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So you must not be aware that Tolkien's models for TLOTR and The Hobbit were pagan epics? Where do you think the plot about the ring itself came from? The Volsung, of course.

I am very much aware that Tolkien was a big fan of Teutonic and Medieval type epics, there is no doubt of that. But borrowing from a model doen't mean there were not even greater influences on Tolkien.

Tolkien wrote in a 1953 letter to Fr. Robert Murray "The Lord of the Rings’ is of course a fundamentally religious and Catholic work; unconsciously so at first, but consciously in the revision."

His authorized biographer, Humphrey Carpenter, agreed that God was essential to everything that happened in the Lord of the Rings.

"The author’s Catholicism and arch-conservatism were instrumental in shaping his opus. (During the World War II Blitz, Tolkien kept a rosary next to his bed)... His Oxford friends included fellow don C.S. Lewis, author of "The Chronicles of Narnia." When they met, Lewis was a skeptic. Tolkien has the distinction of bringing back to the Christian fold the greatest Christian apologist of the 20th century. " ---------- Here's an except from another article:

snip... It was Tolkien's view of myth -- that it is always grounded in the reality of the transcendent God, (even if subtly) -- that ultimately shattered the barriers to Christianity for Lewis.

"Tolkien did not mean by 'myth' that it is defined as 'non-historical,'" Parker said, "but that it exhibits certain characteristics, certain ideas, recurring themes such as the dying and rising God, the sense of the moral universe behind things.

I read a fascinating article tracing the parallels between LOTR and some of these myths expressed in Wagner's music. (I believe the author was speaking primarily of Wagner's work which was based on mythology and how much Tolkein despised Wagner's take on things.)

Anyway, this article said that Tolkein had actually adopted some of Wagner's themes and turned them around for Christian triumphalism. Interesting, but I don't know much about Wagner so can't say if I believe it's true or not.