Tolkien says he loved “heroic legend on the brink of fairy-tale and history.”
The borderland where myth feels almost historical, and history feels almost mythic. Arthurian legend lives there. So does the Grail. So does sacred history.
The Great Story is not merely fiction, but not merely ordinary history either. It stands at the threshold where history becomes transparent to myth.
Tolkien says that in myth and fairy-story he was not seeking “simple knowledge,” but “things of a certain tone and air.” (Letter to Milton Waldman, publisher, 1951)
Myth is not only content. It is atmosphere. A story carries a tone, a fragrance, an air, a felt world. Some truths can only be received through atmosphere.