Also, Ecthelion was not (likely) to slay three Balrogs in my opinion.
Tolkien seemed to be thinking of reducing the number of Balrogs to at most seven. The earlier numbers of The Book of Lost Tales (and specific numbers killed therein) refer to an earlier version of Balrogs.
High numbers persisted even in the texts of the early 1950s. The timing according to Christopher Tolkien (despite that he can't be certain about it) seems to be: Tolkien wrote Annals of Aman (AAm) and Grey Annals (GA) at about the same time, early 1950's (lots of Balrogs in both). JRRT expresses in a later letter that he intends to get copies made of copyable material and has copies made by a typist, of AAm, LQS, GA (with carbon copies), dating about 1958. He makes a marginal note on a typescript of AAm -- he revises 'host' of Balrogs and explains the reduced numbers in the note.
Last edited by Galin; 07-26-2007 at 01:36 PM.
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