what type of scale is lady justice holding

Lady Justice is most often depicted with a set of scales typically suspended from her left hand, upon which she measures the strengths of a case's support and opposition. The depiction dates back to ancient Egypt, where the God Anubis was frequently depicted with a set of scales on which he weighed a deceased's heart against the Feather of Truth.[4]

Lady Justice

Lady Justice is an allegorical personification of the moral force in judicial systems.[1][2] Her attributes are a blindfold, a balance, and a sword. She often appears as a pair with Prudentia, who holds a mirror and a snake.

Lady Justice originates from the personification of Justice in Ancient Roman art known as Iustitia or Justitia after Latin: Iustitia,[3] who is equivalent to the Greek goddesses Themis and Dike.

The origin of Lady Justice was Iustitia, the goddess of Justice within Roman mythology. Iustitia was introduced by emperor Augustus, and was thus not a very old deity in the Roman pantheon.

Iustice was one of the virtues celebrated by emperor Augustus in his clipeus virtutis, and a Temple of Iustitia was established in Rome 8 January 13 CE by emperor Tiberius.[3] Iustitia became a symbol for the virtue of justice that every emperor wished to associate his regime with; emperor Vespasian minted coins with the image of the goddess seated on a throne called Iustitia Augusta, and many emperors after him used the image of the goddess to proclaim themselves protectors of justice.[3]

Though formally called a goddess with her own temple and cult shrine in Rome, it appears that she was from the onset viewed more as an artistic symbolic personification rather than as an actual deity with religious significance.

The personification of justice balancing the scales dates back to the Goddess Maat, and later Isis, of ancient Egypt. The Hellenic deities Themis and Dike were later goddesses of justice. Themis was the embodiment of divine order, law, and custom, in her aspect as the personification of the divine rightness of law.

There are three distinctive features of Lady Justice: a set of scales, a blindfold, and a sword.

The Greek goddess Dike is also holding a set of scales.

Bacchylides, Fragment 5 (trans. Campbell, Vol. Greek Lyric IV) (Greek lyric C5th B.C.):

If some god had been holding level the balance of Dike (Justice).

The scales represent the weighing of evidence and are balanced to portray that the evidence should stand on its own.

Since the 16th century, Lady Justice has often been depicted wearing a blindfold. The blindfold represents impartiality, the ideal that justice should be applied without regard to wealth, power, or other status. The earliest Roman coins depicted Justitia with the sword in one hand and the scale in the other, but with her eyes uncovered.[5] Justitia was only commonly represented as "blind" since about the end of the 15th century. The first known representation of blind Justice is Hans Gieng's 1543 statue on the Gerechtigkeitsbrunnen (Fountain of Justice) in Berne.[6]

Instead of using the Janus approach, many sculptures simply leave out the blindfold altogether. For example, atop the Old Bailey courthouse in London, a statue of Lady Justice stands without a blindfold;[7] the courthouse brochures explain that this is because Lady Justice was originally not blindfolded, and because her "maidenly form" is supposed to guarantee her impartiality which renders the blindfold redundant.[8] Another variation is to depict a blindfolded Lady Justice as a human scale, weighing competing claims in each hand. An example of this can be seen at the Shelby County Courthouse in Memphis, Tennessee.[9]

The cover of a 2006 issue of Rolling Stone proclaimed TIME TO GO!, focusing on the perceived corruption that dominated Congress. The drawing showed a bunch of figures evoking reactionary politics emerging from the Capitol. One of the figures was Lady Justice lifting her blindfold, implying that the then-composition of Congress had politicized the criminal justice system.

It represents never favoring the strong nor the weak, the rich nor the poor, the righteous nor the wicked.

The last distinctive feature of Lady Justice is her sword. The sword represented authority in ancient times, and conveys the idea that justice can be swift and final.[4]

The Greco-Roman garment symbolizes the status of the philosophical attitude that embodies justice.[4][unreliable source?]

Lady Justice with sword, scales and blindfold on the Gerechtigkeitsbrunnen in Berne, Switzerlandâ€”1543

The Justice, in front of the Supreme Court of Brazil

Lady Justice seated at the entrance of The Palace of Justice, Rome, Italy

Sculpture of Lady Justice on the Gerechtigkeitsbrunnen (Frankfurt)Â (de) in Frankfurt, Germany

Justitia, outside the Supreme Court of Canada, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

The Central Criminal Court or Old Bailey, London, UK

Themis, Itojyuku, Shibuya-ku, Japan

19th-century sculpture of the Power of Law at Olomouc, Czech Republicâ€”lacks the blindfold and scales of Justice, replacing the latter with a book

Themis, Chuo University, Tama-shi, Japan

Themis, Chuo University Suginami high school, Suginami-ku, Japan

The Law, by Jean Feuchère

Shelby County Courthouse, Memphis, Tennessee, United States

Justitia, Tehran courthouse, Tehran, Iran

Themis, outside the Supreme Court of Queensland, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia

Justice by Diana Moore, Government Center, Newark, New Jersey

Justitia in the Superior Courts Building in Budapest, Hungary

Fresco in the Sala di CostantinoÂ (it), Raphael Rooms, Raphael, c. 1520

Gerechtigkeit, Lucas Cranach the Elder, 1537

Luca Giordano, Palazzo Medici Riccardi in Florence, 1684â€“1686

Justitia (Spitzweg)Â (de), Carl Spitzweg, c. 1857

Lady Justice and her symbols are used in heraldry, especially in the arms of legal government agencies.

Justitia in arms of Ilshofen in Baden-Württemberg

Scales and sword in the arms of a Swedish court of law

Scales balanced on a sword in the arms of Hörby

Prudentia and Justitia as supporters in the armorial achievement of Landskrona

Justice holding scales, $0.50 U.S. fractional currency.


when did town lake became lady bird lake

On July 26, 2007, the Austin City Council passed a controversial resolution authorizing the renaming of the reservoir from Town Lake to Lady Bird Lake in honor of Lady Bird Johnson, who had died earlier that month.[5] Johnson had declined the honor of having the lake renamed for her while she was alive. In renaming the lake, the City Council recognized Johnson's dedication to beautifying the lake and her efforts to create a recreational trail system around the lake's shoreline.[6]

Lady Bird Lake

Lady Bird Lake (formerly Town Lake) is a river-like reservoir on the Colorado River in Austin, Texas, United States. The City of Austin created the reservoir in 1960 as a cooling pond for a new city power plant. The surface area of the lake is 416 acres (168Â ha), and it is currently used primarily for recreation and flood control. The reservoir is named in honor of former First Lady of the United States Lady Bird Johnson.[1]

Lady Bird Lake is the easternmost lake of a chain of reservoirs on the Colorado River, which is completely located in Texas, and should not be confused with the larger Colorado River located in the Southwestern United States. This chain, known locally as the Texas Highland Lakes, also includes Lake Buchanan, Inks Lake, Lake LBJ, Lake Marble Falls, Lake Travis, and Lake Austin.

The City of Austin constructed Longhorn Dam in 1960 to form Town Lake. The city needed the reservoir to serve as a cooling pond for the Holly Street Power Plant, which operated from 1960 until 2007.[2]

Before 1971, the shoreline of Town Lake was mostly a mixture of weeds, unkempt bushes, and trash.[3] Local television station KTBC referred to the lake as an "eyesore."[3] Some concerned Austinites had tried to clean up the lake, but the effort was only partly successful. During his two terms in office (1971â€“75), the Mayor of Austin Roy Butler led the Austin City Council to establish the Town Lake Beautification Committee, and he appointed Lady Bird Johnson as the project's honorary chairman. Johnson's involvement brought attention and money (including $19,000 of her own) to the Town Lake project, allowing for the planting of hundreds of shrubs and trees.[4] The city also built a system of hike and bike trails along the shoreline of the lake.

In 2009, non-profit organization Keep Austin Beautiful launched "Clean Lady Bird Lake".[7] The program mobilizes thousands of community volunteers annually to conduct large-scale cleanups along the lake every other month and targeted cleanups throughout the year.[8][9]

Lady Bird Lake is a major recreation area for the City of Austin. The lake's banks are bounded by the Ann and Roy Butler Hike-and-Bike Trail, and businesses offer recreational watercraft services along the lakefront portion of the trail. Austin's largest downtown park, Zilker Park, is adjacent to the lake, and Barton Springs, a major attraction for swimmers, flows into the lake.

The City of Austin prohibits the operation of most motorized watercraft on Lady Bird Lake.[10] As a result, the lake serves as a popular recreational area for paddleboards, kayaks, canoes, dragon boats, and rowing shells. Austin's warm climate and the river's calm waters, nearly 6 miles (9.7Â km) length and straight courses are especially popular with crew teams and clubs. Along with the University of Texas women's rowing team and coeducational club rowing team, who practice on Lady Bird Lake year-round, teams from northern universities (including the University of Chicago, the University of Oklahoma, and the University of Nebraska) train on Lady Bird Lake during Christmas holidays and spring breaks.[citation needed]

Other water sports along the shores of the lake include swimming in Deep Eddy Pool, the oldest swimming pool in Texas, and Barton Springs Pool, a natural pool on Barton Creek which flows into Lady Bird Lake. Below Tom Miller Dam is Red Bud Isle, a small island formed by the 1900 collapse of the McDonald Dam that serves as a recreation area with a dog park and access to the lake for canoeing and fishing.[11]

Swimming in Lady Bird Lake is illegal due to poor water quality from the run-off from area streets and debris in the water from bridges and dams destroyed by floods in years past. The City of Austin enacted the ban in 1964, and the fine can be up to $500.[12]

Music venues on the banks of Lady Bird Lake are home to a number of events year-round, including the Austin City Limits Music Festival in the fall, the Austin Reggae Festival and Spamarama in the spring, and many open-air concerts at Auditorium Shores on the south bank and Fiesta Gardens on the north bank. The Austin Aqua Festival was held on the shores of Lady Bird Lake from 1962 until 1998.[citation needed] The late Austin resident and blues guitar legend, Stevie Ray Vaughan played a number of concerts at Auditorium Shores and is honored with a memorial statue on the south bank.

