelfth-century m onk whose H i s t o r i a r e g u m B r i t a n n i a e tells the
accumulated tale in great detail.6 As Tolkien would have known, this oft-
recollected notion of a Trojan England whose roots could be traced directly back
to H om er's I l ia d was deeply rooted in the cultural landscape of the M iddle Ages.
In the 1380s, for instance, it was so pervasive that there was talk of renaming
London "Troynovant" [New Troy] (Barney 472). And late-medieval writers like
Chaucer or the anonymous author of S i r G a w a in a n d t h e G r e e n K n i g h t could
casually mention the history and fully expect the audience to fill in all necessary
details.7 The Trojan mythology, by the later M iddle Ages, had effectively become
the standard mythological explanation of the country's past.8 For this reason
alone, Honegger rightly raises the notion that we should thus fully expect to find
Troy in Middle-earth, even though he himself quickly passes this by in favor of
more specifically Anglo-Saxon sources that Tolkien utilized in constructing his
m yth for England.
H onegger's turn to the North is hardly unique, and this concentration
on the role that England—or, more precisely, one cultural philologist's idea of an
English past9—plays in Tolkien's work m ight have left us as critics somewhat
blind to understanding the full range of m aterials the author could have used to
compose his work. As we will see, this neglect of Tolkien's possible debts to Troy

6 This influential text would have been well known to Tolkien as a medievalist; indeed,
Hammond and Scull have noted that the name of one of Tolkien's minor characters in T he
L o rd o f th e R in g s , Gorbadoc Brandybuck (L o tR I.1.23), almost certainly derives from
Geoffrey of Monmouth's work (Lord o f the R in g s : A R e a d e r's C o m p a n io n , p. 59).
Coincidentally, one of the early standard studies of the supposed Trojan ancestry of the
British people is "Trojans in Britain," by George Gordon—a man Tolkien considered a
valued friend, colleague, and collaborator, and who had an important role in Tolkien's
successful pursuit of an Oxford appointment.
7 The Gawain-poet in fact frames his narrative within this "Anglo-Trojan myth," opening
and closing his tale with references to it. On Tolkien's important use of P earl, another work
of the Gawain-poet, see Noah Koubenec, "The Precious and the Pearl."
8 There are many other medieval mythologies—those revolving around King Arthur,
Charlemagne, or even (late in the period) Robin Hood—but none holds the same
ethnogenic position that Troy does. This is precisely part of the point Tolkien himself
makes when he writes, in the aforementioned letter to Waldman, that "the Arthurian world
[...] is imperfectly naturalized" and as a result could "not replace what I felt to be missing"
(L e tte rs 144).
9 Some of the other definitional dangers in this matter —what England? when England? —
are addressed by Drout and Wynne in "Tom Shippey's J .R .R . T o lkien ."

M y th lo r e 32.1, Fall/Winter 2013 77

 T roy a n d the Rings: T olkien a n d the M edieval M yth of E ngland

m ay be doubly unfortunate: n o t only m ig h t w e be in ad eq u ately recognizing a

key piece of the source p uzzle for T olkien's w orks, b u t by m issing it w e m ig h t be
unable to appreciate fully just h o w far Tolkien w as w illing to go to create his
m y th for E ngland. Tolkien u sed H om er an d the Trojan hyperm yth. We k now this
from his ow n com position notes, as w e w ill see. The question is only ho w
pervasively or deeply h e d id so, an d w hy. If the Trojan brothers H ector an d Paris
p lay som e role in the form ation of T olkien's brothers Borom ir an d Faram ir, for
instance, then recognizing the differences betw een these figures m ig h t therefore
reveal a g reat deal about exactly how Tolkien revised H o m er's originating vision
an d thus in ten d ed to create h is "m yth for E ngland."
Let m e be clear at the outset, how ever: w hile I in ten d to argue (at times,
as w ith Borom ir an d Faram ir, in deliberate provocation) for the placem ent of
p arts of the Trojan m y th at a fundam ental level of T olkien's w ork, I am not
arguing th a t T olkien's creation is fou n d ed on Troy, or th a t T roy is even the m ost
p rom inent factor in those narrative elem ents th a t w ill be here exam ined. Instead,
the argum ent here is that this cum ulative Trojan h y p erm y th is ju st one of several
com pounded layers th a t resonate beneath the literary surface of T olkien's
com plex w ork, ju st as there are m ultiple w yrm s th a t u n d erg ird Tolkien's
construction of Sm aug. W ayne G. H am m o n d an d C hristina Scull, for instance,
note connections betw een G andalf's account of his fight w ith the Balrog in M oria
an d the struggle against the shape-shifting P roteus in H o m er's Odyssey, betw een
the beacons of G ondor an d the beacons described in H o m er's Iliad, an d m ore
generally betw een som e of T olkien's descriptions an d "th e elaborate sim iles
often found in H om er."10 At the sam e tim e, Scull an d H am m o n d dim inish this
influence: T olkien's interest in the Classics "contributed to th e 'leaf-m ould of the
m in d ' from w hich T olkien's creative w ritings grew , th o u g h their influence on his
fiction an d p o etry w as less than th a t of the literatu re of N o rth ern E urope" (J.R.R.
Tolkien Companion and Guide 2.174; quoting C arpenter 178). This is no d o u b t true.
Yet even if this Trojan layer of sourcing is a m in o rity layer, likely o utpaced in
volum e b y the oft-noted influence of n o rthern m aterials, it does not follow th at
T roy is an insignificant contributor to the m ak in g of M iddle-earth. Some
m aterials are denser than others.

