As it happens I am just reading a book on the Middle Ages which offers various solutions which I will type up if still needed by the time I get my home computer working again. However LOTR is hardly alone in not mentioning it .. I don't know that we lose much by not knowing that Gandalf was the Middle Earth equivalent of "Dad's Army" 's Private Godfrey.
__________________
“But Finrod walks with Finarfin his father beneath the trees in Eldamar.”
Christopher Tolkien, Requiescat in pace
|