The Ann and Roy Butler Hike-and-Bike Trail, formerly the Town Lake Hike and Bike Trail, creates a complete circuit around Lady Bird Lake. It is one of the oldest urban Texas hike and bike paths. The trail is the longest trail designed for non-motorized traffic maintained by the City of Austin Parks and Recreation Department. A local nonprofit, The Trail Foundation, is the Trail's private steward and has made Trail-wide improvements by adding user amenities and infrastructure including trailheads and lakefront gathering areas, jewel box locally-designed restrooms, exercise equipment, as well as doing Trailwide ecological restoration work on an ongoing basis. The Butler Trail loop was completed in 2014 with the public-private partnership 1-mile Boardwalk project which was spearheaded by The Trail Foundation.[13]

The trail is 10.1 miles (16.3Â km) long and mostly flat, with 97.5% of it at less than an 8% grade. The trail's surface is smooth and is mostly crushed granite except for a few lengths of concrete and a boardwalk[14] on the South-side of the lake. A pedestrian bridge incorporated into the trail bridges Barton Creek. The Roberta Crenshaw Pedestrian Walkway spans Lady Bird Lake beneath MoPac Boulevard and provides the trail's westernmost crossing of Lady Bird Lake.

Lady Bird Lake has been stocked with several species of fish intended to improve the utility of the reservoir for recreational fishing. The predominant fish species in Lady Bird Lake are largemouth bass, catfish, carp, and sunfish. Fishing is regulated, requiring a fishing license, and daily bag and length limits apply for most species.

A ban on the consumption of fish caught in the lake was issued by the City of Austin in 1990, as a result of excessively high levels of chlordane found in the fish.[15] Although the use of chlordane as a pesticide was banned in the United States in 1988, the chemical sticks strongly to soil particles and can continue to pollute groundwater for years after its application. The ban on the consumption of fish caught in the lake was finally lifted in 1999.[16] Meeting transcript

The first water treatment facility in the City of Austin, the Thomas C. Green Water Treatment Plant, was built in 1925 to treat water from the Colorado River. The plant occupied 6 acres (2.4Â ha) just west of the principal downtown business district. The water treatment facility was decommissioned in late 2008.[17]


who wins season 16 of america's next top model

The winner was 19-year-old Brittani Kline from Beech Creek, Pennsylvania.

America's Next Top Model (season 16)

The sixteenth cycle of America's Next Top Model premiered on February 23, 2011, and was the tenth season to be aired on The CW.[1] The catch-phrase for this cycle is "Rainy Day Women."

The prizes for this cycle were:

All three permanent judges from the previous cycle – Vogue editor-at-large André Leon Talley, photographer Nigel Barker and Tyra Banks herself – remain.

The international destination for this cycle is Marrakech, Morocco.[2]

(ages stated are at start of contest)[3][4]

First aired February 23, 2011

First aired March 2, 2011

First aired March 9, 2011

First aired March 16, 2011

First aired March 23, 2011

First aired March 30, 2011

First aired April 6, 2011

First aired April 13, 2011

First aired April 27, 2011

First aired May 4, 2011

First aired May 11, 2011

First aired May 18, 2011


who does elle woods fall in love with

The film ends with Elle graduating from Harvard two years later and giving the graduation speech. Vivian broke off her engagement to Warner and is now Elle's best friend, while Warner graduates with no honors, no job offers and no girlfriend. Paulette ends up marrying a UPS guy she had been infatuated with throughout the film and is expecting a baby, to be named Elle. Emmett has started his own firm and he and Elle have been dating since the trial, with him planning to propose to her later that night.

Legally Blonde

Legally Blonde is a 2001 American comedy film based on Amanda Brown's novel of the same name. It was directed by Robert Luketic, scripted by Karen McCullah Lutz and Kirsten Smith, and stars Reese Witherspoon, Luke Wilson, Selma Blair, Matthew Davis, Victor Garber, and Jennifer Coolidge. The film tells the story of Elle Woods, a sorority girl who attempts to win back her ex-boyfriend by getting a Juris Doctor degree. The title is a pun on the term "legally blind".

The film was released on July 13, 2001, and received positive reviews from critics. On Rotten Tomatoes, the critics' consensus states "though the material is predictable and formulaic, Reese Witherspoon's funny, nuanced performance makes this movie better than it would have been otherwise".[3] It was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture: Musical or Comedy[4] and ranked 29th on Bravo's 2007 list of "100 Funniest Movies".[5] Witherspoon received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy, and the 2002 MTV Movie Award for Best Female Performance.

The box office success led to a 2003 sequel, Legally Blonde 2: Red, White & Blonde, and a 2009 direct-to-DVD spin-off, Legally Blondes. Additionally, Legally Blonde: The Musical premiered on January 23, 2007, in San Francisco and opened in New York City at the Palace Theatre on Broadway on April 29, 2007, starring Laura Bell Bundy.

As of June 2018, Witherspoon has been in discussions with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer to produce a third instalment in the Legally Blonde film series. In addition to reprising her role as Elle Woods, Witherspoon is bringing back both Karen McCullah Lutz and Kirsten Smith to pen the film's script.[6] MGM later confirmed in a Twitter post that Legally Blonde 3 is set to be released on February 14, 2020.

Elle Woods, a pretty, rich and popular fashion merchandising student and president of her Delta Nu sorority, is crushed when her boyfriend Warner Huntington III breaks up with her over a romantic dinner rather than proposing to her, as she was expecting. He argues that he needs a more serious woman in order to fulfill his political aspirations, which include attending Harvard Law. Encouraged by her sorority sisters, Elle decides to also enroll in Harvard Law in order to win Warner back. After much effort, Elle manages to gain admission but soon discovers that the personalities and atmosphere in Harvard are very different from hers and she is thrown out of class during her first day by the strict Professor Stromwell and a classmate named Vivian for not having prepared for the lecture. Elle is later horrified to discover that Vivian is Warner's fiancee.

None of Elle's classmates take her seriously and she is friendless at the university aside from Emmett, an associate at Harvard who gives her advice on handling each of her professors, and a beautician named Paulette who encourages her to try to win over Warner. Elle repeatedly tries to fit in with the others but is repeatedly rebuffed. Vivian even goes so far as to lie to Elle about a party invitation, falsely telling her that it was a costume party, humiliating her in front of her classmates. She is also ridiculed by Warner after informing him of her intent to apply for a prestigious internship with Professor Callahan, as Warner tells her that she is not smart enough and is wasting her time. This motivates Elle to prove herself, as she begins to study law seriously and even manages to use her knowledge to help Paulette reclaim her dog from an ex-boyfriend.

After several months of dramatic improvement, Elle, along with Warner, Vivian and another student Enid Wexler, is given an internship at Callahan's law office, where they will be working on a murder case, defending a prominent fitness instructor named Brooke Windham, who refuses to produce an alibi for the murder. Recognizing her as a personal role model and former Delta Nu member, Elle manages to discover the alibi but keeps it secret due to a personal promise with Brooke, which impresses Vivian and leads to the two women beginning to bond after it was revealed that she was keeping the alibi confidential and that Warner blatantly said to sell out her friend for benefits; during their alone time, Vivian revealing to Elle that Warner only got into Harvard via a call from his father (a distinguished alumni) to the school board, because he was on the waiting list.

During the trial Elle manages to find holes in the prosecution's case such as proving that the prosecution's main witness was lying/perjuring about having an affair with Brooke, pointing out that he is gay. Seemingly impressed, Callahan invites Elle to his office later that evening, where he makes a sexual pass at her. Vivian witnesses the pass but not Elle angrily spurning his advances and angrily accuses Elle of using her looks to get ahead. Elle considers leaving Harvard and goes to Paulette's salon to let her know, but is encouraged by Professor Stromwell, who happened to be at the salon.

When the trial resumes, Emmett explains to Brooke how Callahan's behavior caused Elle to quit her internship, leaving Vivian to regret her actions towards Elle. Brooke then decides to fire Callahan and replace him with Elle, who is able to defend her due to Massachusetts' Supreme Judicial Court rule 3.03, which allows Elle to legally appear on a defendant's behalf under Emmett's supervision, as he is a licensed attorney. Although nervous, Elle manages to catch Brooke's step-daughter Chutney in a lie during cross-examination, as she claimed that she could not have heard the gun shot because she was washing her hair after getting a perm earlier that day. Elle then points out that freshly permed hair cannot be washed within a 24 hour period without deactivating the perming chemical ammonium thioglycolate, which Chutney should know as she had received over 30 perm treatments during her life. Upset, Chutney unwittingly reveals that she hated Brooke for being the same age as her. She confesses that she intended to shoot Brooke but accidentally shot and killed her father by mistake, thinking it was Brooke who had entered the house. Chutney is then arrested for murder, with all charges against Brooke dismissed. After the trial Warner unsuccessfully tries to persuade Elle to take him back, only for her to mock him by stating that he is not serious enough for her.

The film is based upon the book of the same name by Amanda Brown, who built the story upon her real life experiences as a blonde attending Stanford Law School, while being obsessed with fashion and beauty, reading Elle magazine, and frequently clashing with the personalities of her fellow peers.[7]

Brown said that when she first arrived to Stanford Law, she discovered she had made a big mistake. "I was in my first week of law school, in 1993, and I saw this flyer for "The Women of Stanford Law," so I was like, "I'll go and meet some nice girls. Whatever."[7]

I went to the meeting, and these were not women. These were really angry people. The woman who was leading it spent three years at Stanford trying to change the name "semester" to "ovester." I started laughing and I realized everyone in the room took it very seriously. So I didn't make any friends there.

Brown wrote letters to her parents about these experiences, which she adapted into a manuscript and sent to an agent, who was initially drawn to it because it was the only manuscript written on pink paper.[7]

Producer Marc Platt was intrigued by the character of Elle Woods when an unpublished novel manuscript was delivered to him.[8] "What I loved about this story is that it's hilarious, it's sexy and, at the same time, it's empowering," says Platt. "The world looks at Elle and sees someone who is blonde and beautiful but nothing more. Elle, on the other hand, doesn't judge herself or anybody else. She thinks the world's great, she's great, everyone's great and nothing can change that. She's truly an irrepressible modern heroine."[8]

Screenwriters Karen McCullah and Kirsten Smith spent two days on Stanford's campus in the spring of 2000 doing research for their screenplay based on Brown's novel.[9]

Both USC and Stanford refused to allow the producers to use their college names in the film.[10] "[The producers of the film] asked if they could set the film at USC, but the images of her as an undergraduate and being in a sorority...we felt there was too much stereotyping going on," says Elijah May, campus filming coordinator at USC. The production settled on having Elle go to a fictional college called CULA.[10]

Although the film is primarily set at Harvard University, campus scenes were filmed at the University of Southern California,[11] University of California, Los Angeles,[12] California Institute of Technology, and Rose City High School in Pasadena, California. The graduation scene was filmed at Dulwich College in London, England, since Witherspoon was in that city filming The Importance of Being Earnest. Harvard University appears in the film briefly in certain aerial shots.

