[cellurdur]

Originally Posted by Galin

A far as I know Christopher Tolkien has never defined canon. Are you here suggesting that what Christopher Tolkien published in Unfinished Tales for example, has more weight than what Hammond and Scull have published somewhere else?

If so I can't agree. It's all posthumously published material, including the material published by the Linguistic Editorial Team for instance [Vinyar Tengwar, Parma Eldalamberon] which contains more than pure linguistic information about Middle-earth.

Yes I am suggesting that anything published by Christopher Tolkien has more weight, because he has full authority to write or delete anything he wants. The quote provided is in the post above.

I'm aware of all this information [edited here for brevity]. Again, if the artwork quote represents a different notion, what Tolkien wrote elsewhere but never published himself can be forgotten or easily revised. At the moment I'm not aware that Tolkien published the history of 'halfling' anywhere [outside of the word Banakil and that 'Men' called the Hobbits Halflings], but as I say I think his description noted by Hammond and Scull works well enough given the date the term was coined, which also works well enough with the Eldarin 'artwork description' in my opinion.

The essays were written in 1969 and were more detailed than the breif notes.

Is it unlikely? I'm not so sure, especially when dealing with an already tall folk in general, with the 'tallest' of the already tall being a fairly prominent person in history.

In general nicknames can be funny things. For example, growing up in a relatively small group of friends the tallest person among us received a nickname to represent this. His sister was tallish too, and she awas given a nickname 'to match'.

The thing is Elendil did not hang out with a relatively small group of friends. He was around the nobility of Numenor and they were actually taller than average. Ar-pharazon himself may have been the tallest man alive at the time.

When we look at English kings like Edward I, Edward II, Edward IV or Henry VIII they had to be over 6 inches taller than the average man for their height to be noted.

Not all of Tolkien's reaction to the artwork has even been published yet.

But for a different example we have a relatively brief marginal note where Tolkien appears to toss away decades of thinking that there were very many Balrogs, in favour of 3 or at most 7 ever existing. Which idea is more likely to be correct in this case?

One can gather up a number of quotes to illustrate hosts of Balrogs existing, or Balrogs 'one thousand' even, and together they might seem quite a strong case by comparison to one marginal note, and one revision to a text which itself [the revision] yet mentions no certain number. Of course the 'older' quotes will be consistent with each other as to number, but JRRT kows that his readership only knows so much about Durin's Bane, and he is thus free to radically alter the conception, making all the earlier descriptions part of a discarded notion.

I'm not saying I know this to be true with respect to the artwork description, but I feel it's a reasonable possibility given the phrasing employed.

This is true, but we can look at the dates when these articles were written. The comments supporting the great height of the Eldar are written in the late 60s. As I pointed out before, Christopher Tolkien was left in charge with sorting and editing what was to be published. I will always take what he has published over any artwork descriptions.

And yes Of Dwarves And Men is an 'entire essay' but the remark on Eldarin height compared to Numenoreans [along with the Halfling reference] is one sentence within it if I recall correctly -- or if not one sentence it's brief enough, and obviously the essay is about much more. And Christopher Tolkien characterizes Numenorean Linear Measures [NLM] as: 'A note associated with the passage in 'The Disaster of the Gladden Fields'...'

We can argue semantics, but Numenorean Linear Measures is at least 500 words long and there are other notes written detailing the decline of Numenoreans and Hobbits at the end.

Incidentally, when writing NLM I wonder if Tolkien had remembered what he had already published about Eomer [and Eowyn] in Appendix A! I won't go into it here but in my opinion this is another [at least] arguable glitch of some measure, even though in the tale proper [The Lord of the Rings] Eomer does seem to be tall, generally speaking.

I am unaware of any contradiction, but if there is once more we should follow the precedent that Christopher Tolkien has set. Unless the matter was of great importance, then J.R.R. Tolkien would usually bow to what was published.