T o lk ien , T roy, an d th e C ritics

Tom Shippey, one of the m ost influential Tolkien critics, seems to speak
for the m ajority m in d set w hen he states th a t Tolkien w as "d eterm in ed ly hostile
to 'th e Classical T radition', as Eliot called it," contrasting th a t "Classical" line of
literary allusion, w ith its sirens of Joyce, Eliot, an d even M ilton, w ith T olkien's

10 Hammond and Scull, L o rd o f th e R in g s : A R e a d e r's C o m p a n io n , pp. 392, 509, 622. See also
their J.R .R . T o lkien C o m p a n io n a n d G u id e, 2.173-76.

78 M y th lo r e 123, Fall/Winter 2013

 M ichael L ivingston

"major debts" to "the native and N orthern tradition which Milton never knew
and Eliot ignored" (Shippey, Tolkien 314). In Shippey's view, Tolkien thus
becomes a m odern anti-modernist, his Renaissance not the rebirth of Homer and
the Classics but a resurgence of the old "English" past. Appropriately to this
view, Shippey's oft-cited Road to Middle-earth does not mention Homer even a
single time. Indeed, the notion that Tolkien deliberately distances himself from
writers like Homer has become such an engrained critical commonplace post-
Shippey that biographer John Garth is able to imagine how the author "turned
his back enthusiastically on the Classics that had nurtured his generation at
school," a decision that Garth attributes to the notion that such texts "had
become romantically entangled w ith Victorian triumphalism" (42).
While there is certainly a vast wealth of evidence to support Tolkien's
interest in the mythology of the North —and quite rightly so—there is
surprisingly little evidence that he simultaneously abandoned Classical
mythology in the conscious way that both Garth and Shippey imagine: that
notion, like the phrase "mythology for England," can nowhere be attributed
directly to Tolkien himself. The closest we can reach to direct authorial evidence
for such a negative comparison between these mythologies comes from Tolkien's
youth: a 1911 statement that "though as a whole the N orthern epic has not the
charm and delight of the Southern, yet in a certain bare veracity it excels it" —
scarcely an indication of his presum ed hostility for Homer and the Classics (qtd.
in Shippey, "Writing"). Quite to the contrary, there is m uch evidence, even
directly from Tolkien himself, that he never abandoned his affection for "the
Southern." As late as 4 November 1954, he listed Homer, Virgil, the Beowulf-poet,
and "Shakespearian tragedy" as "the great names of world literature whose
works he certainly respected" (Letters 201). And in his famous essay, " Beowulf.
The Monsters and the Critics," he laments. "Alas for the lost lore, the annals and
old poets that Virgil knew, and only used in the making of a new thing!" (27-
281).11
Educated in a turn-of-the-century English system, Tolkien would have
been exposed to the Classics at an early age; as Dustin Eaton points out, "like all
male school children of his era and class, Tolkien quickly became proficient in
classical and Homeric Greek and thoroughly versed in H om er's mythology." He
began his education at Oxford in 1911 by reading Literae Humaniores (i.e., the
Classics), with specific lectures on Hom er in the following years.12 Beyond such

11 For a lengthy study of Tolkien's uses of Virgil, see Morse, E vo c a tio n s o f V irgil. There are
many other accounts of the influence of the wider range of Classical works on Tolkien's
literary output, a subject beyond the purview of this essay, but of particular note are recent
essays by Kristine Larsen and Miryam Libran-Moreno.
12 For a close look at Tolkien's Oxford career, with specifics to his studies of Homer, see
Scull and Hammond, J.R .R . T o lkien C o m p a n io n a n d G u id e, 1.28-38.

M y th lo r e 32.1, Fall/Winter 2013 79

 T roy a n d the Rings: T olkien a n d the M edieval M yth of E ngland

generalities, w e know from Tolkien him self th at H om er h a d a p ro fo u n d im pact