Witherspoon researched the character by studying sorority girls on their campuses and associated hot spots. She went to dinner with them and joked she was conducting an "anthropological study."[13]

"I could have gone into this and been really ditsy and played what I would have thought this character was, and I would have missed a whole other side of her," Witherspoon added.[14] "But by going down to Beverly Hills, hanging out in Neiman Marcus, eating in their cafe and seeing how these women walk and speak, I got into the reality of the character. I saw how polite these women are, and I saw how much they value their female friendships and how important it is to support each other."[14]

You see so many beautiful people in this world, especially in the world that I live in and a lot of your first instincts is to discount women who put a lot of effort into their looks as maybe not serious about their job or maybe not serious about their relationships...I think everyone naturally jumps to those conclusions...I was interested in exploring the difference between [the way] someone looks and how people perceive them and how they really are.
I'm not necessarily perky and bubbly all the time, so it's been a lot of effort to stay up and the amount of care and energy she puts into a lot things has really been a challenge for me and trying to convey that lightness all the time is hard work.[15]

The film's costume designer Sophie De Rakoff bonded with Witherspoon over Dolly Parton.[16] De Rakoff said that Elle's iconic pink suit in the film "was all organic and intuitive. I designed costumes for Elle Woods that moved the story forward and fitted the moment. Reese and I actually went to visit a sorority house in the early prep, and it was just obvious that pink should be her signature color."[16]

The "bend and snap" scene — where Elle explains to Paulette how to get her crush's attention — almost didn't make it into the movie.[17]
"[Producer] Marc [Platt] wanted a B plot for Paulette (Jennifer Coolidge)," co-writer Karen McCullah told Entertainment Weekly. "At first we were like, 'Should the store be robbed?'" Co-writer Kirsten Smith observed, "I think we spent a week or two trying to figure out what the B plot and this big set piece should be. There were crime plots. We were pitching scene after scene and it all felt very tonally weird."[17]

Later, while brainstorming at a bar in Los Angeles, McCullah came up with a solution: "What if Elle shows [Paulette] a move so she can get the UPS guy?" In the spur of the moment, Smith invented a move, standing up and demonstrating what would become the bend and snap. Smith explains, "It was a spontaneous invention. It was a completely drunken moment in a bar." Director Robert Luketic later adapted the "bend and snap" move into a dance number for the film.

"...It was a fully choreographed number by Toni Basil, and she was awesome," Witherspoon recalls. "She did the whole dance."[18]

"I remember just reading it and thinking it was the most hysterical thing ever," she added. "That is still the most asked request I get from people. Even this past year, when I have been giving speeches or talking about whatever, they always ask me, 'Will you do the bend and snap?' I have a feeling I will be doing the bend and snap until I am 95."

Legally Blonde was released on July 13, 2001 in North America. Its opening weekend gross of $20 million[2] made it a sleeper hit for the struggling MGM studio, and it went on to gross $96.5 million in North America and $45.2 million elsewhere, for a worldwide total of $141.7 million.[2] The film was released in the United Kingdom on October 26, 2001, and opened on #2, behind American Pie 2.[19]

The film was a critical success. Based on 130 reviews, collected by review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, 68% of the critics gave Legally Blonde positive ratings, ranking the film as "fresh". Most reviews praised Reese Witherspoon's lead performance, although some denigrated the overall film.[20] Metacritic reported that the film had an average score of 59, based on 31 reviews.[21] At the 2001 Golden Globe Awards ceremony, the film was nominated for the Golden Globe for Best Picture – Musical or Comedy. The same year, Witherspoon was also nominated for the Golden Globe for Best Actress – Musical or Comedy.[22]

The film is recognized by American Film Institute in these lists:

A soundtrack album was released in 2001 on A&M Records, including the songs:

In February 2007, a musical adaptation premiered on Broadway to mixed reviews, starring Laura Bell Bundy as Elle, Christian Borle as Emmett, Orfeh as Paulette, Nikki Snelson as Brooke, Richard H. Blake as Warner, Kate Shindle as Vivienne, and Michael Rupert as Callahan. Other cast members included Andy Karl, Leslie Kritzer, Annaleigh Ashford, DeQuina Moore, and Natalie Joy Johnson. The show, Bundy, Borle, and Orfeh were all nominated for Tony Awards. Later, the Broadway show was the focus of an MTV reality-TV series called Legally Blonde: The Musical – The Search for Elle Woods, in which the winner would take over the role of Elle on Broadway. Bailey Hanks from Anderson, South Carolina, won the competition.

Legally Blonde had a successful run at the Savoy Theatre in London's West End, starring Sheridan Smith, Susan McFadden, and Carley Stenson as Elle, and Duncan James, Richard Fleeshman, Simon Thomas, and Ben Freeman as Warner. During the three-year run, the cast also included Alex Gaumond, Denise Van Outen, and Lee Mead.


where was the first st patrick's day parade held

The world’s first recorded St Patrick’s Day celebration was in St. Augustine, Florida, in the year 1600 according to Dr. Michael Franicis's 2017 research in the Spanish Archives of the Indies. Franicis discovered the first St. Patrick Day Parade was also in St. Augustine in 1601.
[4]. Both were organized by the Spanish Colony's Irish vicar Ricardo Artur (Richard Arthur).

Saint Patrick's Day in the United States

Saint Patrick's Day, although a legal holiday only in Suffolk County, Massachusetts[1] (where it is recognized alongside Evacuation Day) and Savannah, Georgia,[2] is nonetheless widely recognized and celebrated throughout the United States. It is primarily celebrated as a recognition of Irish and Irish American culture; celebrations include prominent displays of the color green, eating and drinking, religious observances, and numerous parades. The holiday has been celebrated on the North American continent since the late 18th century.

According to the National Retail Federation, consumers in the United States spent $4.4 billion on St. Patrickâ€™s Day in 2016. This amount is down from the $4.8 billion spent in 2014.[3]

The Charitable Irish Society of Boston organized the first observance of Saint Patrick's Day in the Thirteen Colonies in 1737.[5] Surprisingly, the celebration was not Catholic in nature, Irish immigration to the colonies having been dominated by Protestants.[6]:8 The society's purpose in gathering was simply to honor its homeland, and although they continued to meet annually to coordinate charitable works for the Irish community in Boston, they did not meet on 16 March again until 1794.[6]:8 During the observance of the day, individuals attended a service of worship and a special dinner.[6]:8

New York's first Saint Patrick's Day observance was similar to that of Boston. It was held on 16 March 1762 in the home of John Marshall, an Irish Protestant, and over the next few years informal gatherings by Irish immigrants were the norm. The first recorded parade in New York was by Irish soldiers in the British Army in 1766.[6]:9 The first documented St. Patrick's Day Celebration in Philadelphia was held in 1771. Philadelphia's Friendly Sons of St. Patrick was found to honor St. Patrick and to provide relief to Irish immigrants in the city. Irish Americans have celebrated St. Patrick's Day in Philadelphia since their arrival in America. General George Washington, a member of Philadelphia's Friendly Sons of St. Patrick, actively encouraged Irish American patriots to join the Continental Army.[7] In 1780, while camped in Morristown, NJ, General Washington allowed his troops a holiday on 17 March "as an act of solidarity with the Irish in their fight for independence."[8][9][10] This event became known as The Saint Patrick's Day Encampment of 1780.[11][unreliable source?]

Irish patriotism in New York City continued to soar, and the parade in New York City continued to grow. Irish aid societies like Friendly Sons of Saint Patrick and the Hibernian Society were created and marched in the parades. Finally when many of these aid societies joined forces in 1848, the parade became not only the largest parade in the United States but one of the largest in the world.[12]

The City of Savannah, Georgia, has hosted Saint Patrick's Day celebrations since 1824. It boasts a celebration rivaling that of New York City in size and fervor. Unlike any other cities, Savannah's historic parade is always held on March 17, not on the neighboring weekend. Festivities begin more than a week in advance with[13] communal rituals and commemorative ceremonies, such as the St.Patrick's Parade. Such events were, in fact, the main factors in shaping Irish-American identity as recognized today.[14] In fact, leading up to the 1870s, Irish-American identity in the United States was reworked through the shifting character of the Saint Patrick's Day rituals and features under three separate occasions: initially, in 1853 when it undertook a "spiritual rhetoric" notion, then when it became known as a "reformulated memory of an Irish past couched in terms of vengeance against Britain" to, finally, adopting a "sectarian catholic nationalism" attitude in the 1870s and 1880s.[15]

In fact, ceremonies represent the very "junctures at which processes of identity formation surface through representation," which implies that ritual practices represent the molding tools people turn to in order to build a national identity.[16] Furthermore, incorporating "the analysis of commemorative rituals" becomes a valuable element "in the context of broader historical studies" as such analysis reveals much about the collective conscience of the Irish-American community.[17]

There is a clear gradual shift toward a nationalist attitude in the Irish-American Diaspora which can be detected in the prose of Doheny's commemorative speech in 1853, but the "complete ascendency to a nationalist [approach] in Irish identity" truly came in the 1870s and 1880s.[18] More important, there were already numerous evidences of a national identity present in the Irish Catholic labouring classes prior to the settlement of an Irish-Catholic community in America.[19] Despite the longing memory of a loved lost Ireland, the main factor that contributed to creating a clear "sense of group unity" in the Irish-American community really came with the hatred sentiments that were felt towards "British oppression and resistance".[19]

