I should say that, in addition to my tree-love (it was originally called The Tree), it arose from my own pre-occupation with the Lord of the Rings, t… - J. R. R. Tolkien

Gueroult: I thought that conceivably Midgard might be Middle-earth or have some connection?
Tolkien: Oh, it is; they're the same word. Most people have made this mistake of thinking Middle-earth is a particular kind of Earth or is another planet of the science-fiction sort, but it's simply an old-fashioned word for this world we live in, as imagined surrounded by the ocean.
Gueroult: It seemed to me that Middle-earth was, in a sense, as you say, "this world we live in", but this world we live in at a different era.
Tolkien: No, at a different stage of imagination, yes.

Though all the crannies of the world we filled with elves and goblins, though we dared to build gods and their houses out of dark and light, and sow the seeds of dragons, 'twas our right (used or misused). The right has not decayed. We make still by the law in which we're made.

Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement.