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Aiwendil wrote: 'What you say is in itself certainly correct. But perhaps it's worth noting that the Elvish view we get in DA (i.e. that the world was always round) is not precisely what the Elves of the West taught - rather, it's the Mannish tradition as to what the Elves of the West taught. It is quite conceivable that the author of DA was confused or incorrect about what the Elvish belief was.
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While this is possible, I don't think it well fits the 'other' purpose of
The Drowning of Anadune. Hammond and Scull note:
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'There is no reason to doubt that when Tolkien wrote these words ['And here endeth the tale of the ancient world as it is known to the Elves.' Fall of Numenor] he intended that the Elves' knowledge of the world and its history, deriving from the Valar and their own experiences, should reflect what actually occurred. Nothing is said about if, and how, this Elvish tradition was passed on to Men.'
'The Drowning of Anadune is intended to show how events in the First Age and the history of Numenor might have been remembered in the traditions of Men after being passed down through many generations: filtered, changed, distorted, and with much forgotten. But this was also a time when Tolkien began to doubt whether he should include in his mythology elements contrary to scientific knowledge, such as a flat world made round, and considered whether to make fundamental changes, or alternatively, changes in perception and knowledge, even writing a version of the Ainulindale in which the world was round from Creation. In the Fall of Numenor a flat world is made round at the time of the Downfall, but in the Drowning of Anadune the world was always round.'
Reader's Guide, Numenor
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So I think DA has a twofold purpose, generally speaking, not simply to represent the confusion of Men, but to make Round World mythology the actuality. I note that
Ainulindale Round World is still within the Elfwine conception: [
'And they went thither, Manwe and Ulmo and Aule, and others of whom though shalt hear, Elfwine, and behold!] -- in other words, it's still Eressean (Elvish) knowledge given directly to Elfwine, and the world is round and always was. It's not a confused Mannish version.
Yet DA is of course! but if the overarching idea is to change the Elvish myths from being 'flat world' (which Tolkien noted was a pity to Katherine Farrer in about 1948) to Round World, the Elves of Aman should be correct about the world being always round, just as the Eressean teaching to Elfwine about the Music and so on.
And what if the reader should think that the author of DA is incorrect on this point? Would this not raise the question of what the Elves 'actually' taught, beneath the confusion? It can hardly be that they really taught that the World was flat -- and in that case, the Men who disbelieved the (mis-reported) teaching would essentially be correct! I find that a bit too convoluted: that early Men (or certain Men) did not believe that the World was round, but the author of DA (a later Man) ultimately knows that the Elves were correct -- all within the idea that the World being round was actually incorrectly reported to begin with!?
Again I think it fits the scenario far better for Tolkien to drop in the Elvish point of view as the overarching reality revealed by the Valar (if not in other ways), and that certain Men of early days also disbelieved this teaching. This version of Ainulindale, and DA, appear to have been written in 1946 or thereabouts, and possibly due in part to Katherine Farrer's opinion, Tolkien went back -- with respect to both the
Ainulindale and the Numenor legend -- to a flat world becoming round. And thus we have
Akallabeth; although interestingly, now the tradition of a changed world is not made so explicit as it was in the earlier
Fall of Numenor.
Of course Tolkien will again question whether or not he should incorporate a once flat world, and as I say, in my opinion he ultimately resolves the issue: not by writing new text but by bringing back DA as it was, which can then co-exist internally with AK, giving a new perspective to what seemed to be 'true' according to AK -- which itself becomes a 'mixed' tradition, written by a Man yet one of the Faithful. Arguably the lack of a surviving written version of the Elvish tradition of Numenor is better, as the Elvish perspective will be less obvious that way.
To me this seems all in accordance with re-characterizing the Silmarillion as largely Mannish, to allow for certain 'questionable' notions within (which can be retained textually), where the learned Elves of Aman, or at least some of them, should know better. And to my mind the Elvish child's tale (mingled with counting lore) can do the same for the legend of the Sun.