Furthermore, there is a turnover in perspectives towards the causes of the Great famine in the mind of the Irish-American that can be traced: one that varies from a "mourning religious view", seen in Archbishop Hughes' sermon, to a perspective that shifts the blame towards the British monarchy for its indifference and greed, seen in Cahill's speech in 1860.[20] From that point on, all the following commemorative speeches on the Saint Patrick's Day invoked nationalist themes such as "British hatred" and "heroic struggle" and led the way for the creation of a "new parade" which gained in adherents and absorbed "elements of American patriotism and full-fledged nationalism".[21] The end result was such that the Irish-American community came to regard itself in the 1870s as a community that defined itself by dual loyalties on one hand, and in another as "a unified common organism," which gathered in strength on the basis that they had a common past, "not a religious one but one that centered on the common Irish experience of British oppression and suffering".[22] In other words, this goes to show that the shifting character of commemorative rituals experienced during the Saint Patrick's parade have influenced the development of American culture in a larger sense, since it contributed to enriching its heritage and making of its Irish-American Diaspora a prideful concept to be celebrated and admired.[23]

In every year since 1991, March has been proclaimed Irish-American Heritage Month by the US Congress or President due to the date of Saint Patrick's Day. Christian denominations in the United States observing this feast day include the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, Protestant Episcopal Church, and the Roman Catholic Church.[24] Today, Saint Patrick's Day is widely celebrated in America by Irish and non-Irish alike.[24] For most Irish-Americans, this holiday is both religious and festive.[25] It is one of the leading days for consumption of alcohol in the United States, as individuals are allowed to break their Lenten sacrifices for the day in order to celebrate Saint Patrick's Day.[26][27] The consumption of artificially colored green beer is a common celebration. Green Beer Day, for instance, is a tradition among students at Miami University (Miami of Ohio), dating to 1952; the day has been held on the Thursday before spring break due to the fact that Saint Patrick's Day often occurs during the spring recess. The holiday has been criticized for promoting over-indulgence in alcohol, resulting in drunk driving, property damage, absenteeism, public urination and vomiting, and other ill effects. A notable difference between traditions widely observed in the United States versus those of Ireland is the consumption of corned beef, which is not a traditional Irish dish, but rather one that was adopted by the new immigrants upon their arrival in the 19th Century.

Many people choose to wear green colored clothing and items.[24] Traditionally, those who are caught not wearing green are pinched "affectionately".[28]

Seattle and other cities paint the traffic stripe of their parade routes green. Chicago dyes its river green and has done so since 1962 when sewer workers used green dye to check for sewer discharges and had the idea to turn the river green for Saint Patrick's Day. Originally 100 pounds of vegetable dye was used to turn the river green for a whole week but now only forty pounds of dye is used and the color only lasts for several hours.[29] Indianapolis also dyes its main canal green. Savannah dyes its downtown city fountains green. Missouri University of Science and Technology - St Pat's Board Alumni paint 12 city blocks kelly green with mops before the annual parade.[citation needed] In Jamestown, New York, the Chadakoin River (a small tributary that connects Conewango Creek with its source at Chautauqua Lake) is dyed green each year.[30]

Columbia, South Carolina, dyes its fountain green in the area known as Five Points (a popular collegiate location near the University of South Carolina). A two-day celebration is held over St Patrick's Day weekend. In Boston, Evacuation Day is celebrated as a public holiday for Suffolk County.  While officially commemorating the British departure from Boston, it was made an official holiday after Saint Patrick's Day parades had been occurring in Boston for several decades and is believed to have been popularized because of its falling on the same day as Saint Patrick's Day.[1] Since 1992, the participation of gay and lesbian people in the Boston parade has been disputed and this was the subject of the 1995 U.S. Supreme Court case Hurley v. Irish-American Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual Group of Boston. The New York parade has experienced a similar controversy since 1991,[31] with boycotts by Mayors Menino and Dinkins, and De Blasio, and Walsh expected to boycott in 2014.

In the Northeastern United States, peas are traditionally planted on Saint Patrick's Day.[32]

Many parades are held to celebrate the holiday. The longest-running public parades are:

People in Atlanta, Georgia celebrate St. Patrick's Day by holding a parade that courses through several blocks of a main portion of the city, particularly on Peachtree Street in Midtown Atlanta.[45]  In 2012, what was called the largest Irish flag in history was used in Atlanta's parade.[45]  The St. Patrick's Day parade has been held in Atlanta since 1858.[46]  In the 2014 parade, more than 200 units participated from across the South, and as far away as Ireland.[46]

A parade is held the Sunday before St. Patrick's Day, annually since the 1856, starting at the Washington Monument and ends at Market Place in the Inner Harbor.  The Shamrock 5k is held just before the parade starts.  There are large events held in the Federal Hill, Canton, Inner Harbor, and Fell's Point neighborhoods.  The parade in Baltimore is the largest in Maryland.

St. Patrick's Day is indirectly observed as an official holiday in Boston, as it coincides with the official Evacuation Day holiday observed annually since 1901 to commemorate the day in 1776 that British troops ended their occupation of Boston.[47]   A large St. Patrick's Day parade is held in South Boston, Massachusetts.[48][47]  The 3.2-mile parade route starts at Andrew Square (at Broadway MBTA Red Line stop), at the intersection of Dorchester Avenue and Broadway in South Boston, Massachusetts, and travels Dorchester Street to Telegraph Street looping through Dorchester Heights and then bearing right onto East Fourth Street it continues down to 'P' Street bearing left onto East Broadway where it ends (at the Andrew MBTA Red Line stop).  Major George F.H. Murray of the Ninth Regiment of the Army was the first chief marshal of Boston's St Patrick's Day parade in 1901.[47] In 2015 the first gay groups (Boston Pride and OutVets) marched in Boston's St. Patrick's Day parade.[49]

The city of Buffalo has two full Saint Patrick's Day parades. The first is the "Old Neighborhood Parade," in its 24th year in 2017, which takes place in the city's historic Old First Ward in South Buffalo on the Saturday nearest Saint Patrick's Day (before or after); through 2015, that parade followed a route used by the original Saint Patrick's Day parades in Buffalo, until crowd concerns and drunken rowdiness forced the city to reroute the parade through wider roads in the First Ward.[50] The older, larger "Buffalo Saint Patrick's Day Parade" (in its 75th consecutive year in 2017) also takes place, usually on the day after the Old Neighborhood parade. That parade runs from Niagara Square along Delaware Avenue to North Street.[51][52]  The latter parade is the third largest parade in New York State behind the New York City Parade and the Pearl River Parade.

In addition to the full parades, Talty's Tavern in South Buffalo also holds a spoof parade that lasts only one block.[53]

Butte Montana's mining history brought in a large population of Irish immigrants, to the point that Gaelic was spoken as a common language in the mines and Butte had the highest percentage of Irish population of any city in America, including Boston.[54]  Today, the city's population is under 40,000 people, and the annual St. Patrick's Day celebration brings in roughly 30,000 visitors each year, nearly doubling the city's population for the day.  Butte has a long history of running a parade through the Uptown District of the city and hosting music at a number of venues, including numerous bars, including one featuring booths created from church pews that had been imported from Dublin and a stone imported from County Clare at the door for visitors to touch.[55]  Until 2013 there was no open container law in Butte, and the current ordinance only prohibits open containers between 2:00 am and 8:00 am.[56] The day's events have a reputation for rowdy celebrations.[57]

The Irish comprise one of the largest ethnic groups in Chicago.[58] Although the Irish are present throughout the city, the Beverly, Bridgeport, Morgan Park, and Mount Greenwood neighborhoods have had strong Irish-Catholic populations as does the adjacent suburbs of Blue Island, Alsip, Merrionette Park, and Oak Lawn. People on the south side that are of Irish heritage are known as the "South Side Irish," and have long had an influential role in the political and economic scene of the city. They even have their own song that features lines pronouncing pride in Irish-American heritage.

The city has many different Saint Patrick's Day celebrations, the most famous being the dyeing of the Chicago River. Each year, the city hosts a parade downtown, which is preceded by the dyeing of the Chicago River.  The dyeing of the river involves thousands of people lining the banks of the river and watching as a boat releases dye into the river and turns the river a kelly green color.  The Chicago Journeymen Plumbers Union Local 130 has historically sponsored the river dyeing and know the secret to the dye mix.[59]

Another famous celebration is the South Side Irish parade. This is known as more of a celebration by those of Irish heritage rather than a popular activity attended by people of all heritages like the downtown celebration has been known. This parade features traditional Irish dancers, as well as various businesses and organisations from around the city. This parade has been scaled back in recent years as the Saint Patrick's Day committee announced that it was becoming too large for the community to handle. In 2010, the South Side Parade was suspended. Due in part to pressure from community businesses—particularly pubs and package goods stores—as well as local churches on the city, the parade was reinstated in 2012.  Of the various St. Patrick's Day parades in Chicago, the South Side parade tries to be family friendly and currently has a zero tolerance policy for public alcohol consumption while attending the parade.[60]

The Chicago White Sox baseball team, who play on the South side, are known for their "Halfway to Saint Patrick's Day" promotion held in September, when the team wears white jerseys with green pinstripes and caps, in lieu of the usual black.

As Ohio's largest and oldest St. Patrick's Day celebration, Cleveland has honored its Irish heritage with an annual Saint Patrick's Day parade first begun in 1842.  The parade always occurs on March 17, no matter the day of the week.  Originally held in the city's nearby westside neighborhoods, where a higher percentage of the population was of Irish descent, the parade route today runs along Superior Avenue, downtown, from East 18th Street to Public Square.

In recent years, over 15,000 registered participants march in the parade and display their floats in front of hundreds of thousands of spectators.[61]  A new record attendance was set in 2012 with over 500,000 people.[62]

As part of the parade ceremonies, a Grand Marshal is annually chosen to preside over the procession. This is an honorary title given to a man "usually in his senior years, who has contributed significantly to the advancement of the Irish Activities in Cleveland." This recognition has been part of the parade since 1935, while "Mother of the Year" was established as a distinguished position since 1963.

Each year Saint Patrick's in Five Points welcomes over 40,000 people living the luck of the Irish and celebrating all things Gaelic. Continually growing and improving, the festival includes a 10K and 5K run, a fun-filled parade, family entertainment, Irish food and craft offerings, child attraction, the Pot Oâ€™ Gold Playland, a swinging shag dance exhibition and DJ throwdown, as well as five outdoor stages with live music hosting over 25 musical acts.

The city of Dallas, Texas has held a Saint Patrick's Day parade since 1979 down Greenville Avenue.  It is the largest celebration in the city.  It was almost canceled in 2012 due to rising costs, but was saved by local resident billionaire Mark Cuban.[63]

St. Patrick's Day was first formally celebrated in Detroit in 1808.[64] The current parade, sponsored by the United Irish Societies, began in 1959. It is held in Detroit's Corktown neighborhood, named after the its Irish residents who primarily immigrated from County Cork.

