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### Interesting fact of the day
Most of tolkien's work on Lord of the Rings is heavily influenced by the story of sigurd from the Volsunga Saga and the Elder Edda, and ancient story which has many of the elements from LotR in it.
1. There is a dragon that must be slain
2. The dragon hoards gold and as such the gold becomes enchanted with dragon-sickness that causes people to become mad with greed if they try to possess it.
3. Both dragons Glaurung from LotR and Fafnir from the story of Sigurd were killed in the same way, by digging a hole and hiding until the dragon passes over and then thrusting the sword into his heart.
4. There is a broken sword of a king that must be reforged before his son can take the thrown
5. There is a horse that is the "fastest in the world" who is said to be Odin's horse (remember Gandalf is based on Odin).
6. There is an enchanted item (a Helmet instead of a ring) called "The Helm of Dread" that when worn makes a person invisible, much like the ring of power/one ring. Like the one ring it was made of pure gold.
7. There is also a cursed gold ring that leads anyone who possesses it to death and bad fortune (not unlike the one-ring).
What is even more interesting is that Wagner's Ring Cycle, his most famous work called "Der Ring des Nibelungen" or "The ring of the Nibelungen" is explicitly about the same ring from the story of Sigurd. In the original story of Sigurd the ring belonged to a dwarf named Alberich who had cursed it. But in Wagner's Cycle of the Ring Alberich is still named but in this case he forges the ring himself from rhinegold (gold from the river rhine).
Now what is interesting is in Wagner's version the ring takes on properties much more similar to that of the one ring in the LotR in that it gives a person dominion and power over the world.
So in short Tolkien wrote the LotR firstly by being inspired but the story of Sigmund, but likely also drew inspiration from the elements in the Cycle of the Ring.
