Giving Voice: Interpreting texts for children. discussion

The Hobbit is the prequel to J.R.R. Tolkien's famous trilogy, The Lord of The Rings.

Anybody interested in modern high fantasy and its roots, needs to have an idea of the influence of Tolkien that is still seen in the "High Fantasy" genre today.

According to Wikipedia: "High fantasy or epic fantasy is a subgenre of fantasy that is set in invented or parallel worlds. High fantasy was brought to fruition through the work of authors such as J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis, whose major fantasy works were published in the 1950s.[1] High fantasy has become one of the two genres most commonly associated with the general term fantasy, the other being sword and sorcery, which is typified by the works of Robert E. Howard." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_fan...

So, basically, in high fantasy, you're going to find a world that is not quite Earth as we know it. It may be similar, but different rules, usually magical ones, operate, and in Tolkien's world, creatures from (mostly European) mythology and folklore are present. We find wizards, dwarves, dragons, hobbits, elves, orcs, talking (and even walking) trees.

Does all that sound familiar? Well, Tolkien was the first to put them together in that specific familiar mix that we know, but he himself drew from earlier sources.

Dragons being slain by knights in shining armor, as we know, derive from medieval European mythology. (Celtic, Norse, Merovingian). Dragons seem to be prevalent in many mythologies from all over the world, most conspicuously in China and Europe.

Elves a la Tolkien, derive mainly from Germanic and Nordic folklore, although Tolkien seems to have mixed in quite a bit of Celtic lore into his world as well.

Dryads (spirits who dwell in trees), gnomes, goblins and hobgoblins are all of Celtic origin, as of course are druids which might partly have been a model for Gandalf.

Of course, the Celts have elves as well, though they are not quite as noble in stature as the elves depicted by Tolkien.

Although the scholars all point to the Germanic origins of Tolkien's world, I have always felt Middle-earth to have a distinctly English feel to it.

I invite members to form an open discussion on the following questions:

1) To what extent would you say that Gandalf is modeled upon the figure of Merlin from Arthurian legend?

2) Can you spot the Celtic aspects of Middle-earth, or do you disagree with my position on this? Are hobbits perhaps a form of brownie, or rather, based on 'People fo the Hills'; who in British folklore are sub-subterranean Faeries who live under green mounds?
Can equivalents of Tolkienesque dwarves not be seen in gnomes?

In short, do you agree with the position that Middle Earth is mainly a Nordic/Germanic world, or do you feel, like me, that although it may have Germanic roots, it has assimilated a lot of British/Celtic folklore as well?

Please discuss. No time limit to the discussion.