The "World's Smallest Saint Patrick's Day Parade" occurs in Enterprise, Alabama, each year.[65] A person of Irish descent, generally dressed in festive garb and carrying a large Irish flag, is the only person in the parade. He, or she, walks one block from the courthouse to the Boll Weevil Monument and back to the courthouse. The parade is reported by local[66] and national news.[67]

The New Jersey city of Hoboken has held an annual Saint Patrick's Day parade since 1986.[68] The parade takes place at 1Â pm and marches down Washington Street from 14th Street to 1st Street.

Over the years, there has been much controversy surrounding the public intoxication during this event. The city has issued a zero tolerance policy, and has been enacting $2,000 minimum fines for any alcohol-related offence.[69]

This western Massachusetts factory town was the site of massive Irish immigration in the 19th century and hosts a parade its organizers claim is the second largest in the United States. It is scheduled on the Sunday following Saint Patrick's Day each year. Attendance exceeds 300,000, with over 25,000 marchers through a 2.3-mile route in the city of 40,000. A 10K road race and many events create a remarkable festival weekend.[70] Each year an Irish-American who has distinguished himself or herself in his or her chosen profession is awarded the John F. Kennedy National Award. JFK was a National Award Winner in the 1958 Holyoke Parade. Other winners include author Tom Clancy, Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge, and actor Pat O'Brien[71]

The Hot Springs, Arkansas, parade is among world's shortest and is held annually on historic Bridge Street, designated "The Shortest Street in the World" in the 1940s by Ripley’s Believe It or Not.[72][73] The street is 98 feet long, making it suitable for the shortest Saint Patrick's Day parade in the world.[74]

Mal's St. Paddy's Parade in downtown Jackson started in 1983 and has grown each year.  The parade is the brainchild of Jackson entrepreneur Malcolm White, who is now the executive director of the Mississippi Arts Commission.[75]  For years, a highlight of the parade was the Sweet Potato Queens, who started a separate parade in 2011 because their ranks of marchers had grown too numerous.[76]

The Southern Nevada (formerly Las Vegas) Sons and Daughters of Erin have put on a parade since 1966. It was formerly held on Fremont Street in downtown Las Vegas, later moved to 4th Street. Since 2005, the parade has been held in downtown Henderson. It is the biggest parade in the state of Nevada with over 100 entries. The celebration includes a three-day festival, carnival and classic car show in Old Town Henderson.[citation needed]

Maryville, Missouri, home of Northwest Missouri State University, annually holds a parade sponsored by The Palms Bar and Grill that has been recognised by the Guinness Book of World Records as the shortest Saint Patrick's Day parade. It runs approximately 1/2 of a block.

Historically the largest entry port for Irish immigrants in the US South, New Orleans has maintained a large population of Irish heritage. The earliest record of Saint Patrick's Day celebrations in the city is 1809.  Saint Patrick's Day traditions going back to the 19th century continue, including multiple block parties and parades.

The New Orleans parades are mostly based around neighborhood and community organizations. Major parades include the Irish Channel parade, the Downtown Irish Parade starting in the Bywater neighborhood, multiple parades in the French Quarter, and a combined Irish-Italian Parade celebrating both Saint Patrick's Day and Saint Joseph's Day.  As with many parades in New Orleans, the influence of Mardi Gras is apparent, with some of the floats being reused from local Carnival parades, and beads and trinkets being thrown to those along the parade route. New Orleans Saint Patrick's Day parades are also famous for throwing onions, carrots, cabbages, potatoes, and other ingredients for making an Irish stew.

Various suburbs and surrounding communities also hold celebrations, including parades in Metairie, Slidell, and an Irish Italian Isleño Parade in Chalmette.[77]

The New York parade not only has become the largest Saint Patrick's Day parade in the world but is also one of the oldest civilian parades in the world. In a typical year, 150,000 marchers participate in it, including bands, firefighters, military and police groups, county associations, emigrant societies and social and cultural clubs with two million spectators line the streets.[78] The parade marches up the 1.5-mile route along 5th Avenue in Manhattan, is a five-hour procession, and is always led by the 69th Infantry Regiment (New York). The commissioner of the parade always asks the commanding officer if the 69th is ready, to which the response is, "The 69th is always ready." New York politicians—or those running for office—are always found prominently marching in the parade. Former New York City Mayor Ed Koch (who was of Jewish ethnicity) once proclaimed himself "Ed O'Koch" for the day, and he continued to don an Irish sweater and march every year up until 2003, even though he was no longer in office.[79]

For many years the parade banned gay groups, saying groups could not display banners identifying their sexuality.[80][81][82][83][84] On September 3, 2014, the organizers of the parade announced a decision to lift the ban on gay groups, saying they preferred to keep the parade non-political and the ban was having the opposite effect.[85] In 2015 OUT@NBCUniversal, an organization of gay employees of NBCUniversal, became the first gay group to march in the parade.[86]

In 1989 Dorothy Hayden Cudahy became the first female Grand Marshal of the New York City Saint Patrick's Day Parade; in 1984 she had become the first woman, as well as the first American-born person, to be elected president of the County Kilkenny Association.[87][88][89]

The New York parade is moved to the previous Saturday (16 March) in years where 17 March is a Sunday. The event also has been moved on the rare occasions when, due to Easter's falling on a very early date, 17 March would land in Holy Week. This same scenario arose again in 2008, when Easter fell on 23 March, but the festivities occurred on their normal date and were enjoyed by a record number of viewers.[90] In many other American cities (such as Philadelphia), the parade is always held on the Sunday before 17 March, regardless of the liturgical calendar.

Omaha's "Stockyards" opened in 1883 and was once considered the largest livestock market in the world.  This led to many ethnic groups' settling in the surrounded area, one of which is Irish. The Irish were the third largest ethnic group in South Omaha in the 20th century.  Today the Ancient Order of Hibernians (AOH) Sarpy County Division's St. Patrick's Day Parade has more than 130 entries and lasts more than 90 minutes as it snakes through downtown and the Old Market.

Pearl River attracts a crowd of 100,000 people, making it the second largest parade in New York state behind the New York City Parade.  The parade started in 1963.[91]

The St. Patrick Society sponsors a St. Patrick’s Day Parade and Party on March 17 of each year.  The Parade participants march along the designated parade route through downtown Peoria.  Awards are presented in the following parade categories:  Business Entries, Family Entries, and Organizational Entries.  The Parade route ends near the designated site of the family-focused St. Patrick’s Day Party where families (Irish Clans) meet and enjoy Irish Music, Irish Dance and Irish refreshments.[92]

St. Patrick's Day in Pittsburgh is consistently ranked as one of the biggest and best St. Patrick's Day celebrations in the United States.[93] The parade in Pittsburgh dates back to 1869 and continues to draw record numbers of people out to celebrate as over 23,000 march in the parade which attracts almost 500,000 out to party. The city basically shuts down for the day to celebrate as the downtown area and many of the cities bridges and tunnels are filled with patrons heading out for the day's festivities.  Pittsburgh also has one of the highest percentage of its population that identifies as Irish (over 13.5%) as any city in the U.S.[94]

One of the largest in the nation, the St. Patrick's Day parade in Philadelphia is held on the Sunday before every St. Patrick's Day, and began there in 1771.[95][96] Prior to the first parade, the Irish were already celebrating St. Patrick's Day in Philadelphia. Before the America republic was founded, Irishmen came together in 1771 to pay honor to Ireland's patron as founding members of the Society of the Friendly Sons of St. Patrick for the relief of Emigrants from Ireland. George Washington, who has encouraged the many Irish soldiers under his command during the American Revolution to fete St. Patrick's Day, was an honorary member of this society. The designation of March 17 as a day of special observance was a very early Philadelphia custom.[7]

In 2013, the parade included about 20,000 participants in more than 150 groups.[96]  Participants included marching bands, youth groups, music dance groups, Irish associations, float riders and operators, and flag carriers.[96] After years of being on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway in Central Philadelphia, the 2017 parade route started at John F. Kennedy Boulevard and 16th Street. It then continues its approach to Philadelphia City Hall, goes down 15th Street around City Hall to approach Market Street. It then goes down Market past Independence Hall and reaches its conclusion at Penn's Landing.[95]

A large Irish population in this cluster of Midwestern cities hosts an impressive St. Patrick's Day parade.  It is "the only bi-state St. Patrick's Day Parade in the USA", according to the St. Patrick's Day Society of the Quad Cities (http://www.stpatsqc.com/GrandParade.htm), crossing the Centennial Bridge from Rock Island, Illinois into Davenport, Iowa.  Being so close to Chicago, this parade still gathers around 200,000 annually on its historical parade route.  Some travel experts have labeled it as one of the top St. Patrick's Day parades in North America.  Much of this is due to the unique nature and small town hospitality you get in the Quad Cities.  The whole area combined is a population of around 350,000, with Davenport being the largest city at just under 100,000.[citation needed]

Rolla is home to the Missouri University of Science & Technology (formerly known as University of Missouri-Rolla, and Missouri School of Mines), an engineering college. Inasmuch as Saint Patrick is the patron saint of engineers, the school and town's celebrations start ten days before Saint Patrick's Day, with a downtown parade held the Saturday before Saint Patrick's. A royal court is crowned, and the streets in the city's downtown area are painted solid green. Each year's celebrations are said to be "The Best Ever." In 2008, Rolla celebrated its "100th Annual Best Ever Saint Patrick's Day 2008" celebration.[citation needed]

In previous years, a pit of green liquid was made by students as part of the festivities, and named 'Alice'--stepping into Alice was a rite of bravery. In recent years the university faculty has banned the practice out of health concerns.[97]

San Diego's 2015 St. Patrick's Day Parade and Festival is the 35th Anniversary of the largest St. Patrick's Day Parade west of the Mississippi. Lasting two hours and featuring over 120 entries, the theme for the day is "Celebrating Faith and Freedom" as designated by the Irish Congress of Southern California (ICSC). Enjoyed by more than 30,000, the St. Patrick's Day Parade and Festival includes three performance stages, a Kid's Zone, a Celtic Village, dozens of crafts and food booths, two beer gardens hosted by Guinness. Held in Balboa Park, the event was founded by James Foley who had helped organize the St. Patrick's Day Parade in Hartford, Connecticut before he and his wife, Pat, moved to San Diego to open the Blarney Stone Pub.[98][99]

There has been a Saint Patrick's Day celebration in San Francisco since 1852.  San Francisco has always had a large Irish American population and for many decades Irish Americans were the largest ethnic group in San Francisco.  However, as of the early 21st century, the largest ethnic group in San Francisco is Chinese Americans and most of the Irish Americans have moved to the suburban parts of the San Francisco Bay Area.  Each year, however, Irish from all over the San Francisco Bay Area come into San Francisco to march in or to see the Saint Patrick's Day parade march down Market Street, held the Sunday before Saint Patrick's Day.  Numerous people from all ethnic groups can be seen wearing green in San Francisco on Saint Patrick's Day.[citation needed]

The annual Saint Patrick's Day celebration includes a 5K Fun Run and Walk, a pancake breakfast, a festival, and a parade. The parade is popular with residents and visitors from outside Dublin alike, and has been growing in popularity each year. It is sponsored by the Dublin Host Lions Club and features bands and colorful floats. The Dublin firefighters sponsor the pancake breakfast, and tours of the firehouse are popular with children. The festival continues all weekend, and features food, games, kiddie rides, arts & crafts, and information about local organizations. The festival had been held near the end of the parade route in Shamrock Village on Amador Valley Blvd., but was relocated to the Civic Center on Dublin Blvd., in 2007, moving it closer to the growing population in the eastern part of Dublin.

