Tolkien claimed that all of his work was massively influenced—nay determined—by his Catholicism. Questions crowd in straightaway:

"I've read the trilogy and The Silmarillion ten times, and I never saw anything Catholic in it." Or, "How can he say that? The characters have to get along in their quest without a bit of 'divine' help."

True, the hobbits and the men of Aragorn's ilk don't seem to have any "god" to invoke, though there are some talisman-like cries for help from above—most notably "O Elbereth! Gilthoniel!" But unless one has read The Silmarillion, one has only the sketchiest notions of the immense theological backdrop to the trilogy's "fragment" (see p. 28).

The saga of The Ring most certainly draws upon Norse and Icelandic saga for its ethos and not, apparently, on Catholic categories. Tolkien, like his friend Lewis, was intoxicated by "northernness." When they came upon the Nordic tales, each found himself pierced with the dart of sehnsucht.

This is a sweet desire; ...

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