[Galin]

Galin wrote: 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? (...)

Cellurdur responded: 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 the wording of Tolkien's will, but don't see what this necessarily has to do with what Christopher Tolkien actually did. Do you have something from Christopher Tolkien himself, anywhere, where he states or even suggests that something he himself published has 'more weight' than something he authorized, say, the Linguistic Editorial Team to publish, like Ósanwe-kenta for example?

Christopher Tolkien is not 'deleting' any text that I'm aware of because it has less weight than something else. And even if he did, to my mind that doesn't change that JRR Tolkien is the creator of Middle-earth in the end.

I'm sorry I don't follow this argument at all, and I agree with Nerwen here.

Galin wrote: 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.

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

Well the artwork descripton I cited is itself a 'late text' too, and as I say, how brief is all the artwork commentary combined? It hasn't all been published yet. Not that I would necessarily be swayed about relative brevity in any case.


Incidentally I asked Hammond and Scull if the artwork commentary possibly included the note concerning Celeborn on p. 286 in Unfinished Tales. I asked: 'The note on Hobbit stature must be meant, and Celeborn isn't in the artwork of course, but I wonder if the bit about Celeborn could be part of, or connected to, the description noted on p. 107 (a tall Elf) in the Reader's Companion.' They responded:

Galin wrote: Hmm, does this possibly include the note concerning Celeborn on p. 286?

No, that note is from some other source - none that we recall seeing.

Wayne & Christina

Galin wrote: 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'.

Cellurdur responded: 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.

My point here was that nicknames can be funny things in general, and thus there are arguably ways for Tolkien to explain 'Elendil the Tall' without making him 7 foot 10.

Galin wrote: Not all of Tolkien's reaction to the artwork has even been published yet. (...)

Cellurdur responded 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.

Christopher Tolkien actually published a bit of the 'artwork descriptions' [see my next post] [ edit note: I edited this section to be more precise, but I did so before realizing that Cellurdur had already quoted the unedited version below. That explains the two versions now]. Now more of these descriptions, but still not all, are in print, thanks to Christopher Tolkien allowing both Hammond and Scull and J. Rateliff to publish them.

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.

Well, it was you who called NLM 'an entire essay'. CJRT called it a note. Are we going to count words now, or words that actually deal with height within a given text compared to another?

I'm not. I've only got so many fingers and toes



In any case the 'artwork descriptions' represent Tolkien's thinking at the time. They appear to be considered enough for me, and we don't have 'merely' 5 foot 10 or 11 for the Eldar for instance, nor even 6 feet to 6 feet 3 or 4 for most Eldar, for example, which if we did, we would then have the Numenoreans at their height towering over them by a full foot or nearly so in some cases.

In short [no pun intended] the Eldar are still notably tall here, especially the great kings and leaders; and we read often enough about the Noldorin kings and leaders too.

And yes we don't know the external chronology of a number of 'late texts' dealing with heights, which I acknowledged from the start.