One of the largest parades is held in Savannah, Georgia.  The parade held in Savannah is the largest in Georgia.[46]  Many Irish settled in Savannah even in the earliest years since those freed from debtors' prison were invited to join General James Oglethorpe's fledging colony.  There is a Mass at the Cathedral of Saint John the Baptist prior to the parade.  In the early 1960s, there was an attempt to dye the Savannah River green, but all it produced was an irregular green stripe in the middle of the river.   In 2006, the Tánaiste was featured in the parade. The parade travels through Savannah's Historic District.

Some confusion exists about the year of the first Saint Patrick's Day parade in Savannah. There is some evidence that a private parade was held by "an unidentified group" referred to as "Fencibles" on 17 March 1813.[100][101] Another source states that the first St. Patrick's Day celebration in Savannah was held in 1818.[46]  However, it is generally accepted that the first publicly held Saint Patrick's Day procession was in 1824, organized by the Hibernian Society.[33][102]

The 2012 Parade included over 360 participants making it the largest parade in the history of the City of Savannah.[103]  Organizers say that the 2012 crowd was well over a million people.[103]

Due to the rich history of Scranton participation in Saint Patrick's Day festivities it is one of the oldest parades in the United States. It has been going on annually since 1862 by the Saint Patrick's Day Parade Association of Lackawanna County and the parade has got attention nationally as being one of the better Saint Patrick's Day parades. The parade route begins on Wyoming Avenue and loops up to Penn Avenue and then Lackawanna Avenue before going back down over Jefferson Avenue to get to Washington Avenue.  Since 1962 the St. Patrickâ€™s Parade Day Association of Lackawanna County, Pennsylvania, has conducted this nationally acclaimed parade the weekend before the feast of St. Patrick.[citation needed]

Seattle Washington's Saint Patrick's Day Parade,[104] recognized by CNN in 2009 as one of the "Five places to get your green on" in America,[105] travels along a 1-mile route through the Emerald City's downtown financial and retail core the Saturday before Saint Patrick's Day. Seattle's Saint Patrick's Day Celebration is the largest and oldest in the Northwestern United States. In 2009, some 20,000 spectators and groups from throughout the Northwest turned out for the city's Irish shenanigans. Along with the annual "Laying 'O the Green" where Irish revellers mark the path of the next morning's procession with a mile-long green stripe, the Seattle parade marks the high-point of Seattle's Irish Week festivities. The week-long civic celebration organized by the city's Irish Heritage Club [4] includes the annual Society of the Friends of Saint Patrick Dinner where a century-old Irish Shillelagh[106] has been passed to the group's new president for 70 years, an Irish Soda Bread Baking Contest, a Mass for Peace that brings together Catholics and others in a Protestant church, and the annual Irish Week Festival, which takes place around Saint Patrick's Day is enormous, including step dancing, food, historical and modern exhibitions, and Irish lessons. Many celebrities of Irish descent visit Seattle during its Saint Patrick's Day Celebration. In 2010 The Right Honorable Desmond Guinness, a direct descendant of Guinness Brewery founder Arthur Guinness, will serve as the parade's grand marshal. In 2009, The Tonight Show's Conan O'Brien made a guest appearance at the annual Mayor's Proclamation Luncheon at local Irish haunt F.X. McCrory's. And in 2008, European Union Ambassador to the US and former Irish Prime Minister John Bruton served as the parade's grand marshal and marched alongside Tom Costello, the mayor of Galway, Seattle's Irish sister city. Spokane, in eastern Washington, also hosts a Saint Patrick's Day Parade.

In the city of Syracuse, NY, Saint Patrick's celebrations are traditionally begun with the delivery of green beer to Coleman's Irish Pub on the last Sunday of February. Coleman's is located in the Tipperary Hill section of the city. Tipperary Hill is home to the World-famous "Green-on-Top" Traffic Light and is historically the Irish section in Syracuse. Saint Patrick's Day is rung in at midnight with the painting of a Shamrock under the Green-Over-Red traffic light. Syracuse boasts the largest Saint Patrick's Day celebration per-capita in the United States with their annual Syracuse Saint Patrick's Parade,[107] founded by Nancy Duffy, an honoured journalist in the Central New York area and an active community leader, and Daniel F. Casey, a local Irishman and businessman. "The parade remains a major annual event, typically drawing an estimated crowd of more than 100,000 visitors to downtown Syracuse, as well as 5,000 to 6,000 marchers."[108]

The Tallahassee Irish Society has been hosting an annual Saint Patrick's Day event in Tallahassee since 1999.  In 2010, along with the City of Tallahassee, the first annual Saint Patrick's Day parade and Downtown Get Down is being hosted along Adams Street.[109]

A one-day music festival with a parade called National ShamrockFest has been held in Washington, D.C. each year since 2000 in association with Saint Patrick's Day. Approximately 40,000 people attend each year.

The St. Patrickâ€™s Parade of Washington, D.C. was first held in 1971. The parade route runs down Constitution Avenue from 7th to 17th Streets, N.W and features marching bands, pipe bands, Irish dance schools, military, police, and fire departments, as well as floats and novelty groups.  [110]

The Worcester County St. Patrick's Day Parade has been held annually on the Sunday before St. Patrick's Day since 1983. The parade route runs along Park Avenue, beginning at Mill St. and ending at Elm Park. The parade can often see crowds of over 100,000 people.[111]

Although Major League Baseball is still in its preseason spring training phase when Saint Patrick's Day rolls around, some teams celebrate by wearing holiday-themed uniforms. The Cincinnati Reds were the first team to wear Saint Patrick's Day hats in 1978. The Philadelphia Phillies hold the distinction of being the first baseball team to wear green uniforms on Saint Patricks Day. The tradition was started by Phillies pitcher Tug McGraw, who dyed his uniform green the night before March 17, 1981.[112] Along with the Phillies, many other teams have since started wearing Saint Patrick's day themed jerseys, including the Boston Red Sox in 2004, who were also the second team to wear Saint Patrick's Day hats in 1990;[113][114] the green uniforms have also been worn twice during the regular season, in 2007 and 2008, as a tribute to the NBA's Boston Celtics, whose primary color is green. Since then it has become a tradition of many sports teams to also wear special uniforms to celebrate the holiday. The Los Angeles Dodgers also have a history with the Irish-American community. With the O'Malley family owning the team and more recently Frank McCourt, the Dodgers have had team celebrations or worn green jerseys on Saint Patrick's Day.[115] The Detroit Tigers and Philadelphia Phillies also wear Saint Patrick's Day caps and jerseys.[116] Other teams celebrate by wearing kelly green hats. These teams include: the Chicago Cubs, the Chicago White Sox, the New York Mets, the San Diego Padres, the Atlanta Braves, the Pittsburgh Pirates, the Kansas City Royals, the Seattle Mariners and the St. Louis Cardinals.[117] The Washington Nationals have fan green hat day on 17 September to represent 6 months to Saint Patrick's Day. The White Sox belatedly celebrate Saint Patrick's Day every second week of September by wearing a variation of their pinstriped home uniforms, featuring green instead of black, as part of their "Halfway to St. Patrick's" promotion.

Nearly all Major League Baseball teams now produce Saint Patrick's Day merchandise, including Kelly green hats, jerseys, and T-shirts.[118]

Four National Basketball Association teams adopt their third jerseys exclusively for Saint Patrick's Day (or Saint Patrick's Day week). During Saint Patrick's Day week, the Boston Celtics, whose road jersey is green, wear their gold/green jerseys, the Chicago Bulls wear their black/green alternate jersey which was introduced in the 2005–06 season, and the Toronto Raptors wear their black/green alternate jerseys which was introduced during the 2007–08 season. During Saint Patrick's Day games, the New York Knicks wear their green/orange alternate, which they adopted in the 2005–06 season, but in the 2009–10 season, they adopted it for both March 17 and Christmas (the league makes a conscious effort to schedule games between teams with green uniforms and red uniforms on the holiday).

The practice is not present in college basketball, due to the holiday being largely overshadowed by Championship Week and the subsequent NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Championship, NIT and lesser tournaments.

