How much does MacDonald rely on medieval literature for his characters and plots? I've read a fair amount of both Tolkien and MacDonald, and I can see some similarities, but nothing obviously stands out as Tolkien copying wholesale from MacDonald. OTOH both of their writings remind me of medieval stories, e.g. faerie queen, arthurian legends, beowulf, etc.
Moving sentient malevolent trees (from Phantastes) are, AFAIK, MacDonald’s own invention. Also the depiction of the goblin kingdom under the mountain is deeply original, even though the idea itself is older. Tolkien copied both. There are other examples.
The tree thing in MacDonald seems pretty different. In MacDonald's story it looks like a normal person. In Tolkien, we have ents, which are treelike moving giants. The idea of sentient trees in general is very old and appears in a lot of folklore. The root of goblin is kobold and the name means hollow in a rock, and goblins are also a very old and widespread folklore trope. But, perhaps an entire underground kingdom is unique to MacDonald, so Tolkien took that idea.
Ah, that makes more sense. I would still say they are both drawing on common mythic material, e.g. myths of daphne, narcissus, and I think in the odyssey there are bleeding reeds. However, the tree smoothering is similar, so I can grant Tolkien was inspired by MacDonald.
