Read the post carefully Musket (sheesh, it's as bad as talking to some others here). "A mixture of myth and sensationalised (and corrupted) accounts of history" coming down through history is what Tolkien studied as an academic. That's the analogy with the bible. I thought I was making it obvious enough.

Lord of the Rings is just a made up story, like most of those ballads discussed above the line. It's irrelevant - other than that the guy who wrote it knew the difference.