The New Jersey Devils of the National Hockey League traditionally wear their throwback uniforms, which include green in the color scheme (green was removed from the Devils' uniforms in 1992), on Saint Patrick's Day and did so for their 2010 and 2012 games against the Pittsburgh Penguins. They also wore them, albeit belatedly, on March 18, 2011 against the Washington Capitals; the Devils played a road game on March 17.[119] Although the Devils, Dallas Stars and Minnesota Wild (the last two of which have green in their regular color schemes) are the only U.S.-based teams to wear green on ice, the league has offered a line of holiday-themed gear to its fans in recent years.[120] The Buffalo Sabres also donned green and white Irish-inspired practice jerseys (complete with insular script for the names and captain designations) prior to their March 16, 2014, March 17, 2015 and March 17, 2018 games (the team switched to their regular gold third jerseys prior to the games themselves); the jerseys were auctioned off for charity after each game.[121] In recent years, many minor-league hockey teams have chosen to wear special commemorative green Jerseys to mark the occasion.[122]

The Buffalo Bandits of the National Lacrosse League (like the NHL's Sabres, owned by Terrence Pegula) introduced a special black-and-green third jersey on their Saint Patrick's Day 2012 game, which was likewise auctioned off for charity.[123]

The only other major American sport, football, is out of season during the Saint Patrick's Day holiday. The National Football League does sell Saint Patrick's Day merchandise for its teams, however.[124]

The Saint Patrick's Day Test (also known as the Donnybrook Cup) is an international rugby league football match played between the United States and  Ireland. The competition was first started in 1995 with Ireland winning the first two tests with the US winning the last 4 in 2000, 2002, 2003 and 2004. The game is usually held on or around 17 March to coincide with Saint Patrick's Day.


where is lord of the rings based on

Some locations and characters were inspired by Tolkien's childhood in Birmingham, where he first lived near Sarehole Mill, and later near Edgbaston Reservoir.[70] There are also hints of the Black Country, which is within easy reach of north west Edgbaston. This shows in such names as "Underhill", and the description of Saruman's industrialization of Isengard and The Shire is explicitly stated by Tolkien to have been based on the industrialization of England.[71] It has also been suggested that The Shire and its surroundings were influenced by the Iron Age and Roman mineral workings and remains which Tolkien saw in 1929 when working with archaeologists Tessa and Mortimer Wheeler at Lydney Park in the Forest of Dean;[72] or alternatively were based on the countryside around Stonyhurst College in Lancashire where he frequently stayed during the 1940s.[73]

J. R. R. Tolkien's influences

While highly creative, the fiction of J. R. R. Tolkien was influenced by a number of sources. Tolkien was inspired by his academic fields of philology and early Germanic literature, especially poetry and mythology, as well as a wide range of other beliefs, culture, and experiences.

The Lord of the Rings is a sequel to The Hobbit and so shares influences with it. At the same time, it is a novel which is much greater in scale and scope and so encompasses many other influences as well.

Tolkien once described The Lord of the Rings to his friend, the English Jesuit Father Robert Murray, as "a fundamentally religious and Catholic work, unconsciously so at first, but consciously in the revision."[1] Many theological themes underlie the narrative, including the battle of good versus evil, the triumph of humility over pride, and the activity of grace, as seen with Frodo's pity toward Gollum. In addition the epic includes the themes of death and immortality, mercy and pity, resurrection, salvation, repentance, self-sacrifice, free will, justice, fellowship, authority and healing. Tolkien mentions the Lord's Prayer, especially the line "And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil" in connection with Frodo's struggles against the power of the One Ring.[2] Tolkien has also said "Of course God is in The Lord of the Rings. The period was pre-Christian, but it was a monotheistic world" and when questioned who was the One God of Middle-earth, Tolkien replied "The one, of course! The book is about the world that God created â€“ the actual world of this planet."[3]

Tolkien was heavily influenced by Nordic/Norse mythology. During his education at King Edward's School in Birmingham, the then young Tolkien read and translated from the Old Norse on his own time.[4] One of his first Nordic purchases was the Völsunga saga. It is known that while a student, Tolkien read the only available English translation[5][6] of the Völsunga saga, that by William Morris of the Victorian Arts and Crafts Movement and Icelandic scholar Eiríkur Magnússon.[7] The Völsunga saga and the Nibelungenlied were coeval texts made with the use of the same ancient sources.[8][9] Both of them provided some of the basis for Richard Wagner's opera series, Der Ring des Nibelungen, featuring in particular a magical golden ring and a broken sword reforged. In the Völsungasaga, these items are respectively Andvarinaut and Gram, and they correspond broadly to the One Ring and the sword Narsil (reforged as Andúril).[10] The Volsunga Saga also gives various names found in Tolkien. Tolkien wrote a book entitled The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrún, in which he discusses the saga in relation to the myth of Sigurd and Gudrún.

Tolkien's Elves and Dwarves are by and large based on Norse and related Germanic mythologies[11][12] Two sources that contain accounts of elves and dwarves that were of interest to Tolkien were the Prose Edda and the Elder or Poetic Edda. The descriptions of elves and dwarves in these works are ambiguous and contradictory, however. Within the contents of the Völuspá, specifically in stanza 9, the creation of Dwarves predates Man, which is precisely the formula Tolkien uses for Middle-earth.[13] The names of Gandalf and the dwarves in The Hobbit were taken from the "Dvergatal" in the Elder Edda and the "Gylfaginning" in the Prose Edda.[14]

The figure of Gandalf is particularly influenced by the Norse deity Odin[15] in his incarnation as "The Wanderer", an old man with one eye, a long white beard, a wide brimmed hat, and a staff. Tolkien, in a letter of 1946, nearly a decade after the character was invented, wrote that he thought of Gandalf as an "Odinic wanderer".[2] Much like Odin, Gandalf promotes justice, knowledge, truth, and insight.[14]

The Balrog and the collapse of the Bridge of Khazad-dÃ»m in Moria, is a direct parallel of the fire giant Surt and the destruction of Asgard's bridge in Norse myth.[16]

Tolkien was a Professor of Old English/Anglo-Saxon and Middle English language and literature, and this literature, particularly Beowulf, influenced his own writings.[11] As Tolley tells us in his Old English Influences on The Lord of the Rings,[17] the ideas of heroism and masculinity that inform the character of Beowulf, can also be seen in Aragorn. Both Aragorn and Beowulf have questionable family lines,[citation needed] and both take on kingship only for the good of the people. Other themes, such as the conversation in The Hobbit between Bilbo Baggins and Smaug the dragon, as well as the antagonism created by the mere mention of gold and even the concept of riddles, are also reflected in Beowulf.[11] Tolkien also based the people of Rohan, the Rohirrim, on the historical Anglo-Saxons, giving them Anglo-Saxon names, customs, and poetry.[11][18] The Anglo-Saxon poem, "The Wanderer," is paraphrased by Aragorn as an example of Rohirric verse.

Another major influence on Tolkien is riddle poetry from Anglo-Saxon England. Some of the oldest surviving Old English manuscripts contain riddle poems, such as the Leiden Riddle in the Leiden MS. The contest between Bilbo and Gollum is a good example of this.

Finnish mythology and more specifically the Finnish national epic Kalevala were also acknowledged by Tolkien as an influence on Middle-earth.[19] In a manner similar to The Lord of the Rings, the Kalevala centres around a magical item of great power, the Sampo, which bestows great fortune on its owner, but never makes clear its exact nature. Like the One Ring, the Sampo is fought over by forces of good and evil, and is ultimately lost to the world as it is destroyed towards the end of the story. In another parallel, the work's wizard character, Väinämöinen, is similar to Gandalf in his immortal origins and wise nature, and both works end with the wizard character departing on a ship to lands beyond the mortal world. Tolkien also based elements of his Elvish language Quenya on Finnish.[20][21]

The extent of Celtic influence is debatable. Tolkien wrote that he gave the Elvish language Sindarin "a linguistic character very like (though not identical with) British-Welsh... because it seems to fit the rather 'Celtic' type of legends and stories told of its speakers".[22] A number of the names of characters and places in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings have been found to have Welsh origin.[23] In addition, the depiction of elves has been described as deriving from Celtic mythology.[24]

Though Tolkien denied the influence of Arthurian legends, several parallels have been drawn.[25][26][27][28] Gandalf has been compared with Merlin,[29] Frodo and Aragorn with Arthur,[30] Galadriel with the Lady of the Lake.[25]

Tolkien was also influenced by more modern literature. The Ent attack on Isengard was inspired by "Birnam Wood coming to Dunsinane" in Shakespeare's Macbeth.[31] Charles Dickens' The Pickwick Papers has likewise been shown to have reflections in Tolkien.[32]

One of the greatest influences on Tolkien was the Arts and Crafts polymath William Morris. Tolkien wished to imitate Morris's prose and poetry romances,[33] along with the general style and approach; he took elements such as the Dead Marshes in The Lord of the Rings[34] and Mirkwood in The Hobbit from Morris.[35] He was also influenced by the modern fantasy author George MacDonald, who wrote The Princess and the Goblin. Books by the Inkling author Owen Barfield are also known to have contributed to his world-view, particularly The Silver Trumpet (1925), History in English Words (1926) and Poetic Diction (1928). Edward Wyke-Smith's Marvellous Land of Snergs, with its "table-high" title characters, strongly influenced the incidents, themes, and depiction of Bilbo's race in The Hobbit.[36]

The character George Babbitt from Babbitt was another inspiration for hobbits.[37]

In his biography of Tolkien, Carpenter[38] notes that in the limited amount of time Tolkien could apply to the reading of fiction, he "preferred the lighter contemporary novels". The stories of John Buchan are listed as an example. Critics such as Hooker[39] have detailed the resonances between the two authors.

