Beowulf

Narrative: Bilbo steals a cup from Smaug's hoard, just as a thief steals a cup from the dragon in Beowulf, provoking the dragon's wrath. Character: Smaug's intelligence, pride, and possessiveness owe much to the Beowulf dragon. Théoden embodies the ideal of the Anglo-Saxon king, ruling from a great hall and inspiring loyalty through generosity and courage. Worldbuilding: Meduseld, the Golden Hall of Rohan, strongly recalls Heorot, King Hrothgar's great hall in Beowulf. The Rohirrim's language, poetry, and social customs are deliberately based on Anglo-Saxon culture. Thematic: Both works dwell on the transience of kingdoms, the inevitability of death, and the enduring value of honour in the face of loss. Stylistic: Tolkien adopts an elevated, archaic register in many speeches and songs, echoing the diction and rhythm of Old English verse.

Tolkien's 1936 lecture on Beowulf is still the poem's most cited piece of criticism, so this is a case of a scholar writing fiction out of the text he had spent his career on. Rohan is Anglo-Saxon England with horses. Meduseld is Heorot, down to the doorwarden who makes visitors surrender their weapons and the counsellor at the king's ear; Théoden's hall scene rewrites Beowulf's arrival almost beat for beat. The graph already holds Beowulf pointing at The Hobbit, where the theft of a cup from a sleeping dragon is lifted whole. This is the other half of the same debt.