The Lay of Leithian

[Niniel]

I'm reading The Lays of Beleriand at the moment, and I have just finsihed The Lay of Leithian. I must say it's one of the best works of Tolkien I have ever read! Many people said they found Tolkien's poetry boring, and I sometimes thought so myself (the Children of Húrin was far less interesting), but the Lay of Leithian is absolutely wonderful! It's a shame Tolkien never finished it, though he got further with it than with many other works.
(This is not really a question or something, just an expression of my admiration for this extremely beautiful poem).

 

[m4r35n357]

Fantastic stuff! It contains a lot of incidental background on the other stories too. Interestingly, it seems that Thingol had carvings of dragons on his walls before they were invented I suppose this should be attributed to artistic licence by the Lay author(s) (whoever they are/were).

 

[Elthir]

Tolkien appears to have reimagined the Lay of Leithian as a song of Numenor. Also, according to the Grey Annals, Glaurung made his first appearance roughly 200 years before Beren entered Thingol's halls . . . perhaps leaving time for stone dragon carvings before Beren arrives.

Or did I miss an earlier reference?

Anyway, I have some depictions of dragons, although certain scientists refuse to acknowledge that they've been invented.

 

[m4r35n357]

Tolkien appears to have reimagined the Lay of Leithian as a song of Numenor. Also, according to the Grey Annals, Glaurung made his first appearance roughly 200 years before Beren entered Thingol's halls . . . perhaps leaving time for stone dragon carvings before Beren arrives.

Or did I miss an earlier reference?

Anyway, I have some depictions of dragons, although certain scientists refuse to acknowledge that they've been invented.

I like the idea of Thingol updating the interior decor in line with current events, like Vaire's tapestries

 

[Alcuin]

I'm reading The Lays of Beleriand at the moment, and I have just finsihed The Lay of Leithian. I must say it's one of the best works of Tolkien I have ever read! … [T]he Lay of Leithian is absolutely wonderful! It's a shame Tolkien never finished it, though he got further with it than with many other works.
(This is not really a question or something, just an expression of my admiration for this extremely beautiful poem).

I heartily agree, Niniel. The “Lay of Leithian” in Lays of Beleriand is enchanting. I have also been reading it – not straight through this time but canto by canto as the spirit moves me. (CS Lewis’ faux commentary on The Gest of Beren and Lúthien citing “Peabody, Pumpernickel, Schuffer and Schick” on six imaginary versions is a riot, as are some of Tolkien’s repartees.) Curufin and Celegorm have declined to a mean lust for power and dominance when Celegorm was once the companion and favorite of Oromë himself – hence his gift of Huan the Hound. Thingol’s harmatia (tragic/fatal flaw) is his pride, even to the point of ignoring the advice of his wife Melian the Maia – who never evinces any surprise at her daughter’s seeming hasty choice of beaus: Did Melian come to Middle-earth to seek out Elu Thingol in order to bring Lúthien into the world, to change the destiny of Men? Lays of Beleriand and Fall of Gondolin are my current go-to readings (interspersed by Farmer Giles of Ham).

Tolkien appears to have reimagined the Lay of Leithian as a song of Numenor.

I can’t see how “Lay of Leithian” would fit as merely “a song of Númenor.” For one thing, such an important work would have been carefully preserved in both Arnor and Gondor – “Aldarion and Erendis” is, by comparison, a minor work, yet Elendil saw to it that this was preserved. But Aragorn tells Frodo and his companions that “it is a long tale of which the end is not known; and there are none now, except Elrond, that remember it aright as it was told of old.” That tells us that it has not been preserved, but lost at least in part: not indicative of a Númenórean tale, but rather one partially forgotten during the long years of the Second and Third Ages: “Lay of Leithian” must have arisen in the First Age, predating Númenor.

The “Tale of the Children of Húrin”, in contrast, seems to have been more carefully preserved in Gondor: that would indeed have been a tale first told by Men, rather than Elves. Men rather than Elves would naturally know the tale more fully, and though such details as Túrin’s sojourns in Doriath and Nargothrond would of necessity come from Eldar of those places, it was Men who knew the whole of the story of the end of Túrin and Níniel. The “Fall of Gondolin” might also have been developed by either Men or Elves, though I deem an Elvish source more likely: The community in Arvernien was a mixed company of Elves and Men, but only the survivors of Gondolin would know the story first-hand: It seems to me an Elda would therefore be the most likely poet.

But the information behind the “Lay of Leithian” could come only from the inhabitants of Doriath and Nargothrond. It would seem that after he first entered Doriath worn and lost following his harrowing passage through Ered Gorgoroth and Nan Dungortheb, Beren was never again in contact with any of the other Edain. Within the legendarium, its source must almost certainly be found in Doriath, where the loss of their much-beloved Lúthien loosed a cascade of disastrous events culminating in the murder of Thingol, the departure of Melian, the short reign of Dior Eluchíl (who was certainly a Man and thus mortal, as Námo Mandos indirectly confirms in the Valar’s debate on the fates of the Peredhil: The irony of the Sindar welcoming and acclaiming a Mortal as sovereign is too often overlooked, though perhaps his appearance led them to falsely conclude he had inherited his mother’s native Elvishness), and the Ruin of Doriath in the Second Kinslaying.

[A]ccording to the Grey Annals, Glaurung made his first appearance roughly 200 years before Beren entered Thingol's halls . . . perhaps leaving time for stone dragon carvings before Beren arrives.

As for the decorative “dragons” carved in stone in Menegroth, I am not troubled by this. If we need explain it in the timeline of the tale, perhaps we can excuse it as a description of the beasts that presaged Glaurung, who was (I think) a clearly “magical” creature into which some wicked spirit in service to Morgoth had entered; yet Morgoth needed some existing creature upon which to work his perversion. Maybe these were the “cold-drakes” mentioned in RotK’s Appendix A.

 

[Elthir]

I'd have to muse more about it, but I'd like to try ideas about preservation and transmission here that revolve around Tolkien's latest characterization (latest that I can find so far), which was a revision to the Later Quenta Silmarillion text, as well as try to be in concert with already published description. The LQ2 revision reads:

"Of their lives was made the Lay of Leithian, Release from Bondage, which is the longest save one of the songs of [the Noldor >] Númenor concerning the world of old;..."


Later still, in note 17 to The Shibboleth of Feanor (written in 1968 or later) it is stated that the Silmarillion is not an Eldarin title or work, but a compilation, probably made in Númenor: "... which includes (in prose) the four great tales or lays of the heroes of the Atani, of which 'The Children of Hurin' was probably composed already in Beleriand in the First Age..."

. . . and concludes (concerning the compiled Silmarillion, and the four great tales in prose, and seemingly the account of Feanor and his making of the Silmarils). 'All however are 'Mannish works'.

Tolkien's parenthetical note above "in prose" is interesting here with respect to the Lay of the Children of Húrin, for Dírhaval wrote in verse and his work was said to be rendered into prose -- by Elfwine according to the older idea -- but now possibly made by an unknown Númenórean.

And JRRT appears to refer to The Children of Húrin with his description of the longest save one of the songs of Númenor, though in any case The Shibboleth note has a good chance of being later.

🐾

 

[Alcuin]

For dating the Later Quenta Silmarillion material, we have good provenance. In the preface to Morgoth’s Ring, “Myths Transformed”, Christopher Tolkien wrote,

​

I believe that virtually all of [the material he is referencing, which includes this material we are discussing] come from the years that saw the writing of Laws and Customs among the Eldar, the Athrabeth, and late revisions of parts of the Quenta Silmarillion — the late 1950s, in the aftermath of the publication of The Lord of the Rings​

​

In part I, he quotes his father’s notes,

​

The three Great Tales must be Númenórean, and derived from matter preserved in Gondor. They were part of the Atanatárion (or the Legendarium of the Fathers of Men). …​

​

They are​

1. Narn Beren ion Barahir also called …. Tale of the Nightingale
2. Narn e mbar Hador containing
   • Narn i Chîn Húrin …; and
   • Narn en Êl (or Narn e Dant Gondolin ar Orthad en Êl)

Atanatárion is literally “of the Fathers of Men”, Narn Beren ion Barahir “Tale of Beren son of Barahir”, Narn e mbar Hador “Tale of the House of Hador”, Narn i Chîn Húrin “Tale of the Children of Húrin”, Narn en Êl “Tale of the Star” in reference to Eärendil and the Silmaril and his search for Valinor, and Narn e Dant Gondolin ar Orthad en Êl “Tale of The Fall of Gondolin and the Rise of the Star”. (The two bulleted points in list item #2 are actually labelled a,b, but BB code doesn’t support that format.)

As for the Atanatárion and its development – for this was clearly something Tolkien envisioned – we might reference also Part Three of “The Drowning Of Anadûnê” in Sauron Defeated, where in the section “(v) The theory of the work”, Christopher Tolkien found his father’s note “on the envelope that contains the texts of The Drowning of Anadûnê:”

​

Contains very old version (in Adûnaic) which is good – in so far as it is just as much different (in inclusion and omission and emphasis) as would be probable in the supposed case:​

1. Mannish tradition
2. Elvish tradition
3. Mixed Dúnedanic tradition

(The list is actually labelled a,b,c, but again, BB code doesn’t support that format.)

I argue that just as “The Drowning of Anadûnê” has three textual traditions (in Tolkien’s legendarium), so also the three Great Tales as they were preserved among the Dúnedain until the Hobbits first became familiar with them at the end of the Third Age (i.e., canonically in The Lord of the Rings), there must also be textual traditions. For there is more to the note that Christopher Tolkien cites, including this:

​

Here begin the “Annals of Aman”. Rúmil made them in the Elder Days, and they were held in memory by the Exiles [the Noldor]. Those parts which we [the Númenóreans/Dúnedain] learned and remembered were thus set down in Númenor before the Shadow fell upon it.​

​

Rúmil, of course, wrote before the Rebellion of the Noldor, so nothing in his material pertained to the Three Great Tales; but I think it is certain (in the mythos) that much of that material, if not one or two of the original poems themselves (“Lay of Leithian” and “Fall of Gondolin”), must have come from the Eldar.

As we have discussed before (and you and I, Elthir, agreed upon at least in regards to Galadriel), what Tolkien wrote last does not necessarily represent the best fit with his mythos as a whole. Atanatárion is undoubtedly meant to be a work composed by Númenóreans (Dúnedain) either in Númenor or in the first decades of their exile in Middle-earth, probably before the War of the Last Alliance. But its source material outside that of the “Tale of the Children of Húrin” logically belongs to the Elves, survivors of Doriath and of Gondolin, transmitted to Men during their habitation with one another near the end of the First Age, or later by Pengoloð during his sojourn in Númenor on his way to Tol Eressëa following the War of the Elves and Sauron midway through the Second Age. But a late First Age tradition for these tales, which were of great concern to Elros, first King of Númenor, seems most reasonable to me.

 

[Elthir]

In my opinion Tolkien intended two traditions for the Fall of Numenor, a Mixed and a Mannish, as the early Elvish tradition (as it stood) no longer fit the revised scheme -- and add a bit of the new Elvish idea concerning the shape of the world (at least the idea from the Elves Oversea) in the Mannish tradition.

And if we can have multiple traditions of the same story, perhaps Elrond remembers an older version
of the Lay of Leithian in comparison to the Numenorean text that was brought to Middle-earth.

I think something akin to the revised characterization of Rumil's Annals (that Alcuin quoted above) could explain other scenarios as well, as lore passes through Numenor to Middle-earth. Say Tolkien wants to write about the Elvish play-names for fingers: what's the genesis and transmission of such
a text? From Vinyar Tengwar 48, the Synopsis of Pengoloð's Eldarinwe Leperi are Notessi:

"The following account is an abbreviation of a curious document, preserved in the archives of Gondor by strange chance (or by many such chances) from the Elder Days, but in a copy apparently made in Númenor not long before its downfall: probably by or at the orders of Elendil himself, when selecting such records as he could hope to store for the journey to Middle-earth. This one no doubt owed its selection and its copying, first to Elendil's own love of the Eldarin tongues and of the works of the loremasters who wrote about their history; but also to the unusual contents of this disquisition in Quenya: Eldarinwe Leperi are Notessi: The Elvish Fingers and Numerals. It is attributed, by the copyist, to Pengoloð (or Quendingoldo) of Gondolin, and he describes the Elvish play-names of the fingers as used by and taught to children."

Starts with an Elf (keeping in mind oral traditions among the Elves too), goes through Numenor and survives. And how important is this text that it "should" survive?

Important enough to Elendil . . . and to Tolkien

I generally agree that latest text need not mean best text (especially with respect to Galadrielian lore), but so far, the Numenorean Transmission (to simplify things with a name) works for me.

 

[Olorgando]

I'd have to muse more about it, but I'd like to try ideas about preservation and transmission here that revolve around Tolkien's latest characterization (latest that I can find so far), which was a revision to the Later Quenta Silmarillion text, as well as try to be in concert with already published description. The LQ2 revision reads:

"Of their lives was made the Lay of Leithian, Release from Bondage, which is the longest save one of the songs of [the Noldor >] Númenor concerning the world of old;..."


Later still, in note 17 to The Shibboleth of Feanor (written in 1968 or later) it is stated that the Silmarillion is not an Eldarin title or work, but a compilation, probably made in Númenor: "... which includes (in prose) the four great tales or lays of the heroes of the Atani, of which 'The Children of Hurin' was probably composed already in Beleriand in the First Age..."

. . . and concludes (concerning the compiled Silmarillion, and the four great tales in prose, and seemingly the account of Feanor and his making of the Silmarils). 'All however are 'Mannish works'.

Tolkien's parenthetical note above "in prose" is interesting here with respect to the Lay of the Children of Húrin, for Dírhaval wrote in verse and his work was said to be rendered into prose -- by Elfwine according to the older idea -- but now possibly made by an unknown Númenórean.

And JRRT appears to refer to The Children of Húrin with his description of the longest save one of the songs of Númenor, though in any case The Shibboleth note has a good chance of being later.

🐾

"The four Great Tales or Lays of the heroes of the Atani ..."
Note that Christopher published three:

about Beren (and Lúthien), about which JRRT had had a go in poetic form, "The Lay of Leithian"
about Túrin, about which JRRT also had had a go in poetic form, "The Lay of the Children of Húrin"
about Tuor (and the Fall of Gondolin), of which a fragment of a poem "The Lay of the Fall of Gondolin" is mentioned in HoMe vol. 3 "The Lays of Beleriand"

The fourth? The greatest unfinished tale of JRRT's, in either long or poetic form practically nonexistent, except for "Fragment of an alliterative Lay of Eärendel", again mentioned in HoMe vol. 3, the Tale of Eärendel.

It's possibly somewhere in letters, I'm guessing that huge letter #131 to Milton Waldman of Collins, that JRRT stated that LoTR and The Sil were of about equal length! Granted even that JRRT would have told the three tales that Christopher later published in stand-alone books at greater length than Christopher did in the published Sil, the statement about equal length still boggles the mind (mine, anyway). What was missing was Eärendel. JRRT had planned that (and perhaps the abandoned alliterative fragment, too) to be by far the longest of the tales, as Eärendel was without a doubt the greatest if the four heroes of the Atani (and of the exiled Elves, too), and was also the son of the youngest of the other three, Tuor.

But as to the whole "mannish tradition" bit, that will continue to raise my hackles seriously, and curl my lips into a snarl.
Let me just put it this way: JRRT did his best writing (professionally, too) in the about quarter-century between roughly the mid-1920's and 1950. Professionally this was the edition of "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight" that he published in collaboration with E. V. Gordon in 1925, "Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics" from 1936, and "On Fairy-Stories" from 1939. WW II and writing LoTR kept him from doing much more professionally after that. And about 1930 to 1950 was the period of TH and LoTR. The form of the legendarium he had worked on earlier has quite rightly become "Lost Tales", and as far as I am concerned the last three volumes of HoMe could justifiably also be called volumes 3 to 5 of "The Book of Lost Tales".

😛😛😛

 

[Elthir]

( . . . ) But as to the whole "mannish tradition" bit, that will continue to raise my hackles seriously, and curl my lips into a snarl.

I'm not exactly sure how your opinion of Tolkien's best phase of writing connects to this lip snarl.

Let me just put it this way: JRRT did his best writing (professionally, too) in the about quarter-century between roughly the mid-1920's and 1950. ( . . . )

Any opinions about "best" writing aside here, the Mannish tradition of the Fall of Numenor was written somewhere between Christmas vacation 1945 and August 1946.

Or do you mean Tolkien's re-characterization of certain texts within the revised transmission theory?

 

[Olorgando]

Transmission of the First Age events.

 

[Elthir]

Okay, but where does the best writing phase (in your opinion) fit in here?

The new transmission concerns the overarching idea of how the tales end up in the reader's hands, which would likely include "introductions" or descriptions, like in The Adventures of Tom Bombadil,
or the one Alcuin presented concerning Rumil's Annals, or the longer one I presented for the Elvish play-names of fingers.

And I could include Tolkien's characterization of the tale of the Awakening of the Quendi as an Elvish (tradition) fairy tale mixed with counting lore, which is obviously different from the tale itself, and an example that not everything within the Numenorean transmission was going to be Mannish in authorship.

I think you must mean ideas rather than writing, unless you think, for example again . . .

"Here begin the “Annals of Aman”. Rúmil made them in the Elder Days, and they were held in memory by the Exiles. Those parts which we learned and remembered were thus set down in Númenor before the Shadow fell upon it"

. . . is poorly written? And even this introduction, despite that it appears to belong, in concept, to the later 1950s, is tentatively dated to the early 1950s.

And the idea of Tolkien's Round World Cosmology, which appears as an Elvish idea (from Oversea) within a Mannish tradition, was at least in existence by 1948, despite some later waffling.

Granted there's a number of descriptions concerning the matter that hail from the later 1950s and 1960s (or even later), but it's not all late references in any case, and to my mind the revised transmission fits well enough with Bilbo's part in all this.

 

[Alcuin]

Tolkien’s is an imaginary world, a “sub-creation”, he called it. It’s not going to fit together like the real world. We argue and debate as if it should, or can, or might, but in fact it never will. It’s a wonderful world nevertheless, a place where we can see a glimpse of people high and noble, the deathless and those doomed to die, each envying the other. But “we Tooks and Brandybucks, we can’t live long on the heights.” We are relegated back to our own world.

Tolkien died before he could bring Silmarillion to the state of completion he had Lord of the Rings. And perhaps he could never do so: it was too great, too large, too complex for him to bring it to polished completion. But there are gems in that trove, jewels and treasures worth more than a dragon’s hoard!

When I read your last post, Elthir, I was immediately reminded of poet Robert Herrick’s “Delight in Disorder”:

A sweet disorder in the dress
Kindles in clothes a wantonness:
A lawn about the shoulders thrown
Into a fine distraction:
An erring lace, which here and there
Enthralls the crimson stomacher:
A cuff neglectful, and thereby
Ribbands to flow confusedly:
A winning wave, deserving note,
In the tempestuous petticoat:
A careless shoe-string, in whose tie
I see a wild civility:
Do more bewitch me than when art
Is too precise in every part.
​

 

[Elthir]

With respect to Tolkien's idea of transmission, I do argue that it fits well enough, as it is based, in part, upon the forgetfulness of Men, the confusion or conflation of traditions over vast periods of time, and the not unexpected variations due to source and authorship. And within Middle-earth, it's all based on what I think is a natural flow . . .

. . . very ancient tales written mostly by Men that deal with both Elvish history -- and a measure of confusion with respect to Elvish ideas -- passing through Numenor -- to be housed (if not all of it of course) in Imladris, where Bilbo tries his hand at translation.

The "book within the book" was important to Tolkien. Christopher Tolkien regretted leaving out the transmission frame, despite giving his opinion that the Elfwine transmission had essentially disappeared.

Moreover, I think the variant traditions give depth to the legendarium. The Akallabêth (mixed tradition) reads differently -- or can be read differently -- when read alongside the The Drowning of Anadûnê (Mannish).

Over the years I've noticed that, often enough, folks post that Tolkien's legendarium is made more realistic by being as confusing as various real world matters (Arthuriana for example) -- but this is often said with respect to external variations that naturally arise during sub-creation -- I agree rather when it is said in the context of Tolkien's purposed variations, as this is part of the art of subcreation.

And I argue that in the 1960s Tolkien "ratified" The Drowning of Anadûnê (again, Alcuin's citation above), as it "now" fit perfectly into his new transmission idea, presenting purposed confusion where it seemed "likely to occur" to the Subcreator.

And getting back to Galadriel

It's a smallish detail perhaps, but the internal confusion surrounding her name (see Unfinished Tales) is a nice nugget of this kind of gold in my opinion. One can see the sense in how the confusion arose, so to speak.

 

[m4r35n357]

. . . very ancient tales written mostly by Men that deal with both Elvish history -- and a measure of confusion with respect to Elvish ideas -- passing through Numenor -- to be housed (if not all of it of course) in Imladris, where Bilbo tries his hand at translation.

With Christopher himself playing the part of Bilbo quite nicely

 

[Olorgando]

Okay, but where does the best writing phase (in your opinion) fit in here?

I've thought about this a bit, or more than that, and I'm not entirely sure I have come to a final, firm conclusion (now what does that remind us of ...)

As regards Middle-earth, JRRT's best writing was that which he managed to get published in his own lifetime, in my opinion.
TH and LoTR. About 1930 to 1950.

What was the major difference to what Christopher published in HoMe with the exception of volumes 6 to 9, the LoTR-themed books?
To exaggerate, "supervision"; feedback; perhaps even "quality control". To rein in what JRRT stated almost at the end of "A Secret Vice" of perhaps 1931:
"Of course, if you construct your art-language on chosen principles, and in so far as you fix it, and courageously abide by your own rules, resisting the temptation of the supreme despot to alter them for the assistance of this or that technical object on any given occasion, ..."
JRRT was not very good at resisting this "temptation of the supreme despot", and my impression is not just regarding languages, but all of his writing.

Starting with TH, I have this memory of JRRT once starting to continue the (then not written down?) story only to be interrupted by a very young Christopher with "but yesterday you said ...", which may have been the impetus to start writing down what was to become TH? Were it so, it would somehow be fitting ...
I have no idea if this hypothesis can be verified in any way. What seems to be certain since the publication of John D. Rateliff's "The History of The Hobbit", C.S. Lewis had read the entire (as yet not revised to 1937 published form) by the early 1930's. Humphrey Carpenter's mistake in the 1977 "Biography" was to assume that the incomplete early typescript was as far as the tale had gone. No, Lewis read that typescript (as far as it went) plus the (not yet revised to published form) manuscripts that are what Rateliff deals with in his book(s). Ans ant least one of the clinchers for the publication of TH was Rayner Unwin's (then 10?) positive critique of it. Rayner had at least in the early phases of the "New Hobbit" some influence, too ...

One item to note is that at least at the time of the publication of TH, The Inklings that Humphrey Carpenter described in his 1978 so-titled book had probably assembled, if without the third major member Charles Williams (joining in 1939?). And for the actual publication of JRRT's books about M-e, The Inklings' gravitational center Lewis's influence, in the sense that JRRT once acknowledged it, as "sheer encouragement", cannot be underestimated.

What Rayner Unwin's contribution exactly was I do not know. In the early phases of the writing JRRT acknowledged in a letter that both Rayner and Lewis had criticized "Too much Hobbit talk", which JRRT himself realized that he must curtail it "severely" (something he never managed to do, apparently "unsupervised", for "The Notion Club Papers", perhaps the main reason for this thread of his writings' demise). The Inklings, probably mainly meaning Lewis, probably did exercise a bit of "quality control" on JRRT's LoTR writings. Then a bit later, as to be seen in "Letters", Christopher while on pilot training in South Africa - "Letters" does not contain any of Christopher's possible replies, possibly critiques, of what his father occasionally sent him. We know that Christopher was critical for the maps.

The Inklings certainly suffered a serious loss with Charles Williams's death on 1945. Hugo Dyson, who was the opposite of Lewis as for having things read at Inklings gatherings in Lewis's Magdalen College "digs" (Dyson detesting, Lewis loving them) seems to have been able to "enforce" his view, silencing among others JRRT. The Inklings started to slowly disintegrate. Lewis accepted a chair at Cambridge in 1954, died at the end of 1963, and there were other irritants in the intervening time.

JRRT was doing too much "unsupervised" writing during these times, no one checking his self-admitted tendency to "niggle", or worse. Time-wasters which make him a serious contender for greatest non-completer of things. JRRT could niggle to possibly unmatched lengths, giving us nerds endless endless grist to grind. Just thing how little we would have to argue about if he had finished, I don't know, maybe 50% of what he started?

Gad, JRRT sites under this assumption could be very boring ...

 

[Elthir]

We still seem to be talking about ideas here, not writing style. Boiled down, you appear to be saying
(as I read it anyway), that Tolkien hadn't enough supervision in the later 1950s, 1960s, to rein in the temptation of altering stuff he'd already written slash ideas he'd already imagined.

(JRRT did get feedback from his Round World Ainulindale for example, but that's all I can recall at the moment without doing more arbeit)

So again we're talking about the scheme of transmission, which, to greatly simplify things, went from Elfwine bringing Elvish traditions back to Middle-earth from Eressea, translating them into Old English, to one day be found by Tolkien himself (I guess), who then translates them into Modern English.

Okay but that all began (at least) before Numenor or a Third Age even existed.

Later Bilbo enters Middle-earth of course, and later still, Numenor as part of the transmission slips into The Adventures of Tom Bombadil -- published by JRRT himself -- and the revised edition of The Lord of the Rings gives Bilbo his interest in translating First Age material, and we arrive at his Translations from the Elvish.

But now Elfwine is (in theory) born well after Bilbo. And when did an Anglo-Saxon sail to Eressea? Thousands of years after the isle was removed from Middle-earth? Also, Appendix F talks about the translation of Westron, not Old English. According to Tolkien's system, Old English becomes one of the languages to "translate" the actual language of the Rohirrim.

An Anglo-Saxon sailing to Tol Eressea after it was removed from the Circles of the World isn't "impossible" if the Subcreator wills it (interestingly, an Elfwine character is still in play in the later 1950s, with respect to Elvish information), but apparently Bilbo comes to the fore here.

Ultimately Tolkien re-characterizes the authorship of certain (not all) First Age texts, mixes in what can happen within long years of transmission (including oral traditions, various authors and so on), and has the material brought to Middle-earth before the Undying Lands are removed from the World, and essentially gives old Bilbo the title Elfwine "Elf-friend" . . .

I don't find the revised idea lip snarling anyway, supervised or un

__________
Readers of HOME will find the above "summary" extremely simplified. But I have to eat soon.

 

[Alcuin]

Tolkien’s notions of transmission were constantly evolving, as were the finer points of the Tales that make up Silmarillion and Akallabêth. Like Niggle, he has been called to a journey which he long foresaw but was incompletely prepared, as are we for our own departures! And like the residents of Niggle’s Parish, we are busy finishing out the many details and rougher edges he left.

Some things are solid. Those are the “canon”, the material Tolkien himself published during his lifetime. Some are “firm”, things that make the rest of the material hold together or are central to the story: Fëanor’s betrayal of Fingolfin and Finarfin’s folk and his burning of the ships; Túrin’s failure at Nargothrond; Tuor’s journey to Gondolin led by Voronwë (but not, perhaps, his route); that Elwing cast herself into the Sea wearing the Silmaril to escape the Sons of Fëanor, and so came to Eärendil. Others are “pretty firm”: that Glorfindel of Rivendell is the same person as Glorfindel of Gondolin who died fighting a Balrog; that Celebrimbor of Eregion was the grandson of Fëanor by Curufin, estranged from his father in Nargothrond. Some are “preferable”, often because they better explain the canon or were Tolkien’s position when he wrote Lord of the Rings: among those things are the idea that Celeborn was one of the Sindar of Doriath instead of the Teleri of Eldamar, and that Galadriel was the last of the leaders of the Rebellion of the Noldor and believed her exile in Middle-earth was permanent. And for those who argue, as do you and I, Elthir, that this last is “canon” because Tolkien published it in Road Goes Ever On, I hasten to point out that there are many who argue that what was written last is canon, offering the Glorfindel equivalence (among others) as evidence.

What fits best? I argue that the Lay of Leithian must first have been an Elvish tale: Only the Sindar of Doriath knew the story! Only they and they alone could possibly be privy to the information, because after he fled Dorthonion, Beren never again saw another Mortal except his own son Dior (and Dior’s children, perhaps) and the Dwarves he and Dior fought and killed at Sarn Athrad. Dior never met another mortal (besides his parents and his sons) except those Dwarves, and it is possible (likely, in my opinion) that neither he nor the Sindar of Doriath even realized he was not Elvish. Dior’s only surviving child was his daughter, Elwing, Elrond’s mother, and only Elrond “remember[s] [the Lay of Leithian] aright as it was told of old.”

The transmission? Tolkien’s last link in his feigned transmission, besides the scribes who copied the tales (how many of these would there be, and how many translations from language to language? how many errors arose in transmission?), was Bilbo and his Translations from the Elvish. Bilbo’s sources were written and oral in Rivendell: they would be as close to first-hand accounts as could be attained. Merry also consulted Rivendell for his treatise on herbs – presumably Elladan and Elrohir, along with the remaining Eldar. Then there are writings the Hobbits – the Gardeners, Fairbairns of the Towers, Tooks, and Brandybucks – gathered from Rohan and especially from Gondor. These Gondorian writings were probably all translated from Sindarin, Quenya, or archaic Adûnaic, they were necessarily transmitted by Men, and the question then becomes that of the origins and reliability of the tales they told. Given that the Hobbits had Translations from the Elvish at their disposal, they could check stories from Gondor against it, and assuming Bilbo’s grasp of Sindarin and Quenya was sufficient, correct any errors they encountered.

This would account for different tellings of the same tale, undoubtedly one of Tolkien’s intentions. It would then fall to critical analysis to best determine, if possible, what the original tale might have been. But of course, we are dealing with sub-creation, rendering our debate, at some point, pointless.

If we look at real-world chronology, though, The Adventures of Tom Bombadil precedes The Lord of the Rings by several years: it influenced LotR rather than the other way round.

I plead for “what fits best” over what-came-last and possibly even author’s intent if we are discussing things other than “canon” in the sense of what the author himself published during his lifetime. (And I hasten to add that I have never yet encountered a case of “best fit” versus “author’s intent”.)

 

[Elthir]

I'll respond first to Gando again: may I guess what snarls you about the new transmission?

Let's say we have Mannish, Mixed, and arguably two "main" types of Elvish traditions (not counting prose versus poetry here) -- again very generally speaking, the "two" Elvish traditions being tales or whathaveyou from Elves who lived Oversea, and also traditions from Middle-earthian Elves
(again, simplifying greatly) . . .

. . . and if, as it would seem, more weight should be given to Oversea Elf traditions as far as "the truth" is concerned, then flat earth traditions, and the idea of a world without a sun (at the start of creation), are now not Elvish (Oversea) based, but Mannish ideas, intertwined with Elvish history and lore.

Is that it? Or part of it? Anyway, I've read reactions by some who don't like the idea with respect to the new scenario, so I'm wondering if that's at the root of the matter with you too, or as I say, at least a part of it.

 

[Elthir]

And for those who argue, as do you and I, Elthir, that this last is “canon” because Tolkien published it in Road Goes Ever On, I hasten to point out that there are many who argue that what was written last is canon, offering the Glorfindel equivalence (among others) as evidence.

If so they have to deal with Tolkien himself (Problem of Ros) rejecting later material "simply" because it contradicted already published description, which speaks to a distinction that, in my opinion, no sub-creator can ignore.

And I wonder how many folks would consider the "one Glorfindel re-embodied" scenario true if there was something in print that contradicted it? To my mind this case is strong because there's no text concluding there were two Glorfindels, and the re-embodied idea doesn't contradict anything in print.

And I note what Tolkien is doing, in part, when he's musing about the Glorfindel matter: it might seem obvious to say, but he's making sure his conclusion fits with already published description.

What fits best? I argue that the Lay of Leithian must first have been an Elvish tale: Only the Sindar of Doriath knew the story! Only they and they alone ( . . . )

But unless I'm missing something, the key word in your second sentence here is: first.

Can't Elrond know a version of this Lay that pre-dates the one that survived the Drowning of Numenor (concerning which, Tolkien had earlier characterized as a song of the Noldor).

Rúmil made the Annals. His Annals were first but the Exiled Noldor held them in memory, and "Those parts which we learned and remembered were thus set down in Númenor before the Shadow fell upon it" Thus even the Shadow might affect certain texts, but they still pass through Numenor in any case.

The transmission? Tolkien’s last link in his feigned transmission, besides the scribes who copied the tales (how many of these would there be, and how many translations from language to language? how many errors arose in transmission?), was Bilbo and his Translations from the Elvish. Bilbo’s sources were written and oral in Rivendell: they would be as close to first-hand accounts as could be attained.

I think this is about corrections . . . if not apologies, but if so: for example, if someone were tasked with translating Beowulf I wouldn't think it his or her job to eliminate or transform the dragon because he or she didn't believe dragons existed.

And if I'm the translator, even if I met a very very old guy who knew Beowulf personally, and he knew a few details were "wrong" in my text -- meaning the text I've been given (or perhaps in Bilbo's case, the text he chose to translate) -- nonetheless I'm going to translate the work without correcting it.

Especially with Bilbo I would think this doesn't have to be about total accuracy.

And when it comes to ideas like "always round world" versus "once flat world" -- as far as this Lay, for instance, how much does such a question notably affect the tale -- meaning does the shape of the world impact what happens to whom, and why, and when, and so on? And if there are any "flat world" descriptive examples, which arguably add to the beauty or mystery of the tale, I think that would be a good reason to keep them in, in any case.

If we look at real-world chronology, though, The Adventures of Tom Bombadil precedes The Lord of the Rings by several years: it influenced LotR rather than the other way round.

But the transmission background information from The Adventures of Tom Bombadil doesn't precede The Lord of the Rings, which background includes:

" . . . No. 14 also depends on the lore of Rivendell, Elvish and Númenorean, concerning the heroic days at the end of the First Age; it seems to contain echoes of the Númenorean tale of Túrin and Mim the Dwarf."

The idea here includes that the poems within The Adventures of Tom Bombadil are canon; they're internal, written by in-story characters. Is everything "true" in them? For example, did a troll bake bread for a Hobbit? It doesn't matter: it's the story, the poem . . . the art for the sake of art.

I can easily imagine Bilbo choosing to translate a Mannish or a "Mixed" Silmarillion. Did an Elvish version even exist in writing? And if so, how long was it, say, compared to a compilation meant to provide background history for the Great Tales?

And would the Elves necessarily feel it their duty to "correct" ancient texts written by Men? Their texts or memories existed in any case.

I think there's no need to get out the "red pen" in Elrond's library