on the direction his life w o u ld take. In a letter d ated 2 D ecem ber 1953, w ritten to
R obert M urray, S.J., Tolkien observed: "I w as b ro u g h t u p in the Classics, and first
discovered the sensation of literary pleasure in H om er" (L e tte r s 172). Such
aw areness is perh ap s to be expected from a m an ed u cated w ith in a W estern
intellectual tradition th a t h as typically proclaim ed to be rooted in the A ncient
Greeks, b u t T olkien's interests ran deeper th an a passing fancy: w e have
evidence from the drafts of his w ork th a t H om er en tered specifically into
T olkien's m in d at nu m ero u s points d u rin g the actual com position of L o r d o f th e
R i n g s . In his notes outlining w h at w o u ld becom e the b eg in n in g of T h e R e t u r n o f
t h e K i n g (V.i), for instance, Tolkien term s the gath erin g of com panies at M inas
T irith a "H om eric catalogue" ( W a r o f t h e R i n g 229), a note th a t critic T odd Jensen
h as ex panded upon, exam ining h o w Tolkien u se d the p articular catalogs in Book
2 of H o m er's I l i a d . Even in the published form s of his w ork, a h an d fu l of critics
have noted traces of H om er or other sources of the Trojan h y perm yth. C atherine
H ooley briefly d raw s som e superficial connections betw een O dy sseu s' jo u rn ey to
the d ead (and A eneas's, too) an d that of T olkien's A ragorn. K enneth Reckford
discusses several correspondences betw een T olkien's w orks and H o m er's
O d y s s e y , including the rid in g of barrels a n d —along w ith p ro m in en t non-Trojan
sources like the E ddic poem F a fn is m a l , of co u rse—Bilbo's nam e-gam es in T h e
H o b b i t . E lem ents of the O d y s s e y are likew ise recognized b y M ac Fenw ick, w ho
view s T olkien's use of fem inine figures as ow ing m u c h to H o m er's precedent.
A nd Alex Lew is an d E lizabeth C urrie have discussed the possibility th a t Tolkien
m a y have used the Trojan W ar in constructing the tales of the L egendarium th at
su rro u n d the Fall of G ondolin, a topic th a t D avid G reenm an h as previously
exam ined.13 N one of this should surprise us, of course: Tolkien him self in the
aforem entioned W aldm an letter parenthetically observes th a t h e utilized the
G reek legends (w hich surely includes H om er an d the Trojan hyperm yth)
alongside the "Celtic, an d Rom ance, G erm anic, Scandinavian, an d Finnish"
m yths "as an ingredient" in the m ak in g of his ow n (L e tte r s 144).
Even those w ho have found H om eric or Trojan influences on T olkien's
w ork have often been quick to discard them , how ever. The aforem entioned
Eaton, for instance, w hile adm itting th a t "there is m uch in T olkien's w ork th a t is
rem iniscent of H om er," nevertheless discards the id ea of a H om eric influence:
"there is n o th in g in T olkien's correspondence to indicate th a t h e consciously
em ployed H o m er's m otifs as his ow n" (285). E aton's concerns over conscious
u s e —th o u g h difficult to answ er an d perh ap s too m uch in ignorance of w h at
D rout term s som e of the m o st basic "old chestnuts of literary theory," such as

13 Steve Walker also lists a handful of Homeric allusions in a broader discussion of

Tolkien's mixing of historical periods in his work (P ow er o f T o lk ie n 's P rose, pp. 116-17, 136).

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 M ichael L ivingston

Barthes and Foucault ("Towards a Better Tolkien Criticism" 20) —are

understandable. Source analysis at its best, as E.L. Risden observes in a recent
essay, "provides a powerful tool to gain insight" into the way an author works,
enabling us to make more productive use of their texts (24). While we m ay begin
such searches by hearing echoes, therefore, we need to aim for something more
tangible indeed.

T roy a n d G o n d o r
In a letter to Charlotte and Denis Plimmer, written on 8 February 1967,
Tolkien not only related the geography of M iddle-earth with our own but also
specifically to Troy:

The action of the story takes place in the North-west of 'M iddle-earth',
equivalent in latitude to the coastlands of Europe and the north shores of
the Mediterranean. [...] If Hobbiton and Rivendell are taken (as intended)
to be at about the latitude of Oxford, then Minas Tirith, 600 miles south, is
at about the latitude of Florence. The M ouths of A nduin and the ancient
city of Pelargir are at about the latitude of ancient Troy. (Letters 376)

Tolkien here directly associates the lands of Gondor with those of historical Troy,
and his identification of the city itself with Pelargir indicates how directly he m ay
have conflated the historical w ith the im agined in his mythology.14 That
identification, in turn, m ight well have motivated some of the history of Tolkien's
Middle-earth: mimicking Troy, Pelargir was a harbor until the coastline moved.
Despite these potential influences, however, the city of Minas Tirith has perhaps
the greater claim to the history of Troy.15 Most obvious, perhaps, are the physical
similarities between the cities of Minas Tirith and Troy: both known for their
impregnable walls, both besieged in the focus of a struggle that seemingly holds
civilization in the balance.16

14 In a related argument, Michael Brisbois has shown how "real-world" geography connects
with that of Tolkien's "imaginary" world in "Tolkien's Imaginary Nature," 198-201.
15 Though one probably should not overlay maps of the real world and Middle-earth in any
scalable way, Tolkien's geography could be said to bear out additional connections:
Pelargir is situated in the area of Gondor known as Lebennin, which could be a scarcely
veiled orthographical variant on Lebanon. The world has known since Heinrich
Schliemann's excavations in the late 1860s that Troy is likely to be identified with the
uncovered citadel near Hisarlik, Anatolia, north of Lebanon just as Minas Tirith is north of
Lebennin. A quite tenuous and speculative connection, to be sure, but one worth noting.
16 On the possibility that the Roman Empire served as the model for Gondor, with Minas
Tirith representing Ravenna and Osgiliath taking the place of Rome, see Ford, "White
City," esp. 60-62. As we will see, when viewed through the lens of Virgil and the Anglo-

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 T roy a n d the Rings: T olkien a n d the M edieval M yth of E ngland

A sim ple G ondor-T roy connection can th u s be m a d e —an d was m ad e by

the a u th o r—at the general level of geography, an observation th a t on its ow n can
bear som e critical fruit. If in constructing M iddle-earth Tolkien w as driven b y the
general geographical associations to allow real h isto ry to resonate w ithin his
"sub-creation,"17 for instance, then w ithin the history of G ondor w e w o u ld thus
expect to find echoes of n o t only Troy, b u t also its adversarial Greeks, in addition
to the histories of the H oly L and an d even Byzantium . M iryam L ibran-M oreno's
recent stu d y concluding th a t "Tolkien m ad e G ondor functionally sim ilar to
C onstantinople," w hile provocative in its ow n right, m ig h t th u s be placed w ithin
a larger m ythological fram ew ork ("Byzantium , N ew Rom e" 111). To see further
h o w Tolkien m ay have engaged the Trojan h y p e rm y th —an d to find som ething
m ore concrete an d critically robust th an m ere geographical p ro x im ity —w e w ill
n eed to look at w h a t is arguably the h ea rt of the epic of Troy: the com plex series
of relationships th a t provoke the city to w ar an d lay bare w h a t is u ltim ately its
futile and m isg u id ed b u t nonetheless noble heroism .

