If you read the prologues to LotR, the Hobbit, The Adventures of Tom Bombadil, etc, you'll see that Tolkien 'pretends' (for lack of a better word) he's translating real histories, which is related to the fact that he was very careful about very small details:
Quote:
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(H)e made endless calculations of time and distance, drawing up elaborate charts concerning events in the story, shwoing dates, the days of the week, the hours, and sometimes even the direction of the wind and phase of the moon
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("The New Hobbit",
J.R.R. Tolkien: A biography, Humphrey Carter)
I guess this points to research as a respectable end.
(for the
coincidence? files: I wrote an
imaginary conversation about this sort of topic today. [apologies in advance if a link to something on my own site is inappropriate outside my sig; feel free to kill it [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img]])