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Originally Posted by Nogrod
I'm no Tolkien scholar myself, far from it - I only happen to love his world and the stories, and the stupenduos enormity of the scholarship and imagination that is put into it. So correct me if I'm wrong here, but when Aiwendil says:
Doesn't her first speculation above the question, namely:already answer this?
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I think it's a rhetorical question on Aiwendil (who is a him, I've always been led to believe...)'s part than something he doesn't really have the answer to.
From a purely textual viewpoint, in any case, as Aiwendil points out, the
Valaquenta derives from the opening part of the
Quenta Noldorinwa- one of the earlier forms of the
Silmarillion as we know it. And, at that time, the
Ainulindalė no longer existed as cohesive part of the main story (as it did in the
Lost Tales), but was, essentially, to be considered its own work (if memory serves, actual work on the post-
Lost Tales Ainulindalė didn't begin until about the time of the next version of the
Silmarillion- the pre-
Lord of the Rings "
Quenta Silmarillion", in which it was considered a work apart. And since the
Silmarillion didn't include an account of the beginning of time, it was appropriate to have some recounting of it as a part of it's first chapter: that which was broken off the in post-
Lord of the Rings era as it's own work, the
Valaquenta.
Which is but to go into detail about what Aiwendil said here:
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Originally Posted by Aiwendil
In a sense, Tolkien’s writing habits themselves provided a sense of authenticity.
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