H ector an d B orom ir
For all its gods an d goddesses, battles an d blood, the Trojan W ar is at its
core a h ighly h u m a n affair. A nd w ith in the central, all-too-hum an cast of the
hyperm yth, perh ap s no characters are m ore im p o rtan t th an the several sets of
brothers w ho popu late his tale: A gam em non an d M enelaus, H ector an d Paris (or
D eiphobus or any of K ing P riam 's fifty princely sons), an d even, in a symbolic
sense, Achilles an d Patroclus, to say n o th in g of half-brothers such as Telam onian
Ajax an d Teucer. The interactions of h u m a n b ro th erh o o d (and p erh ap s even of
divine fam ily dynam ics) is unquestionably a recu rrin g m otif of the Iliad, one th at
reveals characterization even as it drives the plot forw ard.
T olkien's Lord of the Rings, too, is a h u m a n dram a: despite the hobbits
an d elves, trolls an d orcs, w izard s and w args, it is m ost essentially the story of
the en d of the T hird A ge an d the rise of h u m a n ity in the F o u rth .18 A ragorn is
m ost central to this ascension at the en d of the Lord o f the Rings, b u t no less

Trojan myth, Ford's argument and that presented here are not necessarily exclusive of one
another.
17Tolkien, due both to his devout Catholic faith and to his awareness of the debt his world
owed to what he called "Primary Reality," humbled any urge to term his Middle-earth a
full-fledged "creation" of his own making. See, for instance, his letter to Milton Waldman
(?1951) in L e tte rs, p. 145.
18 This is not to deny that the book is organized around the central arc of the Hobbits, of
course, or that the larger framework of Tolkien's mythology is organized around the Elves.
Rather, it is to say that, as Tolkien himself admits in two different letters, these figures of
fantasy "are only a representation or an apprehension of a part of human nature," that they
"are just different aspects of the Humane" (L e tte rs 149, 236).

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 M ichael L ivingston

im p o rtan t are the m en of M inas Tirith: in particular, the Stew ard D enethor II an d
his tw o sons, Boromir an d Faram ir.19 The portrayal of these characters, I will
argue, m ight be influenced b y the H om eric P riam an d his sons, H ector an d Paris,
both in sim ilarity an d difference: Tolkien has sim ultaneously b u ilt u p o n H o m er's
foundation an d changed it in order to further the creation of a m ythology for
England.
For m a n y readers, there is no greater trag ed y in H o m er's Iliad th an the
death of the loyal an d noble H ector at the h a n d s of the raging G reek dem i-god,
Achilles. This w as certainly the read in g accepted by Shakespeare, w hose H ector
in Troilus and Cressida is contrasted heavily w ith Achilles an d the Greeks: the
Trojan hero is noble, the G reeks w ho kill h im are w icked. Jam es R edfield has
arg u ed th a t this kin d of interpretation is in fact H o m er's intention in the Iliad:
"the pathos of the poem is concentrated on the d eath of H ector," m ark in g h im as
the central character aro u n d w hom the narrative is com posed (29). To be sure,
the esteem in w hich H ector w as h eld in the M iddle A ges earn ed h im a place
alongside A lexander the G reat and Julius C aesar as the three p agans am ong the
N ine W orthies: nine m en th o u g h t to best exem plify the honorable ideals of
chivalry.20 Yet, as even R edfield argues, H ector is n o t blam eless for his end: his
ow n actions as they unfold thro u g h the death of Patroclus m ig h t arguably cast
h im in a negative light, even if w ithin the Fate of Z eus it is difficult to say
w hether h e is actually responsible for those actions.
The b road strokes of parallels to T olkien's Boromir are clear enough.
Like Hector, he stands as the heroic exam ple of m artial, m ortal m an. Like Hector,
he is an eldest son, presum ptive heir to his father's holdings. Like Hector, h e is
u n eq u aled am ong m en on the battlefield, already ren o w n ed for his actions
before he even appears in the narrative. H e is seem ingly a m an of h o n o r (time,
H om er w o u ld say). Like Hector, he is doom ed b y his devotion to his fam ily and
his nation: B orom ir's loyalty to D enethor an d the people of G ondor, w hile noble
in its way, results in his m isg u id ed p u rsu it of pow er, a fateful u n d o in g in m uch
the sam e w ay th a t H ector m u st fall d u e to the fact th a t his love for T roy leads
h im to take actions (defending Paris, for instance) th a t are in fact m ore ab o u t the
visible use of p ow er th an about the long-term service of the state. B orom ir's fault,
in fact, is his H om eric quality: he is b o u n d to a social system in w hich glory
(kleos) is the en d goal of action, an aim to be w on at the expense of others or in
death. A fter achieving th is—by, in B orom ir's eyes, gaining the pow er of the Ring

19 That Tolkien's interests might gravitate toward the motif of brotherhood in his studies
and in his creative work would be unsurprising: he was twelve years old when he and his
younger brother were left in the care of the church after their mother's death left them
orphaned.
20 For the history of the Nine Worthies, a key study is Horst Schroeder, D e r Topos der N in e
W o rth ies.

