And that's the rub. One of the reasons why Tolkien wrote the books was because he looked around and saw that England didn't have much in terms of 'myth, legends, and tall tales' like in the rest of Europe. Sure Britain had King Arthur but at the time that wasn't as known worldwide like it is now. So Tolkien decided to write his own ideas based on the then unknown myths and legends. . .and now that I think about it, Aragorn is King Arthur.