fleurdufeu reblogged
“You look at trees and called them ‘trees,’ and probably you do not think twice about the word. You call a star a ‘star,’ and think nothing more of it. But you must remember that these words, ‘tree,’ ‘star,’ were (in their original forms) names given to these objects by people with very different views from yours. To you, a tree is simply a vegetable organism, and a star simply a ball of inanimate matter moving along a mathematical course. But the first men to talk of ‘trees’ and ‘stars’ saw things very differently. To them, the world was alive with mythological beings. They saw the stars as living silver, bursting into flame in answer to the eternal music. They saw the sky as a jeweled tent, and the earth as the womb whence all living things have come. To them, the whole of creation was ‘myth-woven and elf patterned’.”
— J.R.R. Tolkien, from ‘Mythopoeia’
#I (shame shame) wasn’t familiar with this tolkien quote#and as I was reading it thought ‘tolkien would love this’#and I got to the attribution like oh. duh.#I love you tree hugging linguistics georg#I really feel this though#and certain specific kinds of nature always feel tolkien to me#this post brought to you because the beach and the woods make me think of tolkien#oh look that tag from the last time I had that feeling#trees#jrr tolkien#humanity#language#the stars