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so th a t he can destroy his people's en em ies—h e can retu rn to M inas T irith in a

triu m p h a n t hom ecom ing (nostos), w hich is a H om eric them e m ost fam iliar from
the O d y s s e y . A nd in his refusal to bow to the w ishes of the Elves, Borom ir is also
guilty of a kin d of hub ris (h y b r i s ).
O ther less specific parallels betw een the figures m ig h t even help to
elucidate peculiar m om ents in the text. For instance, the reasons for G aladriel's
gift of a "golden belt" to Boromir u p o n the leaving of L othlorien are n o t m ad e
clear in the text or explained by any critic ( T h e L o r d o f th e R i n g s [LotR] II.8.375),
b u t w e could postulate a debt to the Classical m odel of H ector. In book 7 of the
I lia d , H ector an d T elam onian Ajax engage in a day-long d u el before the g athered
arm ies of Greece and Troy. W hen nig h t falls w ith o u t a victor, the tw o m en
exchange gifts th a t u n b ek n o w n st to them w ill cause each m an g reat h arm
according to later renditions of the Trojan story. Ajax gives to H ector a "w ar belt
coloured shining w ith p u rp le" (trans. Lattim ore, 7.305), a w o n d ro u s prize th at
w ill ultim ately be u se d by the raging Achilles to attach H ector's b o d y to his
chariot as he drags the b attered corpse before the w alls of T roy (H yginus,
F a b u la e , 112). In retu rn for this belt, H ector gives Ajax a sw ord, the w eap o n th at
Ajax w ill use to take his ow n life (see, e.g., H yginus, op. cit., Sophocles' A j a x an d
O v id 's M e t a m o r p h o s e s 13). The parallels betw een the gift-givings can only be
taken so far, of course: G aladriel is h ard ly G reater Ajax. But B orom ir's belt is
am ong the possessions pointedly left u p o n his corpse as his friends send his
rem ains afloat over the Falls of R auros ( L o t R III.1.416) for the unexpected
hom ecom ing th a t is his fate (k e r ). N o other explanation h as been offered for the
form or the fate of G aladriel's gift.

B orom ir, A sterisk-H ector

Tolkien w as alw ays careful to term his m y thology as one th a t is
ultim ately m e an t to be associated w ith ou r w orld, fantastic th o u g h it m ig h t seem
at times: "This is a story of long ago," he w rites in the F orew ord to T h e H o b b i t —
not, w e should note, "a story of long ago in a galaxy far, far aw ay" or the like.
T hus M iddle-earth's legends are connected to o u r legends, its languages to our
languages, and its people to ou r p eo p le—if all at a distance deep in the fictional
m ists before recorded history. This is n o t to say th a t Tolkien th o u g h t th a t the
Battle for H elm 's D eep tru ly occurred som ew here in, say, Eastern Europe, b u t
th a t som ething like the assault on the H o rn b u rg c o u l d h av e occurred there, an d
p erh ap s th a t som ething like it o u g h t to have occurred there. M iddle-earth, in
other w ords, is the resu lt of the application of philological principles (finding
w ords b ehind w ords, stories b ehind stories) to m ythology. Tom Shippey has
elsew here term ed the resulting m ythology-behind-m ythologies an "asterisk-
reality," a provocative p h rasin g th a t undersco res the philological foundations of
T olkien's creative process, since non-extant w o rd s w hose existence is rooted o ut

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 M ichael L ivingston

b y linguistic law s are typically p receded by asterisks to m ark their "invention" as

m issing links in the evolutionary chain of language.21 If Tolkien w as inspired in
this philological craft by the "literary pleasure" of H om er, if in d eed the Iliad an d
its post-H om eric continuations w ithin the Trojan h y p erm y th are am ong the
m a n y already docum ented sources utilized in the com position of Tolkien's
m asterw ork, then w e m ig h t see in Boromir, for instance, an "asterisk-H ector."
Strikingly, w e can find an "asterisk-H ector" at w ork even in m om ents
w here other m ythologies w o u ld seem to far outpace T roy in influencing th e text.
B orom ir's d eath in battle below the gate of G ondor (A rgonath), for exam ple,
appears at first glance to have relatively little to do w ith the d eath of Hector
below the gate of Troy. For one thing, Borom ir faces no Achilles: the leader of the
orcs w ho collectively strike him dow n, U gluk, is a fearsom e foe b u t n o th in g on
the m easure of P eleus's son. There is a plain difference in geo g rap h y betw een the
hardscrabble plain before Troy an d the trees of A m on Hen, an d of course
Achilles pointedly defiles the corpse of Hector, yet Borom ir is left only m ortally
w o u n d ed by his orc foes. A nd w hile it is true th a t both m en seek help in their
final f ig h t- o n e often forgets th a t H ector is tricked b y the gods into th in k in g his
b rother D eiphobus stands w ith h im for s u p p o r t- m u c h m o re is m ad e of this in
T olkien's vision: Boromir rep eated ly blow s u p o n the h o rn of G ondor in o rd er to
b rin g the aid of the fellow ship to his side. This last difference in p articular seems
to w ork strongly against a Trojan influence, for the im age of Borom ir blow ing his
h o rn even as he fa lls -c a llin g do w n the vengeance of his allies u p o n those w ho
have taken his life and taken the h o b b its - is quite obviously ow ed to The Song of
Roland, the non-Trojan m edieval epic of France: O ne n eed only replace th e orcs
w ith the Song's Saracens, its hobbits w ith R olan d 's com rades O livier an d Turpin,
an d A ragorn w ith C harlem agne.22 This is n o th in g at all like H om er, yet even this
m ost seem ingly non-Trojan of m om ents in B orom ir's legend actually dovetails
w ith th at of Hector as it is found w ithin the greater Trojan hyperm yth: according
to Ludovico A riosto's fam ed Orlando Furioso, R o lan d 's sw ord D urendal, broken
at his d e a th —just as B orom ir's is at his d eath (LotR III.1 .4 1 4 )-o n ce belonged to
H ector of T roy (Canto 23.78, trans. W aldm an, p. 275). T here is no question th at
Song o f Roland is the dom inant source here, b u t th a t does n o t d en y the possibility
th a t Tolkien could be m eld in g Hector into R oland th ro u g h the character of

