Storial

In the same letter to Waldman, Tolkien explains his conviction that "all stories are ultimately about the fall" (Letters 147) and that the Elves, who are the central people of his mythology, must "have a fall, before their 'history' can become storial" (Letters 147).

Verlyn Flieger asserts that "Tolkien envisioned himself doing exactly [what Lonnrot did], constructing a world of magic and mystery, creating a heroic age that, although it might never had existed, would give England a storial sense of its own mythic [...] identity" (29).