Another contemporary adventure novel, H. Rider Haggard's She, was acknowledged by Tolkien in an interview: "I suppose as a boy She interested me as much as anythingâ€”like the Greek shard of Amyntas [Amenartas], which was the kind of machine by which everything got moving."[40] A supposed facsimile of this potsherd appeared in Haggard's first edition, and the ancient inscription it bore, once translated, led the English characters to She's ancient kingdom. Critics have compared this device to the Testament of Isildur in The Lord of the Rings[41] and Tolkien's efforts to produce as an illustration a realistic page from the Book of Mazarbul.[42] Critics starting with Edwin Muir[43] have found resemblances between Haggard's romances and Tolkien's.[44][45][46][47]

Tolkien scholar Mark T. Hooker has catalogued a series of parallels between The Hobbit and Jules Verne's Journey to the Center of the Earth. These include, among other things, a hidden runic message and a celestial alignment that direct the adventurers to the goals of their quests.[48]

Tolkien wrote of being impressed as a boy by Samuel Rutherford Crockett's historical novel The Black Douglas and of basing the Necromancer – Sauron – on its villain, Gilles de Retz.[49] Incidents in both The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings are similar in narrative and style to the novel,[50] and its overall style and imagery have been suggested as having had an influence on Tolkien.[51]

Tolkien wrote that stories about "Red Indians" were his favourites as a boy. Shippey mentions Tolkien's interest in the primeval forests and people of North America, and speculates that the romantic descriptions of characters in James Fenimore Cooper might have influenced his descriptions of Aragorn and Ã‰omer.[52]

Though he read many of Edgar Rice Burroughs' books, he denied that the Barsoom novels influenced his giant spiders: "I did read many of Edgar Rice Burroughs' earlier works, but I developed a dislike for his Tarzan even greater than my distaste for spiders. Spiders I had met long before Burroughs began to write, and I do not think he is in any way responsible for Shelob. At any rate I retain no memory of the Siths or the Apts."[53]

Some critics have suggested that The Lord of the Rings was directly and heavily derived from Richard Wagner's opera cycle, Der Ring des Nibelungen, whose plot also centres on a powerful ring.[54] Others have argued that any similarity is due to the common influence of the Volsunga saga and the Nibelungenlied on both authors.[55][56]

Tolkien sought to dismiss critics' direct comparisons to Wagner, telling his publisher, "Both rings were round, and there the resemblance ceases." According to Humphrey Carpenter's biography of Tolkien, the author claimed to hold Wagner's interpretation of the relevant Germanic myths in contempt, even as a young man before reaching university.[57]

Some researchers take an intermediate position: that both the authors used the same sources, but that Tolkien was influenced by Wagner's development of the mythology,[58][59] especially the "concept of the Ring as giving the owner mastery of the world that was Wagner's own contribution to the myth of the Ring".[60] Wagner probably developed this element by combining the ring with a magical wand mentioned in the Nibelungenlied that could give to its wearer the control "over the race of men".[61][62] In addition, the corrupting power of Tolkien's One Ring has a central role in Wagner's operas but was not present in the mythical sources.[63][64]

Some argue that Tolkien's denial of a Wagnerian influence was an over-reaction to the statements of Åke Ohlmarks, Tolkien's Swedish translator, who in the introduction to his much-criticized translation of The Lord of the Rings "mixed material from various legends, some which mention no ring and one which concerns a totally different ring".[65][66][67] Furthermore, critics believe that Tolkien was reacting against the links between Wagner's work and Nazism.[68][69]

The Lord of the Rings was crucially influenced by Tolkien's experiences during World War I and his son's during World War II.[74]

After the publication of The Lord of the Rings these influences led to speculation that the One Ring was an allegory for the nuclear bomb.[75] Tolkien, however, repeatedly insisted that his works were not an allegory of any kind.[76] He states in the foreword to The Lord of the Rings that he disliked allegories and that the story was not one.[77] Instead he preferred what he termed "applicability", the freedom of the reader to interpret the work in the light of his or her own life and times.[77] Tolkien had already completed most of the book, including the ending in its entirety, before the first nuclear bombs were made known to the world at Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945.

Bedeviled, a book by Lewis/Tolkien scholar Colin Duriez, discusses in more depth how the World Wars and concepts of evil and suffering influenced the writings of Tolkien and his literary group, the Inklings.

The Silmarillion is a complex work exhibiting the influence of many sources.

A major influence was the Finnish epic Kalevala, especially the tale of Kullervo. Tolkien admitted that he had been "greatly affected" by Finnish mythologies,[78] and even credited Kullervo's story with being the "germ of [his] attempt to write legends".[79] Tolkien attempted to rework the story of Kullervo into a story of his own, and though he never finished,[80] similarities to the story can still be seen in the tale of Túrin Turambar.[81] Both are tragic heroes who accidentally commit incest with their sister who on finding out kills herself by leaping into water. Both heroes later kill themselves after asking their sword if it will slay them, which it confirms.

Similarly, the Valar also contain elements of Norse mythology. Several of the Valar have characteristics resembling various Æsir, the gods of Asgard.[82] Thor, for example, physically the strongest of the gods, can be seen both in Oromë, who fights the monsters of Melkor, and in Tulkas, the physically strongest of the Valar.[15] Manwë, the head of the Valar, exhibits some similarities to Odin, the "Allfather".[15][83]

The division between the Calaquendi (Elves of Light) and Moriquendi (Elves of Darkness) also echoes Norse mythology, which has its own Light elves and Dark elves.[84] The Light elves of Norse mythology are associated with the gods, much as the Calaquendi are associated with the Valar.[85][86] also the werewolves seem to be inspired by werewolves from Völsunga saga as well as Fenris the Warg

There are numerous sources from Slavic mythology found in J. R. R. Tolkien's novels. An example is the Istar (wizard) named Radagast and his home at Rhosgobel; both are usually taken to have Slavic sources from the Slavic god, Rodegast, a god of the Sun, war, hospitality, fertility, and harvest.[87] Rhovanion was, also, a name from Slavic origin.[87] The Anduin River, from which "Anduin" was the Sindarin name for The Great River of Wilderland, is said to have similar sources related to the Danube River, from which the river flows mainly among the Slavic people and played an important role in their folklore.[87]

Influence from Greek mythology is also apparent. The island of Númenor, for example, recalls Atlantis.[88] Tolkien's Elvish name "Atalantë" for Númenor resembles Plato's Atlantis[89] furthering the illusion that his mythology simply extends the history and mythology of the real world.[90] In his Letters, however, Tolkien described this merely as a "curious chance."[91]

Greek mythology also colours the Valar, who borrow many attributes from the Olympian gods.[92] The Valar, like the Olympians, live in the world, but on a high mountain, separated from mortals;[93] Ulmo, Lord of the Waters, owes much to Poseidon, and Manwë, the Lord of the Air and King of the Valar, to Zeus.[92] But the correspondences are only approximate; Tolkien borrows ideas from Greek mythology, but does not model the Valar and Maiar on Greek deities.

Tolkien also compared Beren and LÃºthien with Orpheus and Eurydice with the gender roles reversed.[94]

Tolkien has compared Túrin in the Children of Húrin to Oedipus among other mythological figures:

There is the Children of Húrin, the tragic tale of Túrin Turambar and his sister Níniel – of which Túrin is the hero: a figure that might be said (by people who like that sort of thing, though it is not very useful) to be derived from elements in Sigurd the Volsung, Oedipus, and the Finnish Kullervo.[95]

Fëanor has been compared with Prometheus by researchers such as Verlyn Flieger.[96] They share a symbolical and literal association with fire, are both rebels against gods's decrees and, basically, inventors of artefacts that were sources of light, or vessels to divine flame.

The Bible and traditional Christian narrative also influenced The Silmarillion. Tolkien was a devout Roman Catholic. The conflict between Melkor and Eru Ilúvatar parallels that between Satan and God.[97] Further, The Silmarillion tells of the creation and fall of the Elves, as Genesis tells of the creation and fall of Man.[98] As with all of Tolkien's works, The Silmarillion allows room for later Christian history, and one version of Tolkien's drafts even has Finrod, a character in The Silmarillion, speculating on the necessity of Eru's (God's) eventual Incarnation to save Mankind.[99] A specifically Christian influence is the notion of the Fall of man, which influenced the Ainulindalë, the Kinslaying at Alqualondë, and the fall of Númenor.[78]

Though Tolkien wrote of "a certain distaste" for Celtic legends, "largely for their fundamental unreason",[100] The Silmarillion may betray some Celtic influence. The exile of the Noldorin Elves, for example, has parallels with the story of the Tuatha Dé Danann.[101] The Tuatha Dé Danann semi-divine beings, invaded Ireland from across the sea, burning their ships when they arrived and fighting a fierce battle with the current inhabitants. The Noldor arrived in Middle-earth from Valinor and burned their ships, then turned to fight Melkor. Another parallel can be seen between the loss of a hand by Maedhros, son of Fëanor, and the similar mutilation suffered by Nuada Airgetlám ("Silver Hand/Arm") during the battle with the Firbolg. Nuada received a hand made of silver to replace the lost one, and his later appellation has the same meaning as the Elvish name Celebrimbor: "silver fist" or "Hand of silver" in Sindarin (Telperinquar in Quenya).[102]

Another similarity between the Silmarillion and the Lebor Gabála Érenn can be seen by comparing Nuada and Lugh (who possessed a famed magic spear, the Spear Luin) and the outcome of their respective confrontations against Balor of the Evil Eye with the events surrounding Celebrimbor and Gil-galad (whose weapon is the spear Aeglos[103]) and their conflicts with Sauron of the Lidless Red Eye in the Second Age.

Other authors, such as Donald O'Brien, Patrick Wynne and Carl Hostetter, Tom Shippey,[104] David Day[105] have pointed out the similarities between Beren and Lúthien, one of the main storylines of the Silmarillion, and Culhwch and Olwen, one the tales collected in the Welsh Mabinogion.

In both, the male heroes make rash promises after having been stricken by the beauty of non-mortal maidens; both enlist the aid of great kings, Arthur and Finrod; both show rings that prove their identities; both are set impossible tasks that include, directly or indirectly, the hunting and killing of ferocious beasts (the wild boars, Twrch Trwyth and Ysgithrywyn, and the wolf Carcharoth) with the help of a supernatural hound (Cafall and Huan). Both maidens possess such beauty that flowers grow beneath their feet when they come to meet the heroes for the first time, as if they were living embodiments of spring.

The Mabinogion itself was part of the Red Book of Hergest, which the Red Book of Westmarch probably imitates.[106][107]

The Arthurian legends are part of the cultural heritage appearing in Celtic and Welsh mythology. Though Tolkien denied this influence, several parallels between the legends and Tolkien's stories have been found by numerous specialists. Verlyn Flieger, in particular, has investigated the correlations at length and has studied their numerous parallels with Tolkien's creative methods.[108] Flieger points out visible correspondences such as Avalon and Avallónë and Broceliande and Broceliand, the original name of Beleriand.[109] Tolkien himself said that Frodo and Bilbo's departure to Tol Eressëa (also called "Avallon" in the Legendarium) was an "Arthurian ending".[109][110] Such correlations are discussed in the posthumously published The Fall of Arthur, which includes an entire section, "The Connection to the Quenta", on Tolkien's treatment of Arthurian material and its influence on The Silmarillion.

Another parallel is the tale of Sir Balin in the Arthurian Legend with that of Túrin Turambar. Though Balin knows he wields an accursed sword, he nevertheless continues his quest to regain King Arthur's favour; yet he unintentionally causes misery wherever he goes. Fate eventually catches up with him when he unwittingly kills his own brother, who in turn mortally wounds him. Similarly, Turin accidentally kills his friend Beleg with his sword.[111]