21 For a detailed discussion of this process in relation to Tolkien, see Shippey's R o a d to

1-54.
M id d le -e a rth ,
22 That Tolkien would be well acquainted with the S o n g o f R o la n d is something to be
expected of a medievalist, but we know it was a specific point of discussion among the
Inklings on at least one occasion: see Scull and Hammond, J.R .R . T o lkien C o m p a n io n a nd
G u id e, 1.327. Tolkien's letter to Waldman, cited earlier, also implies use of such materials in
his inclusion of "Romance" among the sources for his mythologies (L e tte rs 144).

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Boromir, especially given T olkien's aforem entioned "leaf-m ould of the m in d "
com positional strategy.

Faram ir, A sterisk-P aris

A fter H om er's H ector h as died, P riam speaks on several occasions of
h o w H ector w as "the best of m y sons" (Iliad 24.242). H e drives his rem aining
children from his sight w ith a stick, "scolding" an d "cursing" them:

Make haste, wicked children, my disgraces. I w ish all of you

had been killed beside the running ships in the place of Hektor.
Ah me, for m y evil destiny. I have had the noblest
of sons in Troy, but I say not one of them is left for me,
Mestor like a god and Troilos whose delight was in horses,
and Hektor, w ho was a god among men, for he did not seem like
one who was child of a m ortal man, but of a god. All these
Ares has killed, and all that are left me are the disgraces. (Iliad 24.247-60)

Likewise, it is perh ap s the overw helm ing trait of T olkien's D enethor th a t h e is

broken by the loss of his son Boromir; Faram ir, like Paris an d the rest of P riam 's
sons, is a pale shadow to the eldest son in his fath er's eyes. Indeed, it is his
preference for Borom ir th a t is am ong the first w o rd s the stew ard of G ondor
speaks in the Lord of the Rings: "M y Boromir! N ow w e have n eed of you. F aram ir
should have gone in his stead" (V.i.755). A n d again, w h en F aram ir faces his
father for the first tim e after his bro th er's death, the Priam -like sentim ent is all
too clear:

"Do you w ish then," said Faramir, "that our places had been exchanged?"
"Yes, I w ish that indeed," said Denethor. (V.4.813)

If w e accept Boromir as (in part) an asterisk-H ector, th en p erh ap s Faram ir, too,
can be view ed as influenced b y one or m ore of P riam 's other sons in m uch the
sam e way. W ho, then, am ong the cast of the Trojan h y p erm y th m ig h t w e have in
m in d w hen w e read of Faram ir?
Startlingly, the Trojan figure that seem s to h av e the m ost in trig u in g
sim ilarities to F aram ir m ig h t be Paris, a character w h o at first glance could
h ard ly be m ore u nlike Faram ir. W hile know n for his o u tstan d in g beauty,
H o m er's Paris is n o t an im pressive figure in an y m artial sense. H ector's first
w ords in the Iliad, in fact, are to accuse his "evil" y o u n g er b ro th er of cow ardice
an d selfishness, going so far as to w ish th a t h e "h a d never been born, or killed
u n w ed d e d " (3.39-40). It is his taking of H elen from M enelaus of Sparta th at
precipitates the fall of Troy, of course, yet even for all h er love of h im she herself

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nevertheless speaks of Paris as one w ho know s n eith er "m odesty" n o r "sham e"
(6.349-51). Tolkien m ight w ell h ave b ran d e d h im a cad.
Little enough of this h as a parallel in Faram ir, w ho is ho n o r personified
an d the character in w h o m Tolkien said he saw m uch of him self (Letters 251). At
the sam e tim e, there are sim ilarities betw een the bow -w ield in g Paris an d the
bow -w ielding Faram ir, arguably enough to m ark the tw o m en for com parison.23
As w e have already seen, both m e n are youn g er brothers, b oth little loved by
their fathers. M ore particularly, how ever, there are striking echoes in their m ortal
(or in F aram ir's case, near-m ortal) w ou n d in g s w ithin the Trojan hyperm yth.
P aris's d eath is n arrate d in m a n y texts w ithin this w eb of stories, in clu d in g th at
of D ictys Cretensis, w hich w as h ighly influential in m edieval E ngland. The m ost
detailed account of his death, how ever, is th a t fo u n d in Q u in tu s S m yrnaeus'
Posthomerica, w hich, w hile u n k n o w n thro u g h m uch of the M iddle Ages, w as
readily available to a m o d ern scholar like Tolkien. A ccording to Book 10 of this
text, P aris's death com es w hen he is struck th ro u g h the chest by an arro w near
the G reek ships. A live b u t gravely w o unded, h e is d rag g ed back into the w alls of
Troy. Alas, the leechcraft of the doctors is unab le to lessen the pain of his w ound,
w hich is described again and again in term s of fire. O nly a salve from O enone,
the w ife he aban d o n ed for H elen, can save P aris's life. H e goes to her, b u t she
sp u rn s him as he once sp u rn ed her, leaving him to die in agony u p o n the slopes
of M ount Ida:

that pale suppliant fell

Faint w ith the anguish of his w ound, whose pangs
Stabbed him through brain and heart, yea, quivered through
His very bones, for that fierce venom crawled
Through all his inwards w ith corrupting fangs;
And his life fainted in him agony-thrilled.
As one w ith sickness and torm enting thirst
Consumed, lies parched, w ith heart quick-shuddering,
With liver seething as in flame, the soul,
Scarce conscious, fluttering at his burning lips,
Longing for life, for water longing sore;
So was his breast one fire of torturing pain. (10.273-84)

