The beloved Advent hymn O Come, O Come, Emmanuel is far older than its familiar nineteenth-century English form. Its origins lie in the medieval “O Antiphons,” the sequence of chants sung in the final seven days of Advent beginning at least as early as the eighth century. These ancient antiphons, such as O Sapientia, O Adonai, and O Radix Jesse, invoke Christ through vivid titles drawn from Scripture. In The Carols of Christmas, Andrew Gant notes that the hymn’s plainchant roots carried a sense of mystery, antiquity, and linguistic richness that captivated generations of writers, including one who would later reshape the landscape of modern fantasy: J. R. R. Tolkien.
Tolkien, a philologist before he was a novelist, was deeply shaped by medieval languages, liturgy, and poetry. Among the texts that gripped his imagination was the Old English poem Crist, attributed to Cynewulf, which paraphrases and expands the imagery of the “O Antiphons.” In this poem appears the striking figure Éarendel, described as a “brightest of angels” or a radiant morning star. Tolkien first encountered the word as a young man and later wrote that it “pierced my heart,” launching decades of myth making. Gant points out that the linguistic and theological world surrounding the antiphons, including their Latin poetry, English paraphrases, and chant melodies, formed part of the imaginative soil from which Tolkien’s legendarium grew.
The resonance does not stop with Éarendel. Tolkien’s term Middle earth also reflects the cosmological language of early English Christian poetry. The Old English word middangeard, used in biblical translations and devotional verse, refers to the human world situated between heaven above and the underworld below. This worldview saturates the same medieval literary culture that preserved the “O Antiphons” and eventually produced the chant that became O Come, O Come, Emmanuel. Gant shows how such linguistic echoes, rooted in Scripture, chant, and liturgical imagination, helped Tolkien construct a mythic world that feels at once ancient and spiritually resonant.
The hymn’s plea, “O come, O Dayspring,” corresponds to the antiphon O Oriens, which proclaims Christ as the rising light shining on those in darkness. This imagery, so central to Advent, also parallels Tolkien’s lifelong fascination with light as a theological and symbolic force: the light of the Two Trees, the Silmarils, the star of Eärendil. While Tolkien did not simply borrow from the hymn, the shared wellspring of biblical prophecy, medieval poetry, and chant tradition gave him a vocabulary of light, longing, and hope. These traits shape both The Silmarillion and The Lord of the Rings.
Ultimately, as Gant suggests, the connection between Tolkien and O Come, O Come, Emmanuel is not one of direct adaptation but of shared inheritance. Both arise from a long Christian tradition that treasured language, prophecy, and the expectation of redemption. The same medieval world that sang the “O Antiphons” also gave young Tolkien the words that stirred his imagination and through him it gave us Middle earth itself. During Advent, when we sing this ancient hymn, we join a chorus whose imagery has inspired faithful hearts for centuries, weaving together Scripture, song, and story in a way that continues to illuminate our lives today.