Insanely Mystical and Corrupt Connections with Cinderella’s Castle and Lord of the Rings

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Insanely Mystical and Corrupt Connections with Cinderella’s Castle and Lord of the Rings

Posted on December 5th, 2008 in Topical by Lauren Axelrod

An investigation into history had led to a mysterious connection linking the initial construction of the Neuschwanstein castle and the written words of Richard Wagner.

The Cinderella’s fairytale castle welcomes visitors and their children to a land that is both imaginary and pure fantasy. However, Cinderella’s Castle at the Magic Kingdom was fashioned after a truly bizarre and corrupt individual. So the Castle that was once pure is now a symbol of a mad man’s attempt to rule the country of his birth and to prove that he stood above everyone else in every way.

Mad King Ludwig II was an eccentric individual whose legacy is intertwined with the history of art and architecture, as he commissioned the construction of several extravagant fantasy castles, the most famous being Neuschwanstein.

In 1869, “Ludwig oversaw the laying of the cornerstone for Neuschwanstein Castle on a breathtaking mountaintop site overlooking his childhood home, the castle his father had built at Hohenschwangau.” The walls of Neuschwanstein are adorned with murals depicting scenes from many of Richard Wagner’s operas.

King Ludwig was an ardent fan of the famous composer Richard Wagner and professed his love to him stating ” An earthly being cannot match up to a divine spirit”, the king wrote to Wagner, “But it can love; it can venerate. You are my first love , my only love, and always will be”.

Wagner’s extravagant demands were always met by King Ludwig and he prospered because of it. He was able to complete his life’s work, “The Ring Cycle,” and he made plans to present it in a one of a kind theater built especially for his use.

The Written Words of Richard Wagner

Much to the surprise of gigantic Lord of the Rings fans, the original Ring was written and performed by Richard Wagner in the opera house in Bayreuth. J.R. Tolkien used every character, troll, and prop in the series of books as well as the movie. The works of Richard Wagner, which took him a great part of his life, were initially ripped from his fingers so I am curious to see what J.R. Tolkien would have been able to write without the the entire story already written for him by Wagner.

34 Responses to “Insanely Mystical and Corrupt Connections with Cinderella’s Castle and Lord of the Rings”

Lost in Arizona
December 5th, 2008 at 9:31 am

This is a pretty interesting piece, as I grew up loving Tolkien’s stories (mostly the Hobbit). I always thought that King Ludwig was murdered on account of his eccentricities and madness, but I thought he was drowned. Informative piece.
Jasin
December 5th, 2008 at 9:42 am

Great article, lovely pictures.
CHAN LEE PENG
December 5th, 2008 at 9:50 am

I never knew the “Cinderella’s castle” existed. Great find! Thanks and take care!
Joce Boldi
December 5th, 2008 at 9:51 am

Very informative! I love how you wrote it and how you included the links in your article. I’m going to print this for my husband to read, I know he will LOVE it! Thanks!!
MJPatrick
December 5th, 2008 at 11:54 am

Really magical and informative!
jamie mullen
December 5th, 2008 at 2:00 pm

very interesting
goodselfme
December 5th, 2008 at 2:55 pm

I love everything about this article. Intrigue, information I was not aware of and great pics
nobert soloria bermosa
December 5th, 2008 at 3:28 pm

nice stuff here,i enjoyed it much,thanks
Lauren Axelrod
December 5th, 2008 at 3:52 pm

Thanks for the comments everyone. King Ludwigs murder to this day is still a mystery. Many say he drowned, but he in fact was a great swimmer. many people believe he was murdered for spending all of the countries money on mysterious castles.
Michele Cameron Drew
December 5th, 2008 at 4:27 pm

Excellent work Lauren, one of history’s mysteries. I so love to read history, and you’ve included faerie tales as well. A woman after my own heart.

-M
Will Gray
December 5th, 2008 at 4:36 pm

Very interesting and full of information I did not know. Thanks.
Chris Stonecipher
December 5th, 2008 at 6:14 pm

Fantastic article Lauren! The article quickly grabbed and held my attention. It is well put together and the pictures were wonderful. I enjoy history myself including mythical ones. I added this as a fav in twitter and will put this on SU this weekend. This laptop does not have my password for SU.
This definitely is one of my favorites.
Chris Stonecipher
December 5th, 2008 at 6:28 pm

Lauren,
I also found you on Delicious and added you there as well for friend. I will include this article.
John Turner
December 5th, 2008 at 6:43 pm

wow, those are some big castles…
Eunice Tan
December 5th, 2008 at 8:23 pm

Good job Lauren. This article is interesting with fantastic photos. The 1st picture really remind me to Cinderella’s castle.
Juancav
December 5th, 2008 at 9:22 pm

Magnificent castles, and well explained the facts, which will surely give that talk.
shaun simpson
December 6th, 2008 at 4:31 am

very interesting
Jeoffrey Meister
December 6th, 2008 at 2:47 pm

Insanely interesting! Thanks, Lauren.
John McDonnell
December 6th, 2008 at 7:24 pm

Great story! I’ll never look at Cinderella’s castle the same way. I knew some of the story about Ludwig, but you uncovered lots of interesting details.
Moses Ingram
December 6th, 2008 at 7:32 pm

Great article. Love the pictures.
rileyd
December 7th, 2008 at 2:17 am

Great article very interesting,i loved it.
eddiego65
December 7th, 2008 at 4:14 am

Amazingly interesting article. Great pics too.
Karen N
December 7th, 2008 at 8:44 am

Really interesting article, Lauren.
The castles are gorgeous.
I have a book called Castles of the World and have always wanted to do an article about them
Gerlaine
December 8th, 2008 at 2:17 pm

Lauren you are intensely amazing in your ability to draw in and I like your links at the bottom. I will have to add this element to my own articles.
Patrick Bernauw
December 9th, 2008 at 1:38 pm

This really is my thing, Lauren! Wanted to make a music theatre play about our friend Ludwig, but at last, I went for “Carlota”, Belgian 19th century princess and empress of Mexico, wife of Maximilian (who was executed in Queretaro) and was kept prisoner in a chateau near Brussels for half a century, completely insane.

Yeah, that were the days!
Virginia Wolfe
December 16th, 2008 at 8:54 am

i bet that plenty of lord of the ring fans dont know about that. thanks for the bit of education!
Adam Henry Sears
December 20th, 2008 at 9:35 am

In defense of Tolkien.
Not to discredit the rest of what you wrote here, but it is a bold claim, and a short-sighted one, that compares Wagner’s Ring to Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings. Sure, they both have been steeped in mythology, and sure, they both use trolls, dragons, orcs, dwarves, elves…. but the fact is that these fantastical creatures were a part of folklore since long before Wagner and Tolkien both.

So, the real question is not about who created the folklore, but who wrote the original works. These two stories are completely separate and unique in flavour and theme. Not to mention that not one part of Wagner’s story is equatable to any part of Tolkien’s, or vice versa. Wagner’s story is about greed, Tolkien’s about hope. To say that Tolkien plagiarized from Wagner, is like I said, short-sighted. Tolkien spent almost fourteen years building his story. He may have used bits and pieces of folklore and mythology, but he also revived a dormant genre and gave it a new direction, and being the ‘father’ of modern high fantasy means he pioneered writers of the genre onto a different route, without which we would not have Harry Potter, Eragon, or Twilight.

I think you just made this bold statement in the hopes that Lord of the Rings fans would flock to your article and argue over it, didn’t you? Sure, I’m a fan of Lord of the Rings. But I’m more of a fan of the truth. That’s why I stayed and watched all the relevant you-tube material. There’s nothing there to back up your bold statement. Don’t sell yourself short. Do your homework and back up your statements with hardcore facts
Lauren Axelrod
December 20th, 2008 at 9:06 pm

Although I do respect your comments Henry, my Research was not based on Wiki information but, Doctors of Music and History, old text, and written word.

I did tons of research but, as for selling myself short I would never make a statement about a topic if I knew it didn’t have some truth to it.

As I said, the information was based upon the expertise of Doctors of Musicology, History, and Historians that are experts in this field of research. If you can match those credentials, I’m sure your opinion might sway me a bit more.
Adam Henry Sears
December 22nd, 2008 at 11:39 pm

Hi, Lauren, it’s me again. I’ll offer you some facts this time to back up my previous statements.

First, here’s a look at the basic story of Wagner’s Ring. I trust that you’ve at least seen part of the Lord of the Rings to compare it to?
http://www.well.com/user/woodman/singthing/ring/scenes.html

In spite of their similarities, they are completely different stories.

Does this look anything like the first Act of Lord of the Rings?:
http://users.utu.fi/hansalmi/wagner/walkure1.html

And here is a glossary of Wagner’s Ring; go through it and you’ll see that most of the material here has no similarity at all to Lord of the Rings.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2007/sep/14/classicalmusicandopera1

Here’s another really good synopsis of Wagner’s Ring, which further proves that the similarities between Wagner’s Ring and Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings are few and far between.
http://www.bartleby.com/181/409.html

Now, does that convince you?
Truth does not need credentials to exist. It needs avatars who seek out the truth for themselves, then share what they’ve learned. Thanks again for the opportunity to share with you.
Bren Parks
January 2nd, 2009 at 1:12 pm

Great read!
Glynis Smy
January 20th, 2009 at 2:14 pm

I must have missed this one! Great stuff, I love the info and pics
Lauren Axelrod
January 20th, 2009 at 8:12 pm

Thanks Adam for the education, It’s always nice to learn something new. The funny thing was, those statements were taken from a Doctor of Music which is really interesting to me. I would love for you to show him up, honestly.

Regards
Lauren
Adam Henry Sears
January 21st, 2009 at 9:50 am

Show me where I can find this Doctor of Music, and I will gladly share my findings with him.
denus
March 11th, 2009 at 12:44 am

thats really interesting, well done!