W hen w o rd of his death comes to his m other, she cries o u t in h o rro r at w h a t the
siege has done to her city an d her life:

23 It is worth noting, perhaps, that in his essay "On Fairy-Stories," Tolkien professed: "I had
and have a wholly unsatisfied desire to shoot well with a bow" (55).

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Dead! —thou dead, O dear child! Grief heaped on grief

H ast thou bequeathed me, grief eternal! Best
Of all my sons, save Hector alone, wast thou!
While beats m y heart, my grief shall weep for thee.
The hand of Heaven is in our sufferings:
Some Fate devised our ru in —oh that I
H ad lived not to endure it, but had died
In days of wealthy peace! But now I see
Woes upon woes, and ever look to see
Worse things —m y children slain, m y city sacked
And burned w ith fire by stony-hearted foes,
Daughters, sons' wives, all Trojan women, haled
Into captivity w ith our little ones! (10.373-84; emphasis original)

P aris's body is retu rn ed to T roy an d placed on a funeral bier, w here it is set

alight. O enone, heartbroken for all h er w rath, in silence throw s herself into the
flam es to b u rn w ith him .
T here is m uch in this accounting th a t rings of Faram ir. Like Paris,
F aram ir is struck w ith a "d ead ly dart" (LotR V.4.821) u p o n the battlefield.
B rought back w ithin the city walls, F aram ir is left "w an d erin g in a desperate
fever [...] w ith poison in his veins" (823-4), ju st as Paris lay on M o u n t Ida
"seething as in flam e" as "th at fierce venom craw led / T hrough all his inw ards."
D enethor, overcom e w ith despair at h av in g lost b oth his sons to w ar, joins the
m other of Paris and H ector in lam enting a vision of the fu tu re th a t en d s in fire:
all is lost; the city (w hether T roy or M inas Tirith) an d all w ith in it are doom ed
an d w ill be slaughtered as their enem ies com plete the siege. "Better to b u rn
sooner th an late," D enethor says, "for b u rn w e m u st" (825). D enethor th en takes
his fevered son to the Tombs, w here he places h im on a p yre an d in ten d s to set
fire to their bodies together, thus collapsing the Trojan roles of b oth O enone a n d
H ecuba at P aris' death: "H e lies w ithin," D enethor tells G andalf, "burning,
already burning. T hey have set a fire in his flesh. But soon all shall be burn ed .
The W est has failed. It shall all go u p in a great fire, an d all shall be ended. Ash!
A sh an d sm oke blow n aw ay on the w ind!" (V.7.852). Indeed, as D enethor goes
on he seem s even to pick u p the very sam e im agery, if n o t th e phrases, of P aris's
m other:

I w ould have things as they were in all the days of my life [...] and in the
days of m y longfathers before me: to be the Lord of this City in peace, and
leave m y chair to a son after me, w ho w ould be his ow n master and no
w izard's pupil. But if doom denies this to me, then I will have naught:
neither life diminished, nor love halved, nor honour abated. (V.7.854,
emphasis in the original)

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U nlike Paris, how ever, F aram ir is n o t d ead at this m om ent. G andalf saves him ,
th o u g h D enethor does ind eed b u rn him self u p o n the pyre. F aram ir is taken to
the H ouses of H ealing, b u t as w ith Paris in Troy, w hose "help no leech availed"
(10.280), "F aram ir b u rn ed w ith a fever th a t w o u ld n o t abate," despite the fact
th a t "the leechcraft of G ondor w as still w ise" (V.8.860).
As it w as w ith H ector, of course, the arg u m en t th a t F aram ir can
function as a kin d of asterisk-Paris is not an arg u m en t th a t every aspect of
F aram ir's character or the plot su rro u n d in g h im is in d eb ted to Paris w ithin the
Trojan hyperm yth. I am arguing for the applicability of T roy to T olkien's w ork,
b u t this is n o t an argum ent for allegory (see, e.g., T olkien's differentiation
betw een the term s in his forew ord to the second edition of The Lord o f the Rings).
We cannot cut an d paste the cast betw een these tales in an y w hole fashion.
A cknow ledging the influence of Paris on F aram ir n eed n o t m ake a H elen of
E ow yn any m ore th an acknow ledging the influence of Fafnir on S m aug need
m ake a Sigurd of Bilbo. At th e sam e tim e, there are surely enough parallels to
entertain the notion of in flu e n c e -e v e n if, as w ith Fafnir an d Sm aug, it is n o t an
exclusive influence.

