User blog comment:Gott wisst/Hypothesis about why B. J. is wrong about J. R. R. Tolkien/@comment-991678-20090719062828

Not quite... It's not like he copied and pasted from the Edda, Beowulf, etc, but he carries on their style and their some of their culture, and even some of their language (Theoden, for example, is Old English for prince (Þéoden)). The are alike, but not the same. And certainly Tolkien put much that was original into his stories. Just like B.J., really; B. Jacques has self-confessedly been influenced by Wind in the Willows, but that's not to say that he didn't just steal his ideas... He built on them, changed them, and did some things originally... In the end it comes down to your definition of the word "plunder", e.g. do you use plunder to mean "to take from (violently and destructively)" or "to take from in a clever way and build upon".