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The Road Goes On: Exploring Tolkien's Influence Through Catholic University's Special Collections and Rare Books

Welsh Influences

The Red Book of Hergest (Llyfr Coch Hergest in Welsh) is a medieval manuscript written shortly after 1382 and widely considered to be one of the most important manuscripts in Welsh culture. The manuscript contains a variety of materials, including Welsh history, poetry, and herbal lore. The Red Book of Westmarch is supposed to hold much the same cultural significance in Middle-earth, and it is most likely not coincidental that it bears a similar title to The Red Book of Hergest.

“This book is largely concerned with Hobbits, and from its pages a reader may discover much of their character and a little of their history. Further information will also be found in the selection from the Red Book of Westmarch that has already been published, under the title of The Hobbit. That story was derived from the earlier chapters of the Red Book, composed by Bilbo himself, the first Hobbit to become famous in the world at large, and called by him There and Back Again, since they told of his journey into the East and his return: an adventure which later involved all the Hobbits in the great events of that Age that are here related.”
-J.R.R. Tolkien, Lord of the Rings, Concerning Hobbits

The text of the Mabinogion : and other Welsh tales from the Red Book of Hergest.

by Prof. Rhŷs & J. Gwenogvryn Evans. Oxford: by J.G. Evans 7 Clarendon Villas, 1877.

Click here to see a digitized version of the original Red Book of Hergest, made available by the University of Oxford.

Tolkien was a profound lover of Welsh culture and linguistics, and that love can be found in more than just the subtle homage he pays to The Red Book of Hergest. It can also be seen in his constructed language of Sindarin which served as the more modern version of the ancestral language, elvish Quenya. He writes:

“The changes worked on Sindarin very closely (and deliberately) resemble those which produced the modern and medieval Welsh from ancient Celtic, so that in the result Sindarin has a marked Welsh style, and the relations between it and Quenya closely resemble those between Welsh and Latin.”
-J.R.R. Tolkien Words Phrases and Passages in Lord of the Rings, Parma Eldalamberon

The text of the Mabinogion : and other Welsh tales from the Red Book of Hergest.

by Prof. Rhŷs & J. Gwenogvryn Evans. Oxford: by J.G. Evans 7 Clarendon Villas, 1877.

Click here to see a digitized version of the original Red Book of Hergest, made available by the University of Oxford.

Tolkien was a profound lover of Welsh culture and linguistics, and that love can be found in more than just the subtle homage he pays to The Red Book of Hergest. It can also be seen in his constructed language of Sindarin which served as the more modern version of the ancestral language, elvish Quenya. He writes:

“The changes worked on Sindarin very closely (and deliberately) resemble those which produced the modern and medieval Welsh from ancient Celtic, so that in the result Sindarin has a marked Welsh style, and the relations between it and Quenya closely resemble those between Welsh and Latin.”
-J.R.R. Tolkien Words Phrases and Passages in Lord of the Rings, Parma Eldalamberon