T o lk ie n 's N ew T roy
Earlier w e n oted R isden's suggestion th a t source studies are m ost useful
w h en they function as "a pow erful tool to gain insight" into an au th o r's creative
procedures. A ccordingly, as w e approach T olkien's w o rk in light of the Trojan
h y p erm y th w e w o u ld do w ell to look for h in ts of T olkien's authorial approach by
exam ining the gaps betw een his ow n textual w eavings an d their forebears. In
other w ords, the sim ilarities betw een the legends m ig h t call our attention to the
fact of their use, b u t it is in the differences that the au th o r creates betw een them
th a t w e m ight be able to see the actual reason for their use.
This sam e-but-different quality is especially ev id en t (and, I hope,
provocatively intriguing) in the case of B orom ir's brother. W hereas P aris's salve
can come only from his retu rn to the healing h an d s of his wife O enone, F aram ir's
salve can come only from the h ealing h an d s of A ragorn, an act th a t proves h e is
the king of G ondor returned. It is in this basic fact, no doubt, th a t T olkien's
"asterisk-Paris" is m ost sharply estranged from H o m er's "real-Paris." Paris dies.
F aram ir lives. Indeed, F aram ir's tale ends w ith his h av in g been g ran ted the love
of a royal w o m an from G ondor's great neighbor of Rohan, a fate quite unlike
P aris's tragic dalliances w ith H elen, a royal w o m an from T roy's g reat neighbor of
Greece (who could h ard ly be m ore unlike Eowyn). M ore th an that, F aram ir's
recovery arguably m arks the recovery of M inas Tirith itself, w hose parallels w ith
its ow n H om eric counterpart are broken m ost clearly in the fact th a t the city
never falls. G ondor, unlike Troy, quite clearly survives the w rath of the siege.

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If, as I am arguing here, Tolkien has em bedded the Trojan hyperm yth
more deeply into his narrative than previously suspected, then w hat are we to
make of these fundam ental differences? One possible answer, I suggest, may
already be visible to those who have taught works like Virgil's A e n e i d (wherein
the defeated Trojan Aeneas lays the seeds for a glorious Rome) or the
aforementioned H i s t o r i a r e g u m B r i t a n n i a e by Geoffrey of M onmouth (which
brought Priam 's line to the founding of Britain by Brutus): students, after all, are
often flummoxed by the fact that so m any cultures tied their histories to losing
Troy, not victorious Greece.24 For Tolkien, the m atter is even more profound:
laboring to produce his "mythology for England" in spirit if not in name, he
could hardly deny the pre-existing Troy-England mythological connections
handed to him by the very medieval traditions he professionally studied and
sought to preserve. At the same time, however, he could re-examine w hat those
traditions meant.
Given the opportunity to create a kind of "asterisk-Troy"—to write a
story behind its story, a legend behind its legend—Tolkien could well have
viewed himself as "restoring" Troy from the anti-Trojan bias of Greek writers
like Homer. The Classical Paris was a weak and immoral coward destroyed by
lust, anathem a to so m uch of w hat Tolkien held dear. H i s Paris, therefore, is
entirely the opposite: a noble and honorable hero saved by love. Hom er's Hector
fell in tragedy: his death marks the breaking of Trojan spirit. Tolkien's Hector
falls in tragedy, too: his end m arks the breaking of the Fellowship of the R ing—
but then it also paradoxically enables the spirit of determination that leads to the
destruction of the Ring. Where the prize belt of H om er's Hector is used to
desecrate his corpse, the prize belt of Tolkien's Hector is borne proudly upon his
corpse. H om er's Troy fell to the Greeks and was destroyed. Tolkien's Troy—the
Troy that w ould give rise to England—w ould not fall.
Composing w hat was effectively another "source" for the Trojan
hyperm yth, therefore, one that could stand alongside if not behind Homer (and
all those writers who followed in the Blind Poet's wake and brought the Trojans
to English shores), Tolkien could "cleanse" the legend of those aspects that
perhaps did not fit with his re-invention of a proper English past. Thus Tolkien's
L o r d o f th e R i n g s w ould become, in more ways now than he could imagine, the
classical myth for England.

24 If Homer's influence on Tolkien has been inadequately studied, the same is likely true of
Virgil and Rome. One might note, however, that some of the arguments presented about a
"Trojan Tolkien" might also apply to those areas of study, given the Trojan foundation of
Rome (and thence England) within the Trojan hypermyth. Tolkien thus might be said to
compound Rome and Troy into a single "old world" in Gondor and Minas Tirith. The
Roman connections made by Ford ("White City"), for instance, would not just remain valid
but gain force.

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 M ichael L ivingston

If this is so, then the m ythologies of T ro y —n o t only Classical texts, like

those of H om er an d Q uintus Sm yrnaeus, b u t even later m edieval texts, like those
of D ares P hrygius an d Dictys Cretensis, G eoffrey of M onm outh, C haucer's
Troilus and Criseyde, L ydgate's Troy Book, and all the re s t—m erit reinvestigation
in Tolkien studies. R ather than seeing Tolkien as a m an w ho "tu rn e d his back
enthusiastically on the Classics" (to retu rn to G arth 's im aginative im agery), w e
m ig h t instead see the author as a m an w ho folded the Classics into the h ea rt of
his life's w ork. We m ay find that, in the end, he tried to reinvigorate the S outhern
tradition by b ringing it into h arm o n y w ith the N o rth e rn —all w ithin the
w o n d ro u s epic of his m ind, The Lord o f the Rings.

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A b o u t th e A u t h o r

D r . M ICHAEL L i v i n g s t o n holds degrees in History, Medieval Studies, and English.

He currently serves as an Associate Professor of English at The Citadel. His most recent
books are O w a in G ly n d w r: A C asebook (Liverpool, 2013), and T he B a ttle o f B ru n a n b u rh : A
C asebook (Exeter, 2011).

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