He placed at the very top of this scale the fact that he was “a Christian (which can be deduced from my stories), and in fact a Roman Catholic.”1 Concerning the specifically Catholic dimension, he cited with apparent approval a critic who had seen the invocations to Elbereth and the characterization of Galadriel as “clearly related to Catholic devotion to Mary.” He also referred to another critic who had seen lembas, the Elvish waybread, as signifying viaticum and the Eucharist. Commenting on the astuteness of these critics, Tolkien conceded that